I saw another poster say something I can relate to.....find art on the internet, copy it, print it and frame it. Now it's yours!!! Walgreens can blow up prints for under $20. I found small frames with 3 layers of matting @ the dollar store(quality ones,from store buyouts). Hobby Lobby here has custom framing material leftovers they make into odd sized frames & put on the accessory clearance aisle(80% off right now). Thrift stores often have frames you can use. Here's one of my pic's someday I might print...
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If you are talking about your own home made art or paintings, then, all I can suggest is to use the skills you have, whether it be watercolor, acrylics, or oils, to start some paintings of things you like. You might sign up for a class to hone your skills, then, you would have something that you did yourself to put on your walls.

If you are talking about home made art or paintings that you can buy, you might take a look at Ebay. There are a lot of things there..........landscapes, dogs, people, and other paintings that someone has made that would fit well in traditional decor. Or you can get yourself up early on Saturday morning, armed with addresses for garage and estate sales in your area. There are many things out there for the collector. You just have to be in the right place to snag them.

Red

If you have a digital camera, how about heading to your favorite park or local town and snapping some photos that are pleasing to you? It could be as simple as a close up of a flower in bloom or fountain or even a cool bench. If you have a program, even as simple as paint on your computer, play with the images--soften, sepia, black and white. Then take them to somewhere like Walmart to print them in various sizes.

There are so many things you can do, depending on the size you need and your style.

- A lot of stationary or art supply stores sell really pretty greeting cards that can be framed.
- You could buy a sheet of fancy/artsy wrapping paper (they kind they sell by the sheet, not the roll) and frame it.
- You could even frame a piece of pretty fabric or wallpaper.
- On one wall of my house, I have a large wooden letter 'M' that I picked up at TJ Maxx for about $5 on clearance, then I found a frame that was a few inches bigger, removed the glass, and hung it so that it "frames" the letter. Between the frame and the letter, it cost less than $20.
- Or just take your camera out to the garden (your own or someone else's) and snap some colorful photos and have them enlarged and framed.

You can also buy old (as far back as 1830's) botanical or fern prints for cheap that are in great shape. Look on the internet or go to an antique shop and inquire about them. I think it is a good look, especially the fern and different egg prints.

....Jane

Calendars make great art. And you can pick them up for next to nothing.

Something hanging on the wall doesn't have to be a picture frame and usually it's more interesting if it's not.
Ideas I love: quilts or rugs, old trays, groupings of plates (blue and white is great for a traditional home), iron wall hangings ( I still like nice ones), shells, sconces, baskets, clocks, shelves with items, plate racks, oars, architectural fragments, stained glass, mirrors,....
Just don't buy any of the above at Hobby Lobby!

Something I saw recently I liked: Take an old window frame with partitions, paint it, cover a piece of cardboard with fabric and use this as the backing for the frame. Fill each square with a photo mounted on pretty paper or mat it and put glass in the whole frame.
So, imagine a window with 6 openings, green damask fabric as the backing, b & w photos on pinked paper in each partition and the frame painted black. Lovely!

Or cowrie shells mounted on paper and framed for a neat botanical look. So much nicer than a print yet easy enough to find a bag of shells.

You said your style runs more traditional, so I'm not sure this will help you much but I have framed fabric:

Here's one where I ripped a page out of an old dictionary and printed a leaf print (google images) onto it:

Lots of great ideas here. I've a few that haven't been mentioned yet.
1. Calenders have great art.
2. Old books on art found at thrift or used book stores. You could do your whole home with one book.
3. When out there in the world with your camera take pictures of signs and other things that "look" like letters. I know it sounds weird, but it makes for awesome art either in and of itself or when you zoom in on letters. Head to your favorite restaurant, the place you first met your hubby, your highschool, the movie theater you first kissed, etc. If you have a digital camera you can do the rest of the art at home on your computer. Below is an example I found online. I first saw this idea at a friends home. Her daughter had one made and framed for her and her hubby by a local photographer with special places to them.
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4. Take close up photos of families faces or hands like the photos below. The baby is our grandson was his was just a little guy. The hands photo I have listed as Anna's home, but I can't remember who Anna is. Must have been someone online a long time ago.
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Oooh I definitely could use the ideas in this thread. Thanks for posting the question juliann :)

Putting stuff up on the walls has always been a challenge for me. I have trouble with proportions on the wall. I like simple clean looks. My personal design asthetic for our current house is transitionsal.

I have never found a piece of artwork that call's to me unless it is in a museum. When I walk through galleries with my dh we never see anything that says buy us. I really like the idea of creating something myself. I also like to browse/buy on Etsy.

