Room for Improvement - decorating on a budget

Moneysupermarket.com recently launched their "Room for Improvement" competition to bloggers; the idea is to change the feel of a room for a mere £50.  Yes people...£50!

So what did I choose?  Well, the Mr and I have lived together for 13 years and have never quite agreed what should go on the walls in our home, so we have always ended up with a make-do to fill the space or even worse, nothing!  So I decided to use the £50 to get something up on our living room walls.

Before....an old fabric covered canvas and ....nothing.  We've lived here for 5 years people and still have nothing up on that wall!

I decided to use the money to buy picture frames - the biggest I could afford.  When you're on a budget and want something that looks good, there's only one place for it - IKEA.

I brought three 50 x 70 frames (£12 each) and one 70 x 100 frame (£16) all from the Ribba series and all in white.  I think these frames are pretty good for the money - they have a good finish, come with fixings and all come with picture mounts included.

To be honest, I have brought much more expensive frames and thought they looked cheap but when you spend £16 on a large frame, you can't help but be impressed with it!

At this point, I had spent my entire budget (plus £2!) so had to think hard about what to put in the frames (it hasn't been unknown for me to hang up an empty frame I might add, but didn't think that approach would cut it here.)

I have a large stash of fabric, so decided to pick some coordinating fat quarters - so that filled my 3 smaller frames.

The bigger frame proved more tricky.  The picture size was too big for a fat quarter and I didn't have any other suitably sized pattered fabric - could I paint something using Little Miss L's paints??? 

Errrr...no.  Tried and failed - in fact Mr L thought it was one of her pictures!

My last idea seemed to be a good one, I got out my Silhouette Cameo and cut 3 stars to use as templates.  I raided my fabric again and found some linen and red fabric - perfect.  I decided to cut the stars in different sizes to represent each member of our little family and simply sew them onto the linen (there are currently arguments as to who is the big star!).

Ok, so the're not the greatest pieces of art but they're more personal than buying something off the shelf.  They make our living room feel more "finished", I choose these colours purposefully to add splashes of colour around the room so in fact, they are very "bespoke" if you will!

And there you have it - four pictures for £52 and I'm really happy with them.

Do you have any tips for decorating on a budget - I'd love to hear them!