pottery barn on the cheap

I'm not going to lie, I get a little giddy when the Pottery Barn Kids catalogue shows up in the mail. Not only the Kids, but also the regular Pottery Barn and the Bed & Bath edition. The hub and I are big fans of Pottery Barn bedding, and two of the three beds (if you are counting a crib as a bed) in the house have Pottery Barn bedding. And lamps. And a desk. And some dishes. I've been pining for a place to showcase Britton's artwork, and since the fridge is stainless steel (magnets won't stick) I'm running out of places to put it. And when I saw these art cables I was so ready to go order:



But they are $40 each. As in $80, not to mention shipping and handling. So I searched online and found some (not quite so cute and very utilitarian) cables at IKEA, but that's an hour drive each way. And then I found a lady who had done them herself and thought, "I can do that."

So I did. I went to Michael's, bought four wooden rectangles, some scrapbook paper, some Modge Podge, and then detoured to Wal-Mart for screws and picture hanging cable.



I painted the blocks white. Then the hub drilled holes in them and I attached them to the walls in studs. After they were screwed into the wall I covered them with scrapbook paper using Modge Podge. Once it was dry, I screwed an eye hook into the middle, twisted some cable wire around it, and was finished!





And some miniature paper clips from Wal-Mart for $1.88 (for twelve)!