Ideas for framing fun prints

There are lots of wonderful inexpensive prints available to decorate your home and work space (mine included!) However, framing is very EXPENSIVE! If you have gone to the trouble of finding something fun bright, and contemporary you don't want to ruin the look/break your budget with costly framing, starchy mouldings and bland mounts do you?

There are lots of options to display your prints in fun ways without spending a lot of cash.

1. Repurpose a frame you already have.You could repaint it in bright colours to match or contrast with your print. Use match pots or acrylic paint, or all those cans of  leftover paint you have, 'just in case'.

2. Buy a Poster Hanger. These clever little things hold your print top and bottom with magnet, and you hang them from a nail. I got mine from Elm Norwich, also you can use Lovely Button Ups instead of a nail. (I haven't used these yet but they look cute)

3. Budget priced frames from a chain stores
- some are pretty good, they might not be real oak, but from a distance they'll pass.
You can usually find black or white, or whatever is currently popular (has rose gold gone away yet?
They come in standard sizes -for example my prints are A5 and A4.
They have ready cut window mounts. Window mounts are way too fiddly to bother with yourself, so save these even if you aren't using them. You can just put them in the back of the frame under the print for safekeeping.

4.Car boot finds - there is always someone selling pictures, and maybe you could just  pretend you really love that picture of whatever you're buying for 50p,  get it home, ditch the picture and re use the frame. It might need a bit of a spruce up, again, you could paint it or decorate it to suit the print.

5. Don't use a frame at all! Stick the print to your wall with washi tape, hang it from a nail on a cool clip, or prop the print on a shelf. My digital prints are printed on thick card for just this reason - you can casually lean it on a shelf, mantlepiece, on top of another picture for an informal look. And move them around when you feel like it.

Framing tips.
Play around with the size of frame.
Find one exactly the size of your print and use it with no mount.
Take the display sheet out of the chain store frame, draw round it and cut out various coloured papers to have a variety of backgrounds to choose from. Try them all to see what you like, you might be surprised at what works.
Use a frame bigger than your print - maybe use the mount that came with the frame, with a  backing of a different coloured piece of paper, the brighter the better in my opinion. If the hole in the mount is bigger than the print you want to frame, attach the print to a piece of coloured card or paper that fills the frame, then put the mount on the top.
Box frames are nice with small prints - they have spacers in the sides of the frame so the glass is a distance from the surface of the print, like a box. Let the print 'float' in the middle of the frame by attaching it with double sided tape or glue dots on a brightly coloured background, the thickness of the card will give a nice shadow.

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A little note about displaying ANY kind of artwork, printed or original. Avoid hanging pictures on a wall with direct sunlight. It's bad.