sheet music "art"

Okay, I know what you're thinking.  How many posts is she going to do about wall decor?  Does she just have hundreds of picture frames on reserve?  Are there any blank walls left in her house?

To answer that last question, yes, in fact there are.  Especially in our living room.  But that's for another time.  :o)

Lately I've seen people do a lot of cool stuff with sheet music.  They roll it up to make wreaths, or Mod Podge it onto candles or furniture.  Maybe it's the musician in me, but I just really like the look of it!

My husband and I have some wedding pictures hanging up in our dining room, and it dawned on me that I could track down some sheet music of the song we danced to at our wedding and hang that up.  So I googled "At Last by Etta James sheet music" (still love that song....who doesn't?) and as luck would have it, I found a site where the song was available for FREE download.  FREE. Love it.

So I downloaded it as a PDF file, and then had to reduce it so it would fit onto regular 8.5X11" paper.  I used some of my husband's fancy resume paper to print it out on, and I really like the effect.  Almost makes it look vintage, rather than just something I printed off of the computer.

Adding to the "vintage" effect are the numerous little lines and smudges that have become our printer's MO.  Maybe it's running out of ink, I don't know.  But for this project, I was able to work with it and make those imperfections look like they were supposed to be there.  :o)

I didn't want to reduce the music any more to make it fit into normal 8X10 frames (which stinks, since my parents have a bunch of those up for grabs).  I went to Michaels and looked at document frames, but they were just so boring; it was hard to imagine even a coat of spray paint redeeming them.  Then I found these 10X13 frames...I've used these frames before in my son's room.  They're inexpensive, but don't look it.  And this week they're on sale for $3.99 each.

I could definitely swing that, especially since I also had a coupon for an additional 25% off my entire frame purchase. So basically I got one of those frames for free.  :o)

I found some pretty scrapbook paper, also on sale at Michaels, and then put them all together.  I took the matte out of all the frames, and I had to work with the layout of the paper so there wouldn't be any gaps, but all in all I think it looks pretty decent.

I hung these up last night, but now I'm thinking this wall looks a bit crowded.  Might have to move stuff around a bit.  Or maybe somehow reduce the size of each one or use different frames so they're not taking over everything.  Either way, this might mean more nail holes in the wall.  Sigh.  Oh well, I still like the idea, just might have to do a 2.0 version soon.  :o)

Linking up to Creations by Kara...maybe one day I'll be brave and link up to more places.  :o)