Need ideas on how to hang or frame prints cheaply

albinicat

I've accumulated several art prints and have finally got round to finishing the painting in my flat. So I have some lovely empty walls that need some pictures putting up on.

My problem is that I'm struggling to find anywhere that sells frames cheaply. Even fairly basic clip frames seem to be pricey, plus many places don't have much variety in sizes.

I was wondering if anyone has any recommended places for buying frames cheaply, or knows any ingenious DIY & money-saving ways of hanging paintings and prints (other than using blu-tac!).

dander

Charity shops and junk shops - often the pictures themselves are very tatty and faded, but the frames are perfectly usable. Bit hit and miss as to whether you'll get a frame you like in a size you like.

Do you have a Dunelm where you are? They have a reasonable range of frames, but I had a couple of bigish pictures that needed frames and I ended up buying two 20x16 framed mirrors for £7.50 each and taking the mirror out and reusing the frame - although depending on what you want to frame, you may need to buy a bit of glass and a backing board to go in there - which you can get in sets from Hobbycraft, but it'll put the price up a bit.

You could also try going really arty and just painting or stencilling frames onto the wall around the pictures.

Another suggestion - you could try getting some of those blank box canvases that you can buy quite cheaply in places like The Works or Wilkos and if your prints are the right size glue or tape them on. Perhaps paint round the edge in a colour to tone in with the picture.