I've found that the ideal way to decorate a living space on a budget is to just not do so at all.
However, blank walls are sad and a pile of books does not a bookshelf make. So I've been looking around, trying to get creative. I invested in a $3 piece of gallery-worthy (or is that galley-worthy) artwork from Goodwill, and bought the finest particle-board covered in a wood-like sticker that you piece together to form a bookshelf that $15 could buy. I keep my eye on Craigslist for whatever jewels may come up, and have considered even getting crafty and trying to create something myself, but my lack of artistic ability always steers me clear. I put off decorating to make food. I make a lot of food. From the portions of food I make, you'd think I was cooking for 12 and not two.
I am open to suggestions on cheap (or FREE) decorating. As much as I enjoy beige walls, they're a little too reminiscent of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" with nothing to adorn them.
Get spools of cheap ribbon at Michaels and find ways to attach pictures to them like with pins or clothespins, tape, whatever. Then hang them skewed and stuff on the walls. The photos can add up but usually when you open a new profile on walgreens or CVS, you get some sweet discount of like 25 prints fo' free.
ReplyDeleteI also use remaining ribbon to wrap around the bases of lamps to pull things together. Or put them on the edge of the shelves of the new bookshelf.
We had a lot of blank white walls in our apartment in newport news. So what i did was bought some cheap acrylic paint, painted big boxes on the wall, and had my friends paint pictures in them directly onto the walls. It was fun, creative, and definitely gave color to our white walls. They weren't the most gorgeous thing ever but it also served as a good conversation piece too! Plus, if you're renting, which I assume you are, if you make nice with maintenance, they'll give you paint to paint over it with when you move out! :)
ReplyDeleteI have quite a collection of postcards (as well as postcard-sized photographs of Europe), so I first put them in clear plastic sleeves, then sticky-tacked them to the wall. Now I wake up to mini-scenes of Euro cafes...
ReplyDeleteCuando Andrés y yo estábamos en Roma recién casados haciendo el postgrado, por supuesto con una beca que no nos daba para lujos, íbamos a todas las exposiciones de arte que podíamos y allí siempre habían posters o fotografías o catálogos que regalaban, nuestras paredes estaban decoradas con varios posters o afiches y no gastabamos nada......
ReplyDeleteHere's a suggestion:
ReplyDeleteTake old cereal boxes, paint them all one color REALLY thick (So you can't tell they're cereal boxes), then you can use them as 3D shadowboxes on your walls. Even better, you can mount pictures on them!
If you have corkboard, wrap them with any cloth or with fabric from Goodwill. Then you have a pretty place to post notes on. Wrap it with ribbon if you have any.
Another thing to do is to make a collage. If there's a color printer at work, inconspicuously print out one - five picture(s) a day.