DIY Inspirational Quote Frame

I’m working on a home office space that meets more of our organization needs. But if you know me, you know I want it to be pretty too. That means I’m adding pieces that offer no function; simply form. Since I was in high school, I’ve loved decorating my space with motivational quotes. I literally used to write or scrapbook inspirational quotes and then I would tape them all over the walls. I found the gem below from when I was in college to give you a visual. Never mind the out-of-a-box hair color – just notice the examples of how I used to decorate my space. hahaha

I decided it was time to bring it back. A few weeks ago, my husband showed me a quote called “The Man in the Arena” by Theodore Roosevelt. It’s very inspiring and I wanted to put it in my new office space. So I did what I always do; I jumped on Etsy. I found a few that I liked but they were all around $100. I showed Justin, and my frugal husband looked at me like I bumped my head. Was I seriously considering spending over $100 for an inspirational quote?! That look meant I needed to come up with a new game plan. To give my brain space to think, I walked down to the basement (where the office space is). I cut a piece of brown paper to the dimensions I wanted for the sign and taped it on the wall. Once I had it up there, I had this crazy thought. In the back storage room we have 2 picture frames from a garage sale last year. I think they’re about the size of the paper I taped on the wall. I only had to step over 2 piles of junk and then move 3 more to get one of the frames. I put it on top of my brown paper, and I kid you not people! It was the exact same size!! It wasn’t the right color, but I knew that I could fix that myself! PEOPLE!! I was going to be able to get my motivational quote without spending $100!

First, I decided I didn’t want the frame to be the black I had painted them after bringing them home from the garage sale. (The frame originally looked like gold bamboo. I sanded them down and spray painted them black and then I threw them in the back-storage room. Good thinking huh?) I did the process a second time but this time I wiped on a coat of Dark Walnut Danish Oil after sanding them. (Tip: Always use tack cloth before staining or painting. It’s one of my favorite items in the woodshop and for good reason. It’s so sticky it picks up all the loose sand particles that are still left on the piece after you wiped it down with a regular rag. The difference in my painted and stained projects amounts to a lot less frustration for me!)

Next, I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased a sheet of matting. They have a fancy machine that will cut the matting to size for you but, hey, we can do this without the machine. My father-in-law buys me fun little workshop tools for Christmas each year and he had gifted me a box of straight blades of various shapes and sizes. Those blades made it easier to be more precise. I measured the frame and decided the matting should be a 2″ border all around.

After I decided the dimensions for the matting, Justin typed up the quote in a word document. He ensured the words were going to fit within the matting but also fill the large space. The inner dimensions of the frame are 28×16 and with a 2″ border of matting it made it 24×12. Once he had adjusted the margins to fit this space, we saved it to a flash drive. I took the flash drive to Staples and chose to print it on a high-quality matte paper.

Lesson for the next time I take a project like this is Staples: Ensure there is more margin space than necessary at the top of the quote. There was only ¾” to work with for the top margin, but the bottom margin had 1.5” to work with. You can see the limited margin space in the photo above. Because of this mishap we had to tape the quote to the matting so it wouldn’t slide down in the frame.

After this was done, all that was left was putting the glass, matting, quote, and backing back in the frame and hanging it on the wall. I’m loving my new office addition and it was significantly less than $100. It was around $30 from start to finish! My frugal husband challenged me to think outside the box and now I have a piece that I created. And I don’t know about you, but it always seems like the projects I put my time and energy into are the ones I appreciate the most.

What are some projects you’ve completed to save a few bucks? Do you have a picture frame sitting in the back storage room that you’d be willing to display after you gave it a little TLC? I can’t wait to hear about them! Thanks for stopping by!