IKEA frame sizes are weird, and it seems like my art is never the right size. This 10-minute hack fixes it right up.

We’re currently working on finishing this bedroom, which will get a full room reveal post of its own. In the meantime, I needed some art for over the bed and the budget was $0.

I had an unused IKEA SILVERHOJDEN 16×20 gold frame and asked Andy what album art he could scrounge up to go in it. Andy is a vinyl record collector of sorts and has tons of album sleeves and jackets full of cool graphic design.

He brought me this insert from Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At Me, but it was too long and not tall enough for IKEA’s matting.

The light grey you can see popping out above and below the art is the paper backing the frame comes with. Here’s a photo for reference.

I’ve always just thrown frame backing paper into the recycling, but in this case, I thought it might be OK to have it showing around the edges of the art, as long as it was showing evenly all the way around.

So I just marked (famous eyeball method) and cut (freehand, I have zero patience) some length off of the art.

From there, it’s just a couple of pieces of tape to secure the art to the backing paper.

Reassemble the frame and hang it, and you’re done! I don’t know about you, but a 10-minute project like this really brings me back to life on darker days. It’s fun to come up with a creative solution to a problem, instead of just buying a whole new product.

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