Decorating your walls with prints

Decorating your space can be tricky. No matter how big or small, you probably want it to showcase your personality, and finding the right things to do that can be quite the challenge. Today I wanted to share a little bit about how we have manged to decorate our home using art prints and posters. The difference? There’s actually a pretty big difference between a fine art print and a poster you can print yourself! Doing a little research can go a long way. Depending on your budget, style and overall decor goals, you’ll have to decide what’s right for you! Here‘s an article you can read about the difference, if you’re interested. For the sake of this blog post, I’m just going to use the word prints. Fine art or not, it’s still printed! Anyway, prints can be an easy way to personalize a space without paying too much money. Depending on your style, a print can be just a quote or a poster of your favorite band. We have a little bit of everything. We’ve even used art prints that come with the vinyl records we buy. If you look at the image on the left, we framed a poster from the Kanye West album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.

Where to look for prints

I would start by looking at what you have at home. You’d be surprised at the things you can hang up. As I mentioned earlier, the print we have hung up in our room came with a vinyl record we got! Second, I would recommend looking at Pinterest for inspiration. I love going on there to see what others are doing in their home and get ideas for mine! Once I know what I’m looking for, it’s a lot easier to browse. I usually turn to Etsy if I’m feeling impatient and want to find exactly what I want quickly, otherwise I try browsing Homegoods and local shops. If you live in Dallas, you must visit Neighborhood Store in Bishop Arts District! They’re always keeping up with the latest trends in art, prints, and other cool stuff for your home. Some of my other local favorites are Read Between the Lines and Native Maps! Check out the end of this post for a full list of resources!

Why posters and prints?

We love using posters around the house because they’re cool. They all represent something different and when we display a poster of our favorite band or a phrase, we do it because we feel a connection to it. I guess it’s our way of making it feel like “home” without using pictures of us. One of my favorites is the one from RBTL Paper, “I’m feeling tipsy and fresh”, placed right above our bar cart. We actually used it at our wedding!

Where to place your prints

Where you decide to place your prints depends a lot on what the actual print is. You’ll probably know exactly where you want it when you purchase it, but if you don’t it’s okay! My husband got a few prints before deciding where to place them and what frame to use. It was a process, and you should trust the process, as they say. Once we have the prints framed, we walk the prints around the house to see where they fit. Try this with your prints and take your time. You want everything to flow! Don’t be afraid to place prints in areas you wouldn’t normally have art.. like the bathroom or kitchen or even the laundry room! Have fun with your prints!

What about the frames?

Don’t rush to get whatever frame fits your print, think a little about the color of the frame and overall mood of your space. Are you going for a vintage look? If so, a white IKEA frame might not fit your vintage looking print. For nice, affordable prints I go to IKEA and sometimes Michael’s. I purchased the wooden frame for the Native Map on Amazon and saved a ton of money!

Resources

The Retro Penguin – The Paris Collection

Native Maps – Dallas print

Read Between The Lines Paper – I’m Feeling Tipsy and Fresh

Art Mail

Concepcion Studios – Spoke Art (Stanley Kubrick movie posters)

Methane Studios – Gig Posters

Crosshair – The National Poster

f2Design – Dirk Fowler prints

Thank you for stopping by! Leave any questions or comments you have below. I look forward to hearing from you!

xoxo,

Cynthia