When your decorating ideas and dreams are on hold because you don’t have enough money to do what you’d like, there are still many ways to be creative and have beautiful walls too. In fact, there are several super cheap – and sometimes completely free ways to make your walls into interesting, artistic, and decorative show pieces.

1. If you have kids, get them to color, paint or draw for you. Most mom’s have plenty of the kid’s artwork displayed on the front of the fridge, but you can actually do even more with it than that. Try making it into a collage for instance, to hang on the living room or bedroom wall. A super cheap way to do this is to buy a large piece of white poster board. This runs maybe $2-$3 at any discount store. Then arrange the kid’s artwork on the board in a pleasing manner, and tape or glue each piece in place. Once it’s dried completely, hang it up using some stables or tape.

2. More kid’s artwork. If you have a little more money, you can buy the kids a treat while getting new decor for your walls too. Many discount and dollar stores have poster coloring packages for kids. These come in plain paper style as well as a thicker, cardboard style with black velvet. The packages include markers too, and usually have 2-4 different pictures in each pack. These usually cost less than $3-$5 each, depending on how large the posters are in each package.

Now, buy these for your kids in whatever style pleases you and them. Then let them color the pictures to their hearts content. Once they’re done, you can again post these up on your living room or bedroom walls using simple tape or stables. In fact, this is how I personally decorated my kid’s rooms for years.

3. Make a craft display. This one is particularly useful for anyone who either loves doing crafts such as quilting, sewing, knitting or crochet – or someone who has inherited many of these types of items over the years. Use your quilts, afghans, quilt blocks and so on as wall displays!

Now there are a few ways to go about doing this. I display my mother’s quilts for instance, using old bunk bed ladders. I have the ladders leaned against the wall in my living room, and the crocheted afghans that my mom made over the years are folded neatly and draped over the ladder rungs. The same can be done with quilted bedspreads.

These items can also be hung on the wall, but I prefer not to do this because I’m afraid of causing damage. One way to do it without damage though, is to simply mount a nice looking, long towel rack on the wall where you plan to display the quilt or afghan. Then just drape it over the towel bar and viola! Instant wall decor.

Last but not least, if you like to sew yourself, you can create colorful quilt blocks designed specifically to hang on your walls. Just put together fabric shapes in whatever colors and patterns you want, then tack them up on the wall. If you have a little more budget, you can actually buy a photo frame which has a mat included, and mount your colorful pattern blocks into that frame for hanging. This is an excellent way to create color-coordinated, artistic looking wall decor for pennies, and it takes practically no time at all too!

By: Kathy Burns-Millyard

Have you ever considered how much that piece of art in your home may be worth? Do you have an original piece of art by a little know artist or are you lucky enough to have an original piece of art by a popular artist? The art world is often falling over themselves when a popular piece is placed on the market and eager collectors are very quick to bring out their checkbooks in order to obtain this rare art piece for their collections. Here are the top 10 most expensive pieces of art recorded to date in descending order. Prepare to be amazed.

Please note: The prices quoted are take into consideration inflation from the original recorded auctions or private sales and is priced in millions USD. This list provides estimated prices only and is not intended to be an accurate record of art sales. This article is used to illustrate art worth in broad terms.

10. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II by Gustav Klimt – $89.1 Million
Adele Bloch-Bauer II was painted in 1912 by Gustav Klimt. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the wife of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a rich industrialist of the time, who was a keen sponsor the arts and supported Gustav Klimt’s work. Adele Bloch-Bauer was the only model ever to be painted twice by Gustav Klimt. This item was part of a set of two and Adele also appeared in the much more famous “Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I”.

9. Portrait de l’artiste sans barbe by Vincent van Gogh – $90.1 Million
One of the many self portraits Vincent Van Gogh created, this particular version is the most recognizable and popular. Painted in 1889, this piece created massive waves of excitement when it was placed at auction at Christie’s, New York. Christie’s only estimated this piece would sell for around $20 Million.

8. Dora Maar au Chat by Pablo Picasso – $97 Million
Dora Maar au Chat commonly known as Dora Maar with Cat was created in 1941 by Pablo Picasso. This wonderful work by Picasso features his Croatian mistress, Dora Maar, seated on a chair with a small black cat perched on her shoulders. As was often seen with his work, he uses wide swaths of contrasting color to draw out the subject.

7. Irises by Vincent Van Gogh – $97.5 Million
Irises is one of the most widely known pieces painted by Vincent van Gogh. This piece was one of his early works while he was at the asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France and was painted in the last year before his death in 1890. This item is currently on view at the Getty Museum in California.

