Upcycled Paper Modern Wall Art

Designers Amy Gibson (in Seattle) and Andrea Read (in Missouri) of Colorstory Designs delight in repurposing discarded magazines and other paper products.


Since 2008 they have been creating stylish, one-of-a-kind home decor items as a way of being good to the environment, as well as bringing pleasure to those who enjoy their products.


The ideas are simple, yet trendy, and each would make a statement in a modern setting. It's remarkable how many different art pieces Amy and Andrea have developed that use ordinary strips of glossy magazine pages to great effect.


This layered nautical compass design has a background composed of magazine strips and the dimensional compass is cut from heavy white cardstock.


When Colorstory Designs first launched, Amy and Andrea lived down the street from one another. Each had a full-time day job, so evenings and weekends were reserved for developing their product line.


In the beginning there was lots of collaborating on ideas, but once they settled on a brand and "look", their products quickly began to fall into place. "We've always said that it's convenient that we're best friends first, because we often combined shopping trips with business meetings!"

I think this picture frame has such a pretty color gradation.... and they do a similar, eye-catching framed mirror.


Round, glass magnets are super popular now and with good reason - who can resist handling - ahem - playing with them?


Amy and Andrea created this clever perpetual calendar that makes use of glass magnets. Numbers and letters have been cut from - you guessed it - magazine pages.



Visit Etsy shop Colorstory Designs and follow Amy on Instagram (@colorstorydesigns) Find their products in person at Stoopher and Boots in New York, NY or The Black Schooner in Ocracoke, North Carolina. They are also listed in Sound Trading Co., a cool Seattle online registry of handmade and recycled gifts.
Ann Martin
Ann Martin

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Comments

  1. Creative and clever designs that are also fun. Nice spotlight!

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  2. So beautiful!The framed mirror is my favourite.

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  3. Love that compass!

    And I like the new format. (Even if every time I click over here I feel bad for not updating my own!)

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  4. I also miss having more of the site show up in the reader, but I find that if the bit of info at the top of the page is intriguing enough, I'll click through to the site (and I'm never disappointed!). I have a couple of sites in my reader that don't have enough text that appears, so I tend to skip over those if I'm short on time.

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  5. what a creative use of old magazines. Love that compass

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  6. How creative are they? Love the recycling Ann.
    Lee:)

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  7. i'm not sure when you made the change, but the new site looks great ann. you're worth the click through to see all that you have to share with us.

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  8. There creations are awesome. So simplistic and striking all at the same time.
    Lyndall
    http://www.lyndalls-craft-time.com/

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  9. cool! loves the perpetual calendar!

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  10. All the photos are amazing, natural and stylist!

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  11. the nautical compass is my favorite. But the picture frame--what a simple yet chic idea. Love it!

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  12. Gorgeous! Thank you so much for sharing such beautiful things.

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  13. Love the picture frame!

    I, too, agree with Anonymous. I have so little time, I use Reader to try and keep up. I almost never click through to a blog unless I've read it and want to comment. I have un-subscribed from most of the summary feeds for this reason. Please consider going back. :(

    PS: I wonder if there is a way to generate two feeds, one summary and one full. I

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  14. I tried to make a picture frame out of magazine pages rolled into tubes a couple years sho and failed miserably! I'm so impressed with how NEAT and tidy their projects look...cause that isn't easy at all...simple can be really hard!!!

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  15. That picture frame is stunning!

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  16. I love your website, I just discovered it and would love to have my child try to make something similar to that picture frame you have posted. Are those swatches from the paint department? Thank you so much!

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  17. Hi Jody,

    Thanks, I'm glad you like the site. I'm not Amy or Andrea, the Colorstory gals, but I can tell you they used strips from magazines in the frames - either glued on flat or rolled, flattened a bit, and then glued in place.

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