What a great question, and one we all ask. Being thoroughly disappointed with any kind of "art" you can buy at local chain stores, I started finding prints I love from places you can find ANYTHING you like...like Art.com and FulcrumGallery.com. That's the great benefit in finding art that suits your style. However, I've had mixed results with framing. We recently moved into a new home and I had an entire house of blank walls. After finding just what I wanted at Art.com, I placed a very large order of framed art. I will say that all items, except one, arrived fine. However, it took me 6 weeks to finally get the last picture to arrive without damage (broken frame, smashed glass). It was getting ridiculous. A few months later, I got two more framed prints for my kitchen at Art.com. One was beautiful, the other had minor damage to the mat. It wasn't enough to send back, but I did write to them about their quality control. I never even got a reply or a "we're sorry." As for pricing, I only got my orders through Art.com when they did 50%, but even at that, it was expensive. I decided from then on, I'd just buy the prints online and take them to a local Hobby Lobby or Michaels for framing. I did just that with a huge print I had framed at Michaels for my husband's office. It turned out fantastic and I didn't have to worry about damage or computer monitor colors being off. Bottom line is, I didn't see much of a big price savings by having it framed online, versus my local hobby shops.

Hi, Val, just thought I'd show you the botanicals I've framed, just to give you more ideas, but it sounds like you have it almost all figured out. I have enjoyed watching your room come alive! I got all my botanicals off Ebay too & decided to do ready-made frames and had custom mats cut to make the prints fit in my frames. I used 16x20 frames with inserts of 10x13 openings. My botanicals are slightly smaller than the insert, so to fill it out, I used black mats on all of mine & I love how it makes them look more important. That touch of black all around really makes the botanicals stand out, I think. Whether this is proper placement or not, I have no idea, but it worked for my eye. I have framed several sets of these in this same way & will show you all the pics of how I've used the black mat exactly the same way. These were standard black frames from Michaels & came with the ivory mats inside with the glass & these had a black border built in on the inner ivory mat already, I just added another custom black mat to fill in the space that I needed to fill to fit my botanical. I know you can't see all the details on these pics, but hopefully this will help you some: This one is open frames from Hobby Lobby & I bought standard mats & again added the custom black inner mat so the botanicals would fit. HL does a great job with adding mats & glass & very reasonable. These gold frames came from Tuesday AM & they had the ivory mats with gold edge already in them, along with the glass. All I did was again add the black inner custom mat & it was done. I found this to be the most cost effective way to frame these odd-shaped botanicals.

I post accessories because it would matter as to your art.... https://www.etsy.com/listing/915171928/18x18-throw-pillow-cover-thick-linen?click_key=00a9f6202d0d370c94866a7792e57679f5864f1f%3A915171928&click_sum=13fd9e20&ref=internal_similar_listing_bot-6 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://www.etsy.com/listing/877047017/william-morris-throw-pillow-cover-morris?ref=listing_page_ad_row-5&pro=1&frs=1&listing_id=877047017&listing_slug=william-morris-throw-pillow-cover-morris&plkey=2181f9bb37e207d1eaef8b9df895fd763e6e75b4%3A877047017

For me, they remind me of German Romantic painters of the 19th Century, who were influenced by German Romantic authors of the late 18th and early 19th Centuries - my favorite period of German literature. This week I received a copy of "The Fair Haired Eckbert" [Der Blonde Eckbert] by Ludwig Tieck, one of my favorite authors of this period. I do like Novalis (aka Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg) better, but they are very similar. I read all of the German Romantic authors in German when I was getting my degree in German, but recently I have found English translations, which I also find interesting. The Ludwig Tieck book is signed and numbered by the artist who did illustrations for this edition. A few years ago (10 or 12), I found a copy of Die Nachtwachen des Bonaventura, which may also have been written by Ludwig Tieck, since Bonaventura was a pseudonym, and no one know for sure who the real author is. "Novalis" was also a pseudonym, but everyone knew who it was. The copy of Nachtwachen [Night Watches] that I bought was published by the Edinburgh Press much earlier. I always wanted an English translation of this because it was a bit surreal, and I was not sure that what I understood it to mean was correct. It was also illustrated - either wood cuts or lino. Der Blonde Eckbert as lino cut illustrations. Kevin also loves and has been influenced by German Romantic artists.