8 Ways to Decorate With Love and Meaning
Instantly make your home feel more personal and inspired by
decorating your walls with reminders of the places and people you love.
From typographic creations to shadow boxes and old-school map displays,
finding or creating unique and meaningful wall art for your home is easy
to do, and easy on the wallet. Here are eight creative ways to put your
personal stamp on your living space.
1. Show meaningful places.
Seek out artwork featuring the names, maps or symbols of places with
special meaning to you, whether that’s your hometown, college town or a
place you have always dreamed of visiting. Just looking at the name of
the place you love or an iconic image associated with it (the Brooklyn
bridge, the Eiffel Tower etc.) will surely brighten your day.
2. Dot the map. Part of what makes this so fun is that it’s completely retro and low tech. Get a world map (mount it on a corkboard)
and some basic map pins, and get pinning! If you have a large family,
you could color code the pins so each of you can pin places you’ve been
on your own. You could also decide on a color for pinning places you’ve
been together.
3. Sweet sentiments. Typographic
art is still the rage — and part of what has helped this trend take off
is the warm and fuzzy feeling a positive message on the wall can give
you. Choose artwork featuring a quote, phrase or word that inspires you,
and put it somewhere you will see it every day.
4. Display it in a shadow box.
Everyday objects like house keys, matchbooks and movie tickets take on
special status when placed in a shadow box with care. For added texture,
use a small piece of burlap or linen to back the frame, then pin or glue your items inside.
This couple has saved the corks
from the champagne they opened after each of their children was born.
Now the corks are displayed each in their own little square frame, hand
labeled with the birth date of each child.
5. Create a visual vacation. Vacations
tend to be some of our most treasured memories. Keep the good vibes at
the forefront of your mind by displaying a small selection of your
favorite vacation photos and memorabilia clipped to a string. Using tiny
clothespins will make the display especially easy to rotate, so you can
swap out the photos for some from a different vacation whenever the
mood strikes.
6. Treat childhood memories like masterpieces. Children’s artwork is guaranteed to make you and your visitors smile. If you don’t have kids
of your own, consider digging out an artistic treasure from your own
childhood — or ask one of your parents or siblings to contribute a
masterpiece for your wall.
7. Use family history as free art.
Letters you sent home from camp, an image of your family crest printed
out from the Internet, postcards relatives sent you from around the
world and, of course, photos can all make worthy additions to your art
wall. And they don’t cost a dime.
