Cheap Art Made Into Something Special

You know the stuff I'm talking about.  The Big Lots, K-mart, Walmart art that you bought for your first apartment.  Yes, the kind of art where the frame is worth more than the picture and that's not saying much.

I found such a piece at Goodwill a while back and while the art had no appeal to me I really liked the mat with the coordinating inner frame.  At the time, my brain was seriously lacking in ideas for this masterpiece and my sanity was a little in doubt as well.  But it all became clear after I returned home from my son's Army Basic Training graduation.

After 10 weeks of absence my first thought upon seeing him was "man, this must agree with you because you look great!"  I was trying to remember when I had ever seen him so happy.  During our visit I managed to snagged one really good photo that clearly emphasized this, and when I returned home I knew it needed a little something different.

My list of ingredients?   A camouflage bandanna, some little wooden stars, a small American flag, string, jewelry wire, scrapbook card stock, an antique angel button, a US ARMY die cut and some customized dog tags I ordered off of eBay.

The Angel button accents Psalm 91: 10-11 printed on card stock and framed is a coordinating decorator fabric that I fringed by pulling out some of the weave.  I made the barbed wire out of gold heavy gauge jewelry that I "dusted" with black spray paint.  The flag, string and die cut were too tidy so I aged them with Distress Ink.

So if you combine this little piece, with all the stickers and magnets on the back of my car, and my t-shirts I think I clearly qualify as going overboard on the Army mom thing.

Pvt G. Sean H., U.S.Army Medical Corps

I'm so very proud of you.