This is a sponsored collaboration post with Wallternatives. I only advocate products or services I personally use or believe will be good for my readers.

I’m always looking for ways to create my own wall art, because buying wall art is just really expensive!  Our house tends to have less wall hangings than most.  One reason is because Bob and I take our good ‘ole time on agreeing on wall art, and the second reason is cost.  I’m not going to spend a fortune on something unless we really love it.  Now, for my pretty new wall art, Bob’s  opinion didn’t really matter much since it is hanging in my Craft Room, which is my space with (almost) free reign.  But, after I showed him the pictures, he did say it was pretty.  🙂

But, let’s get to the point, how did I make my pretty new wall art.  I’ve had this empty frame for years.

It was a natural wood…ages ago I had spray painted it, but never did anything with it.  For this project, I decided to give it a coat of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Pure White, and then dry brushed some French Linen on it.  I’ll admit, I need to practice my dry brushing skills, but for this project, I was fine with the less than perfect look.  I had nothing to go in my frame.  It used to house a cork board, which I had removed long ago to wrap in fabric and use as a memo board.  Since it was a cork board, I didn’t have glass in that size either.  I went to Lowe’s to search for the cheapest material I could find to use in my frame.  My dimensions for the inside of the frame were 17.5 x 27.5, not a normal size.  I thought that lauan might be my best bet and it was.  If you are not familiar with lauan, it is a very thin plywood.  You can get it in big sheets, but Lowe’s also had it in 2′ by 2′ and 2′ by 4′ pre-cut pieces.  I had to go with the 2×4 size, and then had them cut it to my exact dimensions.  It was $6 and change for this piece of lauan.

I gave the lauan a coat of white paint.  I used Olympic One, because I had that on hand and it is paint and primer in one.

Now, that I had my fresh, white surface it was time to make it pretty.  For this project, I used Wallternatives Designer Decals.  They have a variety of different products, but I just fell in love with this floral set.  I got the flowers in yellow, teal and gray.

There are actually 2-3 of each color, so I have leftovers for another project.  The flowers were perfectly sized for my long and thin frame.

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Since I was layering my flowers, I started with applying the biggest one first.  I followed most of the directions on the Wallternatives website to make sure I had a good application.  I was a little too quick on the application and had a few wrinkles in the yellow flower, but it was pretty easily smoothed out.  It isn’t perfect, but good enough.

I used the same process to apply each of the colors.

The teal and gray were applied flawlessly.

Once I had my decals applied, all I did was pop it into my frame.  Since I had the lauan cut to my measurements, it was a perfect fit.  It is so snug, I didn’t even do anything to secure it in there.

I just hung it on the wall and stood back to admire it.

I really like the pops of color it adds to my Craft Room.

What would you do with the decals?  I considered applying them directly to the side of my desk to add some excitement.