We have pictures!

I've got the pictures back from the framer and they are now hanging on the wall in the guest room, and I must say I'm very pleased with them.

There was lots of debate here about what was going on the wall in the guest room! Originally I wanted work by local artists...but at the ridiculous prices some 'originals' were going for that wasn't going to happen. Then there was the 'having your cake and eating it' rant from OH about limited edition 'prints' that were actually photographs of originals, and not 'prints' at all! (Ex art student *eye roll*)

Next we considered local photographs, and my mother, a keen wildlife photographer, had actually taken a fabulous picture of some seaweed on a rock down at Gwbert which would have made a stunning picture... I thought it would look fantastic on a texured 'canvas effect' box frame - OH vetoed 'canvas effect' and in the end I admitted defeat, as I wanted more than one picture, and frankly there wasn't another as good as Mum's seaweed in the amongst the other photo's we had!

Shortly before we opened, minus pictures, I put some stuff away in a cupboard and discovered a number of pictures we already HAD, that we'd brought with us when we moved and ran out of wall space for. With the addition of another I'd picked up recently in the Antiques Centre in Newcastle Emlyn, I though there were actually the makings of some nice pictures already in the house. Two of them WERE original etchings that Mum had bought us when our kids were small, One of some ducks in a farmyard, and another small picture of a hedgehog. There were two 'antique' book plates that had been hand coloured, of wallflowers and of a Buzzard, both things that we have here locally... So I kind of thought we had a bit of a theme going. Only problem was a couple of the frames were a bit dated, and all the mounting mats were different colours.

I mentioned that I was thinking of using the Ducks picture to Mum, and she send me a link to ANOTHER by the same artist up for sale on E-bay, of Badgers this time, VERY much a 'local' wildlife theme and close to my heart! Of course I put in a bid, which I 'won' at the original asking price, so that kind of settled the decision. Etchings are by Laura Boyd

I finally decided to have the whole lot framed to match, to be a bit more coherent, and I think they work really well with the colour scheme in the room, and we still have a British wildlife/rural 'theme' going on! The whole lot ended up costing me less than half what some of the 'limited edition' prints going locally were selling for (and I got more space in the cupboard!)

Kate