A "Craft" all my own!

Ha, ha, I bet that got you wondering...

It hasn't been a slack time here at Karthi with the houseful of people keeping me busy and going out much more than before. But I did manage to do some "decorating". In all the years we spent in rented apartments and homes, I never put up any personal photos on the wall, just reserved personal photos for the walls of our own home. But once we got here, I became even more hesitant to put up photos. For one, I couldn't decide on good spots to hang a picture from. Then I was also scared of drilling holes on our pristine walls (might explain why I cringed each time the termite exterminator drilled holes every foot or two along our walls last week). I also do not like the idea of hanging up a conventionally framed picture - it reminds me of the old irayams of yore where the whole family stared at visitors in rigid black and white photos all with the cream-colored mat and black frame. Okay, okay, I know there are lots of good frames out there nowadays, but I couldn't bear to put our pics behind glass. So this came about:

See the two pics on the wall? Can't see them properly? Ok, here's the closeup of one...

and here is the other...

This "crafty" decoration just cost me the price of printing the large photos and a couple of sheets of chart paper (construction paper). I also pleased my recycling self by using packing case cardboard. Hmm... may be I should tell you how I made them.

I took two thicknesses of cardboard and bound them together with a few pieces of tape. Then I covered one side with white chart paper, covering the edges of the cardboard and taping the edges of the paper firmly on the other side. I also cut a piece of chart paper big enough to cover the edges and glued that on so that the other side looked even too. Then I made a loop with discarded packing string and glued it to the backside.

After the glue was dry, it was time for some fun! I squeezed out some paints and used two contrasting colors for each frame and had fun slopping the color on and blending it. For the black "frame", I marked off a ruler's width along all four sides and doodled with a black fine point pen to my heart's content. Then I pasted the pictures in the "frames", glued two hooks to the wall and hung up the pictures. I was deliberately non-perfectionist in my execution of the frames and I love the rounded edges and the lack of glass. And then, nothing beats the satisfaction of DIY, even if it's very simple DIY!

Wondering about the first picture? Well that's my hubby and me, the day after our wedding!