FRAMED AGATE COLLECTION

I have been searching for some interesting art ideas for the wall that is weirdly angled between our foyer and living room. We've had a movie poster hanging there since the day we moved in, 48" of Rita Hayworth as Gilda, in all her glory. I've had this poster since high school. (Yes, I was a super interior design geek even then- I felt like N'sync posters and the like cluttered the look of a room, but a framed movie poster was much more sophisticated.) So when we moved to our post-college home I wanted something a little less "teenage dream," and a little more "Hey, I'm a real interior designer, I promise."  But it takes me forever to make design choices in my own home, so this is a huge step for us.

We tend to gravitate toward collections in this home because we have 12' ceilings, which makes for a lot of ground wall to cover- and because collections inspire us. We've always loved going to museums and spending hours in the natural history wings, wandering through the dioramas and gazing at the fossils. When I saw what was hanging over the tub in this showhouse in Utah I knew exactly what we needed for our space. 

Even though John loves agates and geodes, and I love pyrite- we selected agate slices to frame, because they were thin, yet colorful and would add dimension to space. I ordered my agates from Sonya Masur on Etsy.  Check out her shop, she has so many great stones, and her agate coasters were perfect for this project. I tested out one agate in a frame prior to purchasing, because I did not want a shadow box frame.  and they were thin enough to rest against the glass, and still get the back of the frame on, I did have to pop the rubber feet off the back of the coasters, but they came off without a snag.

To complete the look I taped a piece of biscuit colored card stock to the back of my mat, and because I ran out of double stick tape I used a fancy tape loop on the back of the agate. Simple place the agate in the center of the mat and put the frame back together. I used frames from Michael's Craft Store, I also used the same frames for this project. And I stuck with my favorite brand of metallic spray paint, Rustoleum universal metallic - but this time I got the hammered metal, in the rosemary finish, it has a great greenish silver color. It's from Home Depot.