How to Display Artwork From Magazines in a Home

One of the most untapped avenues of free (well, if you already have a subscription) art and decor are magazines. Not only do they hire professional photographers to splash their glossy pages with colorful artwork, but they print the pictures in a variety of sizes, meaning that you're sure to find a visually stimulating piece that can fit whatever size frame you may have. Just flip through a few of your favorites and you'll be on your way to identifying wall-worthy magazine art in no time!

Things You'll Need

• Magazines
• Scissors
• Pencil (optional)
• Folder
• Heavy book or paperweight
• Frames
• Scotch tape

Instructions

1. Gather your selection of frames that need corresponding photos or artwork. If you don't have any frames that you need to fill, you can find the images you want to display first and then track down some frames to match. Either way is fine, depending on your preference.

2. Situate yourself in a place where you can spread out your magazines, materials, clippings and frames. Coffee tables and dining room tables tend to work the best, as their hard surfaces preserve the integrity of the magazine's paper, which should prevent wrinkling or folding.

3. Think about what kinds of artwork you are looking to display. You can determine this by thinking about where you want to display the pieces, whether they need to complement the room's already existing decor or color palette. If you already have some frames in mind, you may also want to think about whether the frames' designs lend themselves to certain photos or color combinations, such as floral or black and white images.

4. Begin browsing through your magazines one at a time. When you find an image that you like, open up your scissors completely and run the dominant blade along the outer edge of the page. Make sure you firmly hold the page in place with your other hand so that it doesn't fold or buckle under the scissor's pressure. Try to get as close to the magazine's spine as you can. This will minimize the damage your picture will incur from the blade.

5. Continue cutting out magazine images until you're satisfied with the variety of artwork you were able to obtain. Feel free to cut out more than one or two images per frame, as you never know what will or won't work in that frame until the image is actually placed in it. Try not to limit yourself or get your heart set on one image, but rather cut out a variety of images that you'd be happy to display in your home.

6. Tidy up any rough edges if your image takes up a full page, or carefully cut the image out of the remaining page if it is less than a full page. If you already have frames in mind, you may want to remove the filler picture or paper that store-bought frames usually contain and use it as a template when you cut out the image. You can either bring the template right up to the paper, and then begin cutting around it, or you can place the template on top of your picture and outline its edges in pencil before cutting out the image. If you don't have any designated frames, you may want to cut the image a little broader than you normally would if there is a solid color behind the image. The solid color can always serve as a border, should you want to use a frame that is larger than your initial image.

7. Put the image in a folder and place a heavy paperweight or book on top of the folder. This will prevent the images from crinkling or getting blown away by the wind. It should also iron out any light wrinkling that the image incurred when it was being handled.

8. Place the pieces in your frames. Evaluate how the images look, how they correspond to the frame and the room you want to display it in and how interesting or visually stimulating the piece is. Feel free to test out your frames on a variety of images.

9. Close the frame securely, using a piece of scotch tape to keep the image in place if fits a little loose in the frame, and hang it on the wall. Feel free to hang images with a common theme together, or to use multiple images on products like a photo cube , picture coasters or a multiple-picture frame.

Tips & Warnings

• Experiment a bit before locking in your images. You can get very creative with this project, so be sure to really think about how you can utilize magazine artwork. For instance, you may normally not think twice about a photo of artisan cheese, but if you could really use some color and wall art in your kitchen, this may be just the type of thing to frame. Thinking like this will also save you money, as home decor stores charge quite a bit for similarly framed artwork.

• Make sure that you've already gotten all of your use out of the magazines you plan to browse through, as you may end up tearing out many pages, making it impossible to read the articles, keep the coupons or save the recipes on the backs of any of these pages.

• Be sure to check your images for transparency before displaying. You may be able to see any existing text on the reverse side of any light-colored images. You can test this by holding your image against a white piece of paper. If the words show through you may want to choose another image.