I would love to wallpaper one of the walls in my living room. I particularly love the hand-finished garden birds wallpaper by designer Louise Body.  The only problem is that her wallpaper starts at £95 a metre.

So I was particularly delighted to discover that Louise offers a wallpaper sample service, which really got my thinking about alternative options. You can select up to six different A4-sized samples for a total of £6.50, plus an extra £1 for postage. Well within my £30 budget!

I paid via PayPal and waited for my samples to arrive. In the meantime, I researched some framing options online. IKEA is by far the most affordable in terms of quality and style.

When my samples arrived,  I took them along with me to IKEA to choose the frames. The black RIBBA frames were perfect, at £7.43 each for the A4-size. Only thing is that I needed three of them for a good “collective” effect, which would take me slightly over budget. Still, I decided that I would be saving lots of money anyway, so I went ahead and bought three at at a total of £22.29.

At home, I selected the three wallpaper samples that would work well together and framed them. 10 minutes later I had three new designer wallpaper artworks on my wall – for much less than £95.

I’ve still got three samples left over, so I might get them framed and hang them in other parts of the house at later date.

Above: (left) wall before, and (right) after.

TOTAL SPENT: £30.40
COST OF DESIGNER WALLPAPER: £95
SAVINGS: £64.60

PROS:
• Relatively quick and simple.
• Totally bargainous.
• Looks amazing and far more expensive than it actually cost.

CONS:
• Trip to IKEA and back.
• Don’t have complete wallpaper effect.

You can also get wallpaper samples from Lizzie Allen.