Get creative

Get Creative

Gabby encourages you to be creative with how and what you frame in your home. Explore Gabby's tips and tricks for framing art and finding affordable prints.

Framing

There are many wonderful hardback books that contain hundreds of pages of portfolio images that are quite often no longer under copyright law. You look at the book differently and stop seeing it as a book but rather as a portfolio of hundreds of images.

If you want to create something really pretty, cutting an image from a book and framing it is a great place to start. You want to get in with a scalpel and cut really carefully where the binding is. The Flowers Book, in particular, has loads of white borders, so you can cut the image to the needed size.

You can buy a cheap frame from Habitat, Ikea and other places. If you have the energy, you can get a simple wood frame and paint it – it would look fantastic.

Framing Pages from a John Derian Book

This book is a compilation of amazing images compiled by John Derian. The book is a wonderful resource for cutting and framing art. It's full of really lovely colours, and, as the images are quite old, they have a lovely softness to them. I took one of these books and chose my favourite images. I cut them very carefully and bought inexpensive frames from Muji. This method allows you to have loads of control over your pictures and collections. There are so many images to choose from so you can pick something really personal.

Using a Scale Ruler

When it comes to hanging pictures, I always use a scale ruler. You want to work out what works well with what. Quite often, you will hang pictures over something, so it is quite helpful to know where they will start and stop. It's important to have a sense of what the feeling is going be.

A stunning sitting room was designed by Beata Heuman, who framed mythical creatures to hang on the walls. All four walls are covered in Walton Ford prints with real dramatic impact. You can view Beata's project here.

Use the ruler to measure the gap between the pictures, the painting and the furniture and where they end in relation to the ceiling. Make sure to use the same scale to avoid making mistakes. Putting a coloured sticker on the scale you are using is a great way to make sure.

Artist and Folio Books

Artist Books

Artists' books are self-contained works of art. These "projects for the page" are typically low-cost, published in big or open editions, and democratically accessible – a book medium that permits a large number of people to see an artist's work.

Taschen

Taschen is one of the most successful worldwide publishing houses to have emerged in recent decades. They create books that are both functional and beautiful works of art for your house. Since the 1980s, Taschen has been a well-known publisher of art, anthropology, and aphrodisia books. Taschen have really amazing books that can be turned into prints.

Taschen publishes books on art, architecture, food, wine, and the human form. Taschen's most popular subjects include art, architecture, design, comics, travel, and automobiles.

Redouté. The Book of Flowers is another personal favourite of mine by Taschen. There are the works of Matisse, Klimt, David Hockney & Miro amongst other artists.

John Derian Picture Book

John Derian transforms printed images from the past into functional objects. John Derian Picture Book is a selection of more than 400 of his most cherished images in full-bleed images in their original form. You can buy the book here.

Alternatively, you can get pictures, architecture and art books secondhand on eBay and in charity shops. The keyword to search is 'Taschen'.