I saw this starfish wall art on the Ethan Allen website and I absolutely loved it. It’s a hand painted starfish mounted on a shadow-box-style frame with a discreet hand-applied border in the same exact color. Really beautiful, perfect for a summer home but quite expensive.
It made me think that this would make the perfect present for someone I know, someone who’s spending her days dreaming on how to decorate her new apartment in L.A. So I rolled up my sleeves and started making, not one, but two of these framed starfish.
Painting a starfish with craft paint was the easiest task ever. Making the border, however, was slightly more complicated. A good idea would be to paint a loose border by hand with watercolor or maybe draw a straight line using a ruler and a marker. But I wanted to have a perfect straight and thicker border while using the same exact paint shade that I used on the starfish.
For a matboard, I chose a good quality heavy paper and applied removable tape to create two borders; an external and an internal one. It’s best to cut the tape with a paper trimmer to create perfectly straight sides.
I used a foam brush to paint the space between the two tape borders,
and I removed the tape when the paint was dry. This special tape is great to use on such projects as it’s easily removable since it doesn’t damage the paper and it doesn’t leave a sticky residue.
I had to make a couple of tries before achieving an almost perfect border.
I hot glued the starfish in the center, applying glue only on the legs that sit well on the mat. One or two legs are inevitably in the air, but that’s okay.
Instead of using a box frame which is more expensive, I picked up a simple square white frame and positioned the glass behind the matboard to give extra stability to the artwork. This open frame leaves the starfish exposed and makes it look somehow more natural.
To complete my present, I made a third piece of art by simply using a fun and modern stencil and framed that one too.
This trio will nicely fill a corner of the wall.
To keep it dust-free, simply blow cold air with a blow dryer from a distance.