I love that dictionary page art! Very cool.

I'll second the idea for using calendars for cheap wall art. I did it in my guest room. I used square frames that were made for displaying record album covers. They sell them at Target. The best part about using old calendars is that it is quick and easy to change it out if you get bored with it. When your son grows older and needs something more sophisticated than bunnies on his wall you can switch it out to trucks or something he says he likes.

If you only need one, or maybe two matching frames for your art, project go to Goodwill, or another store like it in your area. They have oodles of framed art being sold for a couple bucks. Sometimes there is even nice matting in them. The art is usually crappy but you can remove it and use the nice frames. I found all the frames for holding my family photos on the wall by going to Goodwill.

Also, if you decide to paint your own oil paintings you can often find old oil painting at Goodwill to paint over. The ones at GW are usually some kid's high school art project and not anything collectible. Very famous artists are known to have painted used canvases and some very famous painting hung on museum walls have junk painted behind them.

Since you like Contemporary styling consider using print fabric stretched over a frame. This gives you a huge art piece for a wall. If you do not know how to do this an artist supply shop where they stretch canvas for oil painting can do your piece of printed cloth but there are plenty of step-by-step 'how tos' if you Google.

Don't limit yourself to the bargain bin at the fabric store either. Check Goodwill for XXL Hawaiian shirts, old prom dresses and the like, for vintage printed material with nice designs for wall art. I found a needlepoint throw pillow of Elvis's face done ala Andy Warhol style at GW. I was not going to use it as a pillow on my couch or bed :eeeew: but instead take the pillow apart and take that finely done needlepoint and frame it. Unfortunately it got ruined in the flood we had in early July.

I've found it's not the art that's out of my reach financially, but the framing. Recently, I've got around this by haunting HomeSense and other similar places and buying their marked down frames (I don't think I've paid more than $11). Then I take the frame and art to my local art supplies store and get them to mat it (usually around $10).

I recently found 3 large antique prints on ebay, framed them this way and to frame all 3 it cost $60. Otherwise it would have been over $300.

Like newdawn says, the botanical and nature prints on ebay are great and often go for a song. The ones I got are from an old furniture catalogue. They are detailed black drawings of chair and sofa frames on heavy white cardstock. They look great and aren't something that you'd see anywhere else.

There used to be a thread about printing and framing monograms. I thought it was a great idea, so I printed monograms on decorative scrapbook paper, then framed them and gave them as gifts. Use decorative fonts and any type of frame you want. You can also print the monogram any size you want and use it for wall art or table art.

There was an episode of Double Take, repeated this week, in which they needed to imitate an oil painting of a woman posed with a shawl. They had the homeowner sit in the same pose, photographed her with a digital camera, had it printed on a large-format printer, and then painted over it with a clear medium to imitate brush strokes, using short strokes aligned the way a painter would have applied each color.

You can see the original room and the imitation of it at the link below.

On other shows of this ilk, they've taken digital photos of classical statuary (even garden ornaments with that general look), as well as park and city scenes.

One advantage of using your own digital photographs is that you can have them blown up to exactly the size you need to fit ready-made frames and mats, or old frames that you have around or find at yard sales. (It always annoys me when people say, "The frame alone is worth that much," but if you like the frame and don't like the picture, it is certainly OK to replace the picture.)

Here is a link that might be useful: Jade Dining Room

This probably won't help anyone but I'm wondering why more schools don't do it. At my DS's HS, the art department held a clearance sale. All the art that students had done over the years and not collected, and was good, was put out on tables and sold for $1.00 a piece.

I picked up 3 wonderful pieces of art! And I agree with Budge- it is the framing that is going to cost me the money.

Museum shops have very nice quality prints of the drawings and paintings in their collections. Look on line for them, if you don't have a good one in your town. The MFA in Boston, the Metropolitan and MOMA in New York, The National Gallery in DC, the Art Institute in Chicago...and many others.

Stationery and card shops often have lovely letterpress cards and handmade things for what seems expensive for a card, but is cheap for an image to frame.

As suggested, you can use your own printer to blow up images of family pictures in black and white. They look great in plain black frames with big white mats...Ben Franklin is my favorite source for those things. I made a group of three...one old photograph of my father as a little child, one of me (looking uncharacteristically angelic in a choir robe) and one of my Goddaughter...all blown up to 8 X 10, and framed in stock black 14 X 18 frames with stock white mats.

