How to make an entirely free gallery wall of cool art

I got a new office at work a couple months ago. It’s great to have my own office, but it was a bit boring and lacked personality. However, I was having a hard time spending any money decorating it, since it’s not my home, just my office. I have a big blank wall above my desk and I challenged myself to fill it up with a gallery wall of free printable artwork!

Here are my tips for creating an entirely free gallery wall of cool art:

1. Balance art containing images with art containing inspirational quotes, words. A gallery wall of just writing will be busy and overwhelming.

2. Choose a main color to focus on so all your pieces of cool free printable artwork feels cohesive. I went with an aqua/blueish color.

3. Think about how you will hang your artwork. Obviously, buying a bunch of frames is going to eliminate the awesome “free” aspect of this gallery wall. I didn’t want to put nail holes, so I used bull dog clips and some Scotch sticky circles. I love the way the bull dog clips look, but not all of them have been staying stuck to the wall very well. For the two that keep falling down, I just took them off and used the sticky circle to put the print directly on the wall.

4. Printing: I printed all my free printable artwork onto cardstock from a regular old printer. I’m pleased with the quality. If you wanted a glossier look, you could print the quotes through a photo printing lab that lets you upload images online.

5. Don’t stress out. It’s just cardstock and ink. If you get tired of one piece of artwork, print a new one down the road! Or change it out by season to include holiday related printables.

Starting on the top left, then clockwise:

1. C.S. Lewis Quote, found on Pinterest here, source of image unknown.

2. A poem by Rachel Held Evans called The Fortress, I used Photoshop Elements to type it up with different fonts to make my own free printable.

3. John Wayne Defines Courage, printable from Lost Bumblebee here.

4. Comparison is the Thief of Joy quote, from ??? I apologize, I can’t seem to figure out where I printed this one from. But there are tons of printables with the same quote on Pinterest, here.

5. Octopus, free printable from the blog of Disposable Art Shop here.

6. Dandelions, from here. I did cheat a tiny bit on this one. I couldn’t find enough pictures that I liked, so I bought this printable for $2.99, but that’s still pretty dang close to free.

Starting on the top left, then clockwise:

7. Whimiscal Balloons and Coffee, free artwork printable from Indiefixx, here. This website was my best jackpot source of free printable artwork images rather than just quotes.

8. Looking Up at Trees, free artwork also from Indiefixx.

9. Be Kind Free Printable from I Heart Naptime, here.

10. Another one from Lost Bumblebee, the Queen of Printables, here.

11. Our neighborhood printable, I used this cool website, maps.stamen.com, to turn a map or our old neighborhood in Minneapolis to create a unique and personal printable artwork. This might be my favorite one on the wall. I do miss Minneapolis.

So that’s what I stare at most days at work. And how I made an awesome, but free! gallery art wall. Do you guys have any favorite secret sources of printable art work? Or any favorite inspirational quotes? One thing I love is that I can easily change it up!