New Year, New Room

It's a damn shame that I've avoided hanging pictures with two hooks at all costs for fear of making them crooked. It recently came to my attention that the walls in my apartment had been bare for well too long and needed sprucing up. After a picture purchase that I talked about in a previous post, I decided it was time to be a big girl and learn the correct way to hang my pictures. I came across an ingenious post on Apartment Therapy, which is one of my go-to places for everything concerning decor. I found this post about how to hang pictures with two hooks perfectly every time and it was SO EASY. I was kicking myself for waiting so long to hang stuff up and reduced myself to having framed pictures leaning on tables or hidden behind my desk. I hadn't even hung up my degrees, but after an hour I looked like I had a totally new apartment!

Yes, I know one is crooked, but that was operator error and not the fault of Apartment Therapy! It has since been fixed and everything looks so professional and neat. Those degrees were on the floor wrapped in some serious bubble wrap and now they make me look totally smart and put together on my wall. I hung the Society6 pictures above my bed since we have nothing but bare walls in there. Take a gander at this:

Oh-so wonderful! It feels like a real home now and now that I've got these all hung perfectly we have to stay forever. It really blows my mind how much art changes the way you feel in certain rooms. Two winters ago, I was hitting the Seasonal Affective Disorder hard and wanted something bright to cheer me up. I looked online forever to find what I wanted and decided just to paint my own triptych to go on the big wall in my living room. I made it super neon and angular and it really does the trick. I get lots of compliments on them too and all I did was tape off stripes and other designs to make something fun.

 Don't mind the strange man on the sofa, this was just the best (only) picture I had of my self-made art. It was just done with elementary school tempura paint and some $5 canvases from Michaels Arts and Crafts. So if you're bored with your house you don't need fancy prints, just make your own! Try out the hanging technique and enjoy a house full of well-hung (herher) art!

Breaking Down and Admitting I Like Hipster Art

I'll be the first to admit I like some pretty hipstery things; I secretly want my boyfriend to get me a record player, I want to ombre my already blonde hair, I feel disgustingly cool when I have things no one else has, and I love art prints.  That being said, I am so glad I found Society6, a website specializing in affordable art prints from lots of unknown and up-and-coming artists (hispter street cred worthy). A lot of it is quirky and weird, not too unlike a Zooey Deschanel interview, but I have found a lot of stuff on there that I like. I have been searching forever for some prints to hang in our bedroom over our bed because right now it's just a gaping wall. I found some large gallery-sized (22"x27") prints for only $30 and I'm so excited to get them! Here's the one I bought tonight (left) and the one I'm planning to hang next to it once I have some disposable money again (right):

Both prints, "Sunset Breaks" and "Park Plants" are by artist Matthew Korbel-Bowers and I really like all of his stuff, very beachy and cool. Super simple, yet bright and interesting; great for the chilled-out, beach cottage aesthetic I'm going for (god, I might as well start wearing fringe Navajo jackets and free trade bamboo fibre tampons). Hopefully the boyfriend. I also purchased this fun little print that has the ocean on it, so it's really a no-brainer:

"Salt Water Cure" by Tina Crespo will go great in my bathroom or wherever the hell I feel like putting it. I used to dig through heinous prints at TJ Maxx, Target, and Bed Bath and Beyond to find art that was reasonably priced. I even went so far as to just paint some of my own just to get the look I wanted. Society6 has made my goofy art-loving life so much easier on my watch and my wallet and I plan on getting more prints when I can. Now if only my ancient apartment walls weren't made of petrified plaster we'd be in business. Check them out and buy something that makes you look cool!