DIY: Cheap & Casual Wall Art

Our bedroom walls have been looking a little bare lately & they needed a little art work.  Every year my mom gives me these great Ansel Adams calendars, he was an American photographer who did much of his best work, in my opinion, in black & white.  His calendars are filled with beautiful landscapes of the American West & I hated the thought of just throwing them out at the end of the year, so I've saved all the calendars over the years until I could figure out how to use the photos.

I carefully took the calendars apart & used a utility knife & ruler to cut off the jagged edges where they attached to the spiral bindings of the calendar.  Now each photo looks like it has its own crisp white mat.  The black & white photos with the white boarder look so great alone, they can be used as is, so I created a very temporary, very causal grouping of 6 to hang over the bed.

Because I often change my mind & didn't want to put 6 more holes in the wall, I simply stuck a little stick-tac (for hanging posters) on the back side of the photo right where the hole for hanging the calendar was.  Then to cover the hole & the blue stick-tac, I stuck a penny to the front side, in this case an American penny, they look so much like the Canadian ones.  There are always extra pennies lying around, so I thought I'd give them a job.  The wooden clothespins are just there because I like them & hate to hid them away!

Norm, the cat, also enjoys a little thrifty art work around the house.  I love that the photos look so casual, some of the edges are kind of rolled up, & they're not perfectly spaced...a little like organized chaos, I like it like that though!

Don't feel like all your photos have to be the same style or shape, you could easily create a gallery-type wall with a mix of black & white prints & colour prints of all shapes & sizes fit together like pieces of a puzzle! Be creative, it doesn't cost anything!