How To Decorate Your Walls... On The Cheap

Hang Things You Already Own
Look through your belongings.  Instead of packing away your favorite belongings, find ways to display them. 

Some ideas:

• Display your wedding dress or ethnic costumes in shadow boxes. 
• Hang family photos in collage arrangements with small decorative mirrors.
• You can even hang empty frames that look fun and interesting. 
• Choose an area in your home office or computer area and hang your diplomas and awards.
• Look for old windows, wagon wheels, iron gates, or other interesting pieces from your basement (or the local salvage yard) to hang on your walls. 

Make Your Own Wall Decor
Whether you consider yourself artistically talented or not, you can create your own artwork for your walls: 

• Use things like hinges and boards of wood to create your own room dividers, which you can paint with the help of stencils. 
• Purchase large art canvases and throw paint-filled balloons at it for an abstract design. 
• Cover a canvas with excess fabric to hang on your walls. 

Visit Your Local Thrift Store

• Thrift stores have a ton of artwork. Most of it is very inexpensive. And much of it is largely ignored.  While some of the artwork is, admittedly, quite ugly and useless, occasionally you will find a valuable piece in the mix. 
• In addition, you will find that the frames that some of these pieces are in, if nothing else, would be great for hanging your own photographs and homemade artwork.