The Problem... and the Solution!

I've mentioned before that the house we bought came complete with a weird tree painting/window thing. Basically, the previous owners built an addition on the side of the house and boarded up a window, but when they did it, they kept the window casing and placed drywall in the center of it instead of panelling over it like the rest of the room. Then to make it less of an eyesore, they decided to paint it with a *ahem* lovely white tree branch.

Our short term solution was just to paint it white like the rest of the walls and let it fade away while I thought about what to do with it.

While out walking recently, I got an idea to do a wall of photos and to try to do it on a budget!
I went to the Dollar Tree and grabbed 11 frames in various sizes and added to it a frame I have had in my basement waiting for a new life for some time now.


Next I grabbed a can of turquoise paint left over from when I painted the workbench in my old studio space.
Two coats of paint and they're looking good!

I printed out the pictures on photo paper I got for $3 with a coupon and used a sepia tone to make them more cohesive. I printed out the "family" on some left over scrapbook paper.
The last part was figuring out a pleasing layout for the frames since I had a variety of sizes and couldn't make it symmetrical. The result:

For a grand total of $14.98 -including tax- my 4'x6' eyesore now has a purpose!