How to Create Large Wall Decor On a Budget

Please allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite recent projects...this lovely frame!

I wanted one large piece of art to place above our couch in the living room. To me, small pieces made the wall feel empty, while multiple pieces made it feel cluttered. (I'm sure the full-to-the-brim bookcases on either side of the couch don't help with the cluttered feeling either.) However, we all know large decor tends to cost quite a bit—more than I'm personally willing to spend on a piece for a home I will live maybe a year in. Ikea, for example, has several large options with a $49.99 price tag; that's something I'd pay, but the options were either unappealing to me or overdone.

Let me share how I got this piece to come together. If you follow me on Instagram, you've likely seen the updates on each step.

FRAME

I started by searching for large frames anywhere and everywhere. Garage sales, thrift stores, clearance aisles. Most things simply weren't large enough. Plus, most larger (ish) frames were still selling for $20 bucks at my local Deseret Industries. $20 bucks for an ugly frame with an ugly picture and oftentimes not even real glass. I said no to that.

In one of my many searches, I found a few options. These are the pictures and messages I sent to my husband.

A. Gold frame, would still paint. Thicker plastic although it could be glass. Matted too. Smallest option. $20

B. Yellow metal frame. Would spray paint maybe silver. Plastic cover $10

C. LARGE FRAME. See other sizes in picture. No back, no glass. Slight imperfection on one side. $5. Could paint and blow up a pic. 

Option C would require the most work. Not to mention, I didn't know if I could get a picture that big...or if I could fit the frame into my car. 

Jake's response, "I like the big one. The $5 one" quickly reaffirmed my worries and I went ahead with the $5 frame. 

Before I did anything else, I wanted to make sure it was possible to piece together the backing and image to go in the frame. Otherwise, I'd probably use this for a headboard type of project.

BACKING

I headed to Hobby Lobby's framing section to see what kind of foam boards they had available. Nothing big enough was available on the floor, but we waited for an associate who said they could definitely cut something to the exact dimensions I needed. The cost for the largest board was about $10 but then I used their 40% off coupon to get it for $6. 

PICTURE

This frame was way to big to even think about featuring a picture of Jake and me. Can you imagine that? Right above our couch? Haha. 

I did look at some scenery type of pictures with us, but nothing really worked. In fact, I found that I wasn't even liking photograph options for that size. I used my stock image resources at both sxc.hu (free site) or depositphotos.com (I got a great discount price for something like 100 downloads for $99 and use this site for lots of my client project needs).

In the end,  I was drawn to digital artwork by the user karakotsay. I liked the abstract perspective and considered options like this, or this, or this, or this.  

Jake and I both decided on this option:

PRINTING

From the start I knew I'd be printing this in black and white. Why? While I love the color, you can print in b/w a LOT cheaper than printing anything that large in color. Most office stores will allow you to print engineers prints for super cheap. These are low quality but for $6-8, it's a great option and can be switched up whenever you want. Also, I planned to paint the frame a color to help brighten up our living room and the black/white would help balance that color AND tie in the black from our furniture.

Fedex was the ONLY place I found that could print the size I wanted.  The employee there was amazing. It took maybe 6 or 7 tries to get it to print right, but in the end everything worked out great.

PAINTING

Head to Home Depot or Lowe's to purchase paint for small projects. You can get any color mixed in a sample bottle for about $3. I've done this a handful of times and the paint lasts forever!!  I got this lovely teal blue and got that thing painted. 

FINISHING UP

The final step was just putting everything together. I used a spray adhesive from a previous project to apply to picture to the foam board. Jake helped me, and we probably did six inches all the way across the board at a time. 

We'd spray, lay the picture, smooth it out, spray, lay, smooth, spray, lay, smooth. Fun process. After that, I turned the board over to and folded the excess paper onto the back side. Then we stuck the board in, got that set in...and we were good to go. 

Total cost: $22