I love the look of fabric canvases. You could probably even do it yourself! More tools.

Once I saw this guy on HGTV. It was the coolest thing ever. Basically he cut up with wavy craft scissors, or just cut waves in yourself with a standard scissor, a million different little pieces of pictures of blue water and blue sky. Then he decoupaged them on a rectangular piece of homasote. Actually I think he put the magazine cutouts down with spray adhesive and sealed it with a matte acrylic sealer. It was the coolest thing I've ever seen. If you're interested in doing this project cut the magazine pieces in different shapes, no bigger than four or five inches and arrange them on the homasote or a wrapped canvas from the craft store. His blue was gorgeous, but green (green grass, leaves, lawns, mountains, plants, etc.) would be very pretty too. It looks like a cool abstract monochromatic art piece with lots of variations in color and depth. It's such a cheap project if you have lots of magazines lying around.

sweetkid, apologies for the above incoherent post. The person cut several (hundreds) of asymmetrical shapes from magazines in one color. He wanted a blue piece of artwork so he only cut shapes of blue water and sky because it is natural and has depth. Blue swimming pool water, lakes, rivers, ocean, sky. I guess you could throw in blue flowers too.

For people that are interested, your cutouts should look like this: random shapes 4-5 inches tall. Glue them down, seal. Marvel in the coolness. It is better to have a large piece of board to glue them down on. It makes quite the statement.

Lori, the fabric canvas thing is too cool!

Yes, I think so too. You could even frame up some cool decorative wallpaper or a piece of awesome wallpaper.

Here are some coherent directions to the magazine art for those that may be interested.

Back again!

matteo recently gave me a good idea. Buy a beautiful art book. It could be photography or anything that floats your boat. Razor the pages out and frame them up. It would be cool to place a line of framed art gallery style. For the price of an art book and some frames from Ikea you could have lots of cool art.

Lori, did you mean to say wrapping paper as well as wallpaper? If you did, how would one keep wrapping paper from getting messed up?

I meant to say wallpaper. Framing and using vintage and pricey designer wallpaper as art is all the rage right now. You could use wrapping paper too! Wrap a canvas like a present and hang it on the wall. Easy peasy! Check out the second photo on this page. They are canvases covered in paper.

hi sweetkid, I see what you mean. I made a typo. You could even frame up some cool decorative wallpaper or a piece of awesome wallpaper.

Wallpaper, designer gift wrap or decorative paper. All of the above! You could paste the wallpaper down, but just staple or tape the gift wrap or large rolls of decorative paper that can be found in paper shops and online to the sides of your board or canvas. Or cut a piece of it and treat it as an art print that you would frame. Martha Stewart sells some beautiful gift wrap that can be displayed as art. I recently bought a MS aqua flocked print on an ivory background from Michael's crafts. It's beautiful to wrap presents with, but would be suitable in a frame or wrapped around a canvas as well.

Thanks for all the links Lori! You're full of ideas today.

LACE AND SPRAY PAINT!

Gget some ready-stretched canvases the shapes you want, thick lace with nice patterns and spray paints in various colors - gold is pretty neat silver is ugly as sin and "old gold" is a little meh so find the ones you like. Maybe a bunch of pastels. Whichever.

Spray the colors you want at the bottom of your canvases first. Then add lace (once dry enough), single and in layers. Spray on that. remove one layer, spray another color. Etc.

Try it out on some paper first but the effects can be quite neat.

Fabric panel art is a great way to go too, because you can find outrageously expensive = SO PRETTY fabrics in small pieces sold for cheap at those expensive curtain/drape shops and have something stunning on your wall for very little cash. :)

dabitch, I love the lace idea!

here's another variation on the canvas panel thing. originally done on three panels, two blue-ish, one orange.