Because matboard is boring; Part II

After a year of sitting buck naked, the walls in the man cave are finally getting some adornment this weekend thanks to a 50% off sale at Hobby Lobby and a little bit of ingenuity on my part. I have had the poster prints for a long time, but it’s taken me a while to find a frame that I liked enough to pull the trigger on buying.  I found these rustic ones at Hobby Lobby on sale, so they came home with me.   These Shutterfly poster prints come in a 20×30 size, but the only frames I could find had a 22×28 sized hole. 

Which left me with a 2” gap on the sides and a 2” overhang on the ends.

 Booger.  Somebody at Shutterfly needs to get together with somebody at the frame manufacturer and figure this issue out.

Here is what I was working with when I put the posters in the frames.  Bare cardboard edges on two sides.

I’m not gonna lie. I considered leaving it just like that for a minute.  I did like the way the brown color of the cardboard looked with the pictures. Even though the cardboard edge matched the sepia toned prints, I just couldn’t bring myself to leave an ugly edge like that.   SO, I got crafty.  If you’ve read this blog for a while you know that I’ve never shied away from a no-matboard challenge. There are always ways to frame a picture without using matboard.

I went up to my never ending ribbon supply and brought down a roll of brown (cardboard) colored wired ribbon.

Using glue dots to attach the ribbon to the glass,  I simply made a square of ribbon around the outside edge of the glass. 

Which resulted in this!  The wired edges are kinda wavy and imperfect, which is fine by me.  I love that it makes the print look like and old vintage poster that have had the edges torn or burned.   

 
Here are the three posters hanging on the wall above the theater chairs.  We have reason to believe that the theater seats came from the Alabama Theater, so that is why I wanted to hang these pictures that I took of the Alabama Theater and other Birmingham landmarks around the seats.  The Dr. Pepper building and the Martin Biscuit Co. at Pepper Place Market are two of my favorite downtown buildings, so they made the gallery wall as well.

You can read all about the history of the other two photos and why they are important to me in my previous blog post when I wrote about the day I took the photos.

I love the city of Birmingham so much, and I wanted to fill the basement walls with unique, personalized pieces of art instead of cheap reproduction posters.  The older I get, the more I appreciate meaningful artwork instead of mass produced stuff.

 
Speaking of unique, meaningful artwork… that brings me to the other side of the room. 

On the last day of our recent vacation to Pennsylvania Dutch country and The Hamptons (blog entry coming soon!) we ventured up to the north fork of Long Island and drove along the wine trail.  I’ve never seen so many wineries all in one concentrated area before.  One of the most favorite things I tasted along the trail was this True Believer Hard Apple Cider from Peconic Bay Winery.

I loved it so much, in fact, that I tried to buy a bottle or four.  However, since I live in the Baptist capital of the world and alcohol is not allowed to be shipped into my state, I wasn’t able to get the bottles home with me.  Instead, I bought one of their posters that was not even for sale.  They had to track down someone to give approval to sell us the poster which took a little bit of time, but it was worth the wait. I’m so glad we were able to bring home this piece of The Hamptons to remind us of our amazing trip to that beautiful place.  And it looks perfect with the other three photos in the room.  Admittedly it’s not the manliest poster for a man cave, but it definitely matches really well and we both love the Old West feel of the graphic design.

 
We are nothing if not unique in this room.  J found this lamp made from an old Westinghouse power meter at Bella Rustica in Tennessee last month.  When the light is turned on the meter runs.  J thought this was the coolest lamp ever, so it came home with us. It’s perfect for J and his man room.

That lampshade needs a serious makeover, but we will save that for another blog post.  

Slowly but surely, the basement is coming together.  It’s such a great place to watch movies and hang out.  I can totally see Garrett and his buddies lounging all over this place in about 10 years.

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UPDATED:  I’m giving away FREE Printables of all the photos that I took from this post!  To download the free High Res images click here.