Have a closet full of old thrift store art work? Read on to see a simple two step way to upgrade thrift store art!
I used to have a Saturday morning ritual where I would drive around town and stop at all of my favourite stores – Missions Thrift Store, Value Village, Michaels, Winners, and occasionally Wal-Mart if I needed some groceries. I was always on the hunt for something I could upgrade, but had a terrible habit of never actually following through on any of the projects. When Sean & I moved in together and I had to move all. that. crap. from one house to another, I decided to seriously cut back on my thrift store shopping until I started using up what I already had!
Since I have so many project ideas in my head (and the products needed for them in my closet!), I am so happy to be joining up with a group of amazing bloggers to bring you a monthly thrift store challenge!
The Rules:
- Upcycle an item(s) from a thrift store, resale store, or garage sale into a new piece of decor.
- There’s no monthly theme.
- There’s no budget to stick to.
Meet the Hosts
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Today, I’m sharing my Thrift Store Art Update project! This is a perfect project to use up what you already have. Follow these two steps and you can upgrade thrift store art in no time! I picked up four of these paintings at Value Village one day for a STEAL – they were beautiful as is, but I knew that with a little bit of time I could take them up a notch.
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For some reason, two of these frames were marked for $2.99 and two of them were marked for $9.99. I was going to buy them anyways since I fell in love instantly, but the cashier took a look at the tags and since all four were labelled the same day and were identical, so she gave me the $2.99 price for each of them!! Score.
Upgrade Your Thrift Store STEP ONE: Spray Paint!
The frames were a big part of what made me fall in love with these paintings. I LOVE the shape, and they were a nice shade of gold. There was a bit of staining on them and some funky colours showing, so I gave them all a quick coat of gold spray paint to spruce them up a bit.
It was a small change, but you can really notice the difference when side by side! It’s not necessary at all, depending on the state of your frame, but I think it added a nice touch.
Upgrade Your Thrift Store STEP TWO: Add Lettering
I wanted to add something to these frames to ‘spice’ them up since I loved the artwork, but I didn’t want to completely cover it up- enter my Silhouette Cutting machine (one of my FAVOURITE crafting tools, though I don’t use it nearly enough!) I thought about trying a reverse stencil (painting over vinyl letters and then removing them so the text would show the print, and the rest would be white) but when I applied the vinyl I LOVED the result of white letters on the painting and decided to keep it that way.
I used the font ‘Bebas’ and chose lyrics from one of my favourite Tim McGraw songs, Humble and Kind. I layed out the text in Silhouette Design Studio based on the size of my prints (approx. 8×10) and fit it onto two of the prints.
I transferred the vinyl onto my transfer paper (my least favourite part of vinyl crafting) and then onto the print and I immediately fell in LOVE with the outcome!
I thought about adding some text to the waterscapes as well, but decided it would be better to leave them as-is for a little bit of balance. Here are the prints up on my gallery wall:
It’s that easy! I told you, these are SUPER simple ways to upgrade your thrift store art. Clearly, I still have some work to do on the gallery wall 😉 The yellow frame on the top right will be replaced by a white one (when I find my last match from the set), the frames will be filled with more photos, and I have another DIY frame idea for the top right corner where you see some empty space. And don’t worry – the frames on the top ARE lined up, I just had to adjust the wire after hanging. An update photo will come once the wall is complete 🙂
Have you ever made over something you bought at a thrift store? I’d love to see it! You can check out the rest of the thrift store projects below!
And now for more thrifty goodness!
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Meredith
Hey there! I'm Meredith, a twenty-something home decor, DIY and lifestyle blogger & creator who dreams of living in the sunny south. You can almost always find me with a coffee in my hand, a dog at my side, and a donut in my mouth.
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Angela at Simply Beautiful By Angela
January 24, 2019 at 11:27 amMeredith these are so cute! I am loving your gallery wall and can’t wait to see it when you are done!
Emy
January 24, 2019 at 3:36 pmI love paint by numbers, so I really love this idea! Great job!
Debra
January 24, 2019 at 9:28 pmI love how you updated the paintings by adding the words. It makes the paintings so special. The gallery wall looks so good.
Denise Bryant
January 25, 2019 at 12:06 amThis is seriously my favorite project in the challenge. I absolutely love your gallery wall and you have completely inspired me to get out my Silhouette and try this technique. Wow….I am in love.
Jenny
January 25, 2019 at 8:18 amGreat idea to add your favorite song lyrics! Your gallery wall is looking good!
Heather
January 25, 2019 at 11:10 amWhat a great way to update art! I never thought about adding words and I love how this turned out!
Habiba
January 28, 2019 at 1:50 amMeredith, I love how your frames turned out and add that certain something to your gallery wall. I have a ginormous stash of craft supplies, thrifted goodness and things I find simply lying around in our world. Same as you I decided that I need to use those things first instead of buying new stuff in order to not go insane in my home, lol. Do you know the monthly Crafty De-Stash Challenge by Morgan from C’mon get crafty? I think you’d like it. It’s right up your alley and you could reach like-minded people and show them how to reduce their stash one piece at a time.
Michelle James
January 28, 2019 at 1:19 pmWhat an incredible makeover! Absolutely love it!
Michelle
January 30, 2019 at 6:38 amThese look amazing. I never thought of putting text right over the painting but it looks so good and is a really good idea. I have a lot of projects piling up in my garage too. I hope I never have to move. LOL!
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