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Writer's pictureJackie Singley

Easy Art Upcycle

Updated: Jan 27, 2023



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Time to rethink the artwork

Friends of our parents were kind enough to gift us some free art during one of their renovations. We had just moved into our forever home from a condo and found ourselves blessed with more rooms and plenty of wall space to fill. That was 6 years ago and at the time we unpacked and organized without considering how we wanted to decorate the house. The architecture and setting was completely different from our condo and we had a 4-month old so we set up shop with our existing furniture and décor in an effort to get settled as quickly as possible. Since then we've been working hard to update the house with a style that suits us and the home. While unfortunately a good deal of our effort has been on things you can't see, we are now getting to cosmetic updates which is a very exciting undertaking.

One critical step in our decorating process has been finalizing a color pallet. We are going with a clean neutral backdrop for walls and large furnishings with shades of blue and yellow accent colors. And I love mixed metals. We recently invested in new window coverings for our main family room where I have a set of two of these gifted paintings hanging above the sofa. As soon as my new window coverings were up, it became quickly apparent it was time to rethink our artwork in the space.




My plan of action

I'm a huge proponent of shopping my home and upcycling whenever possible. Since I love the two-tone metallic frames and reusing frames is a big budget saver, I decided to look for new prints and see if I could just give these two ugly ducklings a new lease on life.

I considered painting over the original artwork, but that would have been more abstract in nature and I wanted something a bit more formal to juxtapose my new window valance fabric which is geometric. I considered botanical prints but green isn't one of my colors. And living in the woods, you see nature out every window. With three large windows in the room, there was enough green present already and I didn't want the prints to feel "more of" the same thing.


Living in the woods, I didn't want to go with anything too coastal or scenic because I want my art to make sense at some level―either color or theme. I landed on birds and decided to look for prints that reminded me of botanicals in their look and feel, but with our colors. Talk about a needle in a haystack assignment. In one of those 'things fall into place' moments, I did a few quick searches on Google, Pinterest and Etsy and came across these gorgeous Audubon bird prints surprisingly fast. A quick note to the Etsy store (https://www.etsy.com/shop/someartprints) with my sizes and I was off and running.


Creating my new art

To assemble, I started by deconstructing the art from the frames. I didn't over think it or make sure I was super neat since it's the back so I just went for it. I needed to see what size prints to order and I needed to know what the back of the existing pieces looked like.


I discovered the original art was on some sort of thin wood, probably mass produced. Since the original artwork featured dark colors including tones of red, I was hoping I could flip them and use the back of the boards if they were light enough to not show through the new prints. I also needed to use the back of the boards since the original art was textured. I got lucky and the prints I ended up picking were thick and the backing of the original art was very light. If this hadn't been the case, my backup plan was to use spray adhesive on foamboard and recycle the original artwork.



I should also note that the original artwork didn't have any glass. I wanted a more formal look so I ordered two custom sized framers quality plexiglass pieces from Art to Frames (https://www.arttoframe.com/). You would never know it wasn't actual glass and it's a lighter material, important for anything hanging over seating in my opinion. I spent almost $130 on the plexi sheets but price will vary depending on the size and material you select. I needed two, 24" x 24" pieces to complete both frames.


Looking back, I wish I had been a little neater in cutting out the original backing because as I dropped my new plexiglass and prints in, small fibers from the original backing were getting caught between the glass and the prints.


It would have been better for me to neatly cut the backing and make sure it was away from the opening before putting the new elements together. Luckily it was only a small headache. A very damp (barely wet) paper towel and I was able wipe away the fibers but it was hard to hold everything in place with one hand while trying to clean out the small fibers with my other as the frame was 2 feet.


Once I was happy that everything looked perfect―which proved to be a good workout since I had to keep lifting the frames above my head to inspect them―I secured them in place using a flat putty knife and glazier points, which are pretty easy to find. They come in a few sizes and you can definitely find them for less than $10.00.



I used the knife to push them into the frame from the back side and voila! I had to play around for a while with which one to hang on the right and left (living with both options for a few days) and ended up with the single bird print on the left.


I spent $105 on the prints, plus the plexiglass at $130, which is more than I thought I was going to spend when I started out. But total cost was still less expensive that custom framing and I couldn't be happier with the result so money well spent.

A few visitors have mentioned that I should hang them higher. I hung them according to suggested distance from he top of the sofa, but the windows flanking the sofa are quite tall. What do you think?


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