How to double your art collection using things you already own

Cut out illustrations from children’s books

Some people might see this as slightly sacrilegious, but if you have a book of fairytales you no longer read, why not carefully cut one or two out and frame them? You’ll appreciate them more than you would buried 300 pages deep in a book you never pick up.

Art books

As above, some people may take issue with this idea, but why not head to your local charity shop and pick up a beautiful hard-backed art book. Set about it with a scalpel and for £20-30 you could get about 50 prints that all form part of a unified series.

Leigh Bowery Tate Exhibition Book

Assouline Ibiza Bohemia Photography Book

Nice confectionery packaging

Chocolates are often packaged in beautiful casing. Why not lift off the front of the box with a scalpel. This can be a great way to create a keepsake out of a shared chocolate box.

Handwritten recipes

Unless you’ve been proactive and bound your important recipes into a book or folder, chances are they’re just folded up somewhere in your kitchen. Why not pop a special one into a frame with a colourful mount. You can hang it next to the oven, so you can refer to it when you need.

Children Drawing, 1954 print by Pablo Picasso – limited edition of 1000 copies

The Palm House TFL Print 30 x 40cm

Alphonse Mucha Poster – Sarah Bernhardt La Dame aux Camélias, 1896

Magazine shoots

We might be biased, but many magazine shoots are frame worthy. Carefully cut a particularly lovely fashion, or interiors shoot out using a scalpel and display it in a contrasting frame.

BROOKE HOLM

Napkins

Former House & Garden decoration coordinator, Elena Smintina, suggested a more ‘romantic decorator’ might like to save a keepsake like a kiss mark on a napkin. Alternatively, a stylish cocktail napkin from a wedding or restaurant would make a nice centrepiece on a contrasting mount.

Collage of pressed flowers

Finally, why not collected some pretty stems from your garden, park, or surrounding countryside. You can dry them and then mount them on some pretty card.

Matchboxes

Plenty of smart restaurants and hotels will have custom matchboxes sitting at the reception or on the bar. Collect enough of these and you can create a charming display in a box frame.

A note on framing:

As many of us on the House & Garden staff hoard fabric samples, we are always looking for creative ways to use them. One such recommendation is to frame them, using a contrasting mount to set them off. You can also use the fabric samples themselves as mounts, providing a pretty patterned border for a more simple piece of art in the centre. You can also apply that ‘scrappy’ technique to old wrapping paper. Our final tip, is to use frames much bigger than the art itself for a striking effect. It’ll double the size of the art, meaning more wall coverage for less, whilst attractively drawing attention to the piece itself.