6. Garçon à la pipe by Pablo Picasso – $113.4 Million
Currently owned by the John Hay Whitney’s estate, it sold for $104.1 million at an auction in New York’s Sotheby’s in 2004. Sotheby’s originally estimated a pre-sale price of $70 million. Many of the worlds art experts stated that the painting’s high sale price has much more to do with the popularity of the artist than with the historical importance of the painting itself.

5. Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre by Pierre-Auguste Renoir – $122.8 Million
Commonly known as Le Moulin de la Galette, this painting by the famous French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir was painted in 1876 at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Bal au Moulin de la Galette, Montmartre is a smaller version of an impressionist painting Renoir painted with the same title.

4. Portrait of Dr. Gachet by Vincent van Gogh – $129.7 Million
Once more, Vincent van Gogh appears on our list with one of the most expensive works of art of all time. This portrait of Gachet was created just outside Paris in 1890, and depicts his then doctor, Paul Gachet. Gachet, who took care of Vincent during the artist’s last months. Gachet was an amateur artist and formed a good friendship with Van Gogh.

3. Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt – $137.6 Million
The partner to the previously mentioned piece of art. This is the first portrait of Adel Bloch-Bauer Klimt and was painted in 1907. According to reports, it was sold in June 2006 for $135 million to Ronald Lauder for his gallery in New York City. At that time it set a record as the most expensive painting ever sold.

2. Woman III by Willem de Kooning – $140.2 Million
Abstract expressionist painter Willem de Kooning painted this print in 1953 and this fantastic piece is one of 6 paintings by Kooning in which the central theme was a woman. Woman III was sold by David Geffen in November 2006 to the billionaire Steven A. Cohen for a reported $137.5 Million.

1. No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock – $142.7 Million
At Last, we come to the most expensive art to date, No. 5,1948 by the artist Jackson Pollock. This abstract art, painted in 1948, was created on a 8 x 4 feet sheet of fiberboard, with large amounts of thick brown and yellow paint drizzled on top of it, forming a chaotic nest-like appearance. This work of art was sold by David Geffen in 2006 for $140 Million making it the most expensive piece of art ever sold.

So, as you can see, there is some incredibly expensive pieces of art out there being sold. Certainly, you are asking yourself “What about other pieces of older art?” All of these wondrous pieces of art in this list were painted after 1800. Any art prior to this date is usually in the hands of museums throughout the world. The Mona Lisa, for example, was insured in 1962 for approximately $100 Million. Taking into consideration the rate of inflation it is fair to assume that its current worth would be around $670 Million today. However, you are unlikely to ever see this majestic smile in Christie’s or Sotheby’s anytime soon.

If you have been inspired by these items and would like to see more. Amazingly you do not have to pay anywhere near these prices if you would like a copy of these items on your wall! You can discover wonderful reproductions of each of these items in many sizes, formats and mediums on our Arteblanche.com website. We have one of the world’s largest inventories of art from the popular artists in this list to unknown artists and cover every aspect and work of art imaginable. We hope you have found this article informative and as inspiring as we did in writing this.


By: Sean Donahoe

Poster printing has come a long way in the past decade, with a huge variety of formats and styles available. Poster printing is also more affordable than ever before, thanks to improved technology. You can now take advantage of big, bold, eye catching posters to advertise your products, services or promotions. Larger formats can fit lots of information and photographs, and can be effective visuals for your customers. Placed in your shop or office windows they can summarize or highlight anything you want. Create posters listing the benefits of your services, your best selling products, or any other information that you want to convey quickly and creatively.

There are an almost unlimited number of uses for posters. They can display key information about your business from any location, such as your telephone number, opening hours, map and main products or services offered. Or you can have posters printed for each new promotion. Use seasonal graphics and colors to create a visually appealing shop window with fresh and new information displayed on a regular basis. Posters are also great for events and exhibitions, adding colour and information to any space.

When it comes to poster printing, quality counts. You want the images to be a sharp as possible, the colours vibrant, and the paper strong enough to last as long as needed. This is why choosing a high quality printing service is important. Posters printed on heavy weight paper with a protective coating will not only look better but will last longer too. High quality photo papers can be water resistant, weather proof, and fade resistant. High spec poster printers will produce vivid, true colours with a glossy sheen. Not only do posters look better and cost less than in previous years, but they are now more easy to display. Poster printing services can provide your artwork mounted on foamex panel, for easy handling and durability, or you can choose to have your poster printed with a low tack adhesive backing to easily attach it to a wall or other surface. When you are finished with the poster or want to replace it with a new design you can remove it easily without damage.

Poster printing services can vary in prices, customer service, minimum print runs, and quality, and you should always look for a poster printing service that can offer you the best service possible to meet your specific needs.

By: George Burr