I think the key, particularly with modest sized images, is to give them lots of room with wide mats. Lots more style-bang for the buck.

okmoreh, that is an awesome idea. I've seen that show before, but forgot all about it. Thanks for the reminder.

barb that is a brilliant idea. I'm surprised they sold them for such a small amount. I used to work for a local school system and they decorated the halways of the administration building with new art work each school year that students had done. There was some amazing work.

Also check out the art of ALL sorts and kinds on etsy.com --- some wonderful things there!

Jan

Another place to look for "art" is at a nice nursery. They will often have an interior space with lots of decorative pieces that can be used inside the home as well as outside. I've even found nice prints, metal sculptures and shelves, and clocks at the one I frequent. They're a little pricier than a Home Goods type place but I love the quality. Then there are the pretty pots, watering cans and vases that you often won't see at your average big box store. You can probably tell I have a garden theme inside and out. : )

Diana

Most of my ideas have already been shared above .. and then some. I guess it all comes down to opening your mind to options.

I saw something amazing just yesterday-- framed artist palettes going for a couple (or more) hundred a piece. Not clean palettes-- colorful, textureful, well-used palettes. They were gorgeous and I will definitely be using this idea myself.

My best advice would be to keep hitting the consignment shops, your local Goodwill and garage sales for pieces already matted and framed. You can get fantastic bargains if you look long enough. ALso keep an eye out at these places for great frames that are in sizes you can use with prints and posters. I've cut several posters down to eliminate the writing and fit the frames I had on hand. I've also taken good frames and a print I like to a framer and had the frame cut down to fit the print when it was matted.
As for art you can make yourself, here are a couple of pics I did for very cheap. The prints are from a Western calendar that I got from a local company for free. My mother gave me the two frames. They're pretty beat up and look great with the prints, IMHO. Now most visitors think they're expensive almost-antiqes from the Thirtis or Forties. Not even close! All I had to pay for was the mats and the glass. I think it came to about $10 each. The majority of our art are originals, but I love our framed cheapie prints just as much. I think they're the perfect finishing touches for our Western guest bathroom.
Lynn

I'm always picking up wrapping paper that I'm drawn to. One day I want to make a collage out of it on canvas and maybe incorporate a favorite proverb or something into it. I also like the idea of framing wrap much like the fabric ideas.

There are so many great ideas here. I will certainly save this thread. I'm all about making my own art. I especially like the baby and grandpa hands and the leaf printed on the phonebook page.

I heartily endorse the idea of creating your art on canvas. If you use a thick museum mount canvas you can hang it right on the wall without a frame. Even if you decide to frame it just a frame is a lot cheaper than a frame, glass, and a mat. A tip I learned the hard way - make sure the canvas is a standard size and you can find a frame for it before making your art work.

You could also make silhouette pictures of your children and mat them in simple frames. If you want them big you can project their silhouette on the wall and trace it. If you want small ones, photograph them against a plain light colored background Print out the photo on your printer and use the print as a pattern to cut the silhouette out of black construction paper.

Here is a collage I created on a 24" square museum mount canvas. I scanned the bird from an old Audobon print book, blew it up in Photoshop and printed out in sections to get it as large as I wanted it. The rest of the collage is textured art paper, paint, a stencil, and words written by hand or printed. Sorry about the flash glare.

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I get the Lowe's creative idea's magazine and they had a few homemade art ideas in the current issue I liked.

Maybe a bit too on the modern side, but they were lovely.

One was taking the decorative square corner pieces usually used in door casings..(square ones) paint alot or a few of them several different colors and adhere to a backing..thin wood, etc painted the same color as your wall.

The other idea I loved and would work well with taking your own photos.

It said blow them up to at least 8X10. Get a board the same size (probably want something alot thicker than cardstock, something with substance. I'm thinking you could get it at hobby lobby or michael's pretty cheap)

Once you adhere your picture, you simply cut it into 4 pieces using a razor knife. Asymetrical...it was very neat looking. You could then frame it, or if thick enough mount it right on the wall. I wish I had a scanner here and I'd scan photos for ya!

Another more modern idea was like the first, but instead of the more expensive door casing pieces, you purchase the outlet covers in plastic...the ones that look like a rectangle, no outlet holes, paint them different colors adhere to board painted the same color of your wall in your grid or pattern of choice!

Great ideas so far

Wow! I am so glad that I started this thread. You guys have given the BEST ideas!

I am going to go back through and re-read each idea and write them all down. I really like the framed fabric or card stock paper idea, it sounds like a good starting point for me. After I build some confidence, I would like to move on to some more ideas.

artlover13060: that bird painting is phenomenal. I would love to be able to do that!

Thank you so much, you ladies are all so amazing!

