DIY: Color-Poppin’ Poppies in the Sunroom

Sunrooms make me think of brightness, happiness and the summer colors of flower gardens just outside. But, for years our sunroom had a long boring blank beige wall. Like 20 feet of boring blank beige.

Here’s a shot of the wall from an allium centerpiece DIY I did last summer:

It’s an exterior wall of the house, so I don’t want to paint the wall a different color than the rest of the house exterior.

What to do? Poppies! Poppies by artist Jennifer Lommers came to the rescue. Here’s a sample of her happy colors:

She sells these prints and original works on etsy, and her prints are also available on sites like art.com. I purchased from greatbigcanvas.com because you can get very large prints for a decent price.

So I got two big prints of poppies. And then faced a dilemma. I really don’t want to pay a lot for framing right now. I’ve paid in the past. But frankly I’m tired of paying. I’d honestly rather retire early. So what to do?

I found a huge plain wood frame at Hobby Lobby for $10. It was so big, it was difficult to get it into my SUV. I drove home with a corner of it around my neck! I decided to Mod Podge the prints on a wood backing and glue the frame on that wood. So when our carpenter was here doing repair work, I asked him to saw a piece of plywood found in the garage to fit the frame. The plywood was left over from a roof replacement. It’s not the finest treatment but it is economical.

On a nice warm sunny day, the frame was glued onto the plywood with wood glue:

The frame is so lightweight, I can lift it with a pinky finger. So I wasn’t worried about using only wood glue and no nails.

Then I Mod Podged the prints onto the plywood (yes I put two poppy prints in one frame):

Next I applied a layer of Mod Podge over the prints to protect them. I did this indoors so bugs wouldn’t get stuck in the Mod Podge!

Then I painted the frame with turquoise acrylic paint, and the exposed plywood with lime green acrylic paint. I was closely supervised while painting.

I wanted a fun contrasting color on the frame, but I wanted the “inside” color to recede and not call much attention to itself. Because the point here really is the poppies.

Here’s the final result:

I also found fun colorful glass bottles in a metal stand at Arhaus. Just popped some dill flowers in for a casual look, hung it next to the poppies, and called the once boring beige wall colorful and happy!

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This project is shared at:

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