5 Tips for Making an Entirely Thrifted Gallery Wall

1. Frame first, art as bonus

Don’t let what’s in the frame distract you, this can always be replaced. I kept a running notes app of the size of frames I needed art for and replaced over half of the prints for the frames I bought. To give the appearance of paint strokes, I painted over some of my Walgreens art prints with matte mod podge using really thick brush strokes before putting them in the frame.

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2. Train the eye to look for shapes

Similarly, look for a variety of shapes and sizes. I’m always partial to an oval or irregularly shaped frame as I think it adds interest. I also like to play with mixing vertical and horizontal formats. Don’t forget you can always touch up a frame with Rub N’ Buff or some paint if it’s lacking in the color department.

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3. Take a trip to the antique malls

You can find frames at the thrift (more on that below), but I really scored at antique malls. Here it seems every booth has at least one frame or two so I was able to find greater quantities at once. This is especially great if you live in a big city, like me, where the frames are always pretty picked over and hard to find.

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4. Challenge yourself to get at least one frame per thrift visit

I found myself losing steam and not finding “any good frames” on my thrift trips so I challenged myself to walk away with one and suddenly on second glance I would find something that could work. The beauty of a gallery wall is while each frame is important, they don’t have to stand alone. This took some pressure off finding “perfect” frames.

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5. More, more, more

You will need more frames than you think. I have over 30 frames on my wall and counting!