August 11, 2010

Old Postcards Find New Life as Art Collection

I've been paying special attention to home decorating and design blogs after moving into my new apartment in July, and after getting a good response from a few posts about the new place I've decided to share some more steps along the way.


Now that we finally painted it was time to get some art on the walls. I love the look of vintage postcards, so we decided to make a "collection wall" of sorts with ones found at local flea markets and garage sales. Most of them were picked up at Brooklyn Flea from the owner of Bad Postcards (which are actually quite good.)

We picked up 12 little snap frames from A.I. Friedman (that were 50% off! whoo!) and got to work.


Putting the collection together was so easy. We laid out all of the postcards in a 3 x 4 grid. We used the cardboard and paper that came with the frame as a matting and used a small piece of tape to secure them under the glass.


The great thing about using old, legitimately used postcards is that not only do the front sides have perfectly aged landscapes, but the back sides can highlight some beautifully personalized penmanship.


We used the same frames for all 12 postcards, but decided to alternate the matting; natural matte on the scenic sides and black matte on the handwritten sides. After some simple measuring and nailing, voila!


Less than an hour later we had filled up a blank wall above the TV with a unique collection of findings that encourage everyone to take a closer look.

So, what do you think?