I have stretched a piece of wallpaper over a piece of canvas (LOVED the wallpaper). I'm going to paint over the canvas now using the same colors (well, in a few weeks when I have time).

My SIL bought a couple of large textured pictures and painted over them in big stripes. You can see the texture underneath but the stripes fool your eye so it doesn't look floral, it looks like a great textured painting.

http://i25.tinypic.com/5u20si.jpg

I second the vote for eBay for both original art and prints. There are some amazing deals there.

Don't forget to check your local Craigslist too.

Do you have little ones? When my daughter was a toddler I gave her two colors of tempura paint and a very good quality nice sheet of watercolor paper and told her to make us a pretty painting. She did, and I matted it and framed it and we had it hung up in the hall for years as "modern art." It looked cool and it made her feel important.

I'll second the idea of your taking an art class. That way you'll have fun and have the skills yourself to make what you want now and in the future, and for gifts, too. Then find frames at garage sales. An even more cost-effective way to tackle this is get a good "how to paint ___fill in the blank____" book from Michaels, or online (amazon.com often has fabulous deals on used books for $2-$3 or from your library (free) and practice your painting on cardboard boxes. You may amaze yourself at what you can learn to do. Flowers and plants are pretty easy, IME. It's pretty hard to make a mistake on them. Of course, you can also cut up those cheap books you find on amazon and frame their pretty pictures.

Are there any children in your life? They make wonderful art!

Great ideas! Just a few more:

- Antique Plates! They look great on walls, can be found for $5-25 on eBay, and don't even need frames.

- Uchikake - (Japanese wedding kimono) They're gorgeous! and can fill a whole tall wall with something beautiful and unique for under $200. Can't beat that at Kirkland's...

No ideas, just wanted to let you all know that I am printing out this thread for the FANTASTIC ideas. Wow, wow, and WOW.

justgotabme: Your grandson is absolutely adorable!

There are lots of ways one can create art - here are a few ideas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblage_(art)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collage

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decoupage

Once, in a creative moment, I hot-glued string on a board in a freehand floral pattern, painted it, and embellished with metallic paint. First customer to see it bot it. Surprised me but it was a "one-of-a-kind" piece of "art".

There are various animals who paint "masterpieces" which actually sell. Must be something any animal (including humans) can learn.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20080407/animal-artists/

http://www.elephant-paintings.com/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=2

There are many good ideas suggested above. I buy most of my art at yard sales. It's hit and miss but I watch for it constantly and find it occasionally.

Yard sales are great for this.

I also made monograms in three frames--my first initial, dh's first initial, and the word AND spelled out in different fonts. They will go above our bed. I got the idea here:

http://www.younghouselove.com/2008/02/bed-letters/

Here is a link that might be useful: monogram

I just bought some art at the thrift store. The pictures were of birds in ugly frames. One was a house, etc. I took off all the frames and sprayed them with paint from WM ($.97) and reassembled and hung as a mass hanging. I like them! I also found a huge print, a barn, modern-looking, from crate and barrel at thrift for $5!!! The lady at the register couldn't believe it. The frame itself is super thick and gorgeous! It's got tons of dings but you can't see until you get very close. I may fix it one of these days...I just threw it right up on the wall (after I took the $5 price sticker off).

I am going to search today for more $1 pictures to add to my grouping!

Also, I like the look of fabric stretched over a frame. You can take an old picture out of a frame, paint the frame, and use some cool fabric instead. Use a hobby lobby coupon or Joann for 1/4 or 1/2 yard of something and get a frame!

Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: Example of framed fabric

I forgot to add that fabric in embroidery hoops looks awesome, too! I see these at the thrift stores all the time for cheap. You can buy scraps of fabric at the bins of all fabric stores. You can ask sewing friends, etc.

http://tinydecorblog.com/blog/2008/06/05/art-trend-embroidery-hoops-and-bold-fabrics/

Here is a link that might be useful: Purl Bee embroidery hoop art instructions

Ikea has modern fabric, too, some for $3 a yard. Frame or stretch that...

but I still vote for haunting the thrift shops. In 4 visits I found all my pieces I listed above. Some black spray paint...and voila! Instant art!

Some more ideas:

http://howaboutorange.blogspot.com/2007/10/how-to-make-fabric-panel-wall-art.html

http://www.lovelucy.net/love_lucy/2009/05/flea-market-art-thrift-store-art-love.html

Here is a link that might be useful: thrift store art pool on flickr

I frame old sheet music. Some of it is just lovely. You can usually find stacks of it at yard sales for a song. Ha!