My Personal Touch

My style has been called eclectic, quirky and sometimes cluttered.  It is probably a little of each...and then some.  This style comes from a combination of my thrifting hobby and my crafting obsession (or is it thrifting obsession and crafting hobby).  I find something at a thrift store, usually more than one, then I add a personal touch to it.  Translation:  eclectic = thrift store item, cluttered = collection, quirky = personal touches.  When I start hearing hoarding, tacky and broken, I know it is time to send a few items back to the thrift store.

Here is how an eclectic, quirky collection starts.  I saw this picture at a local thrift store.  It is a mid-century picture by E. Gideon.  The picture has a 3-D element to it which captured my attention.  It was cheap ($8), but I wasn't sure where I could use it.

When I got home I decided to put it up in a small hallway leading to the guest room. Most of my home is earth tones, but the guest room has bright colors and I thought this picture would be a good segway between the two styles.  I had the picture on the wall (all by itself) for a couple of months.  But, that doesn't work for me.

I also had some shadow box frames I needed to use or lose. 

I painted the shadow box frames black.

Added my paper beads to the frames.

To personalize the original picture, I painted the frame and border black to tie in with the shadow boxes.  And came up with this collection on the wall.  Now I feel better, much better.

All the items in the collection (clutter) are from thrift stores (eclectic) and have been personalized (quirky).

I hung the shadow boxes with Command Picture Hanging Strips.
 

It was easy and no walls were damaged in the process.  $9 to hang four pictures.  Costly, compared to $0 for small nails I already had.  But it was worth it not to add nail holes in the wall.