Hung Up About Pics

In an effort to fill the empty space above my bed, I have created a picture wall.  Not only does this prevent me from having to go buy big pieces (heaven forbid I have to go shopping for decor!) to fill the space adequately, but also uses all of my smaller pictures since I'm out of wall space for in my small apartment.  Make sense?  In sum, the space is filled and all my frames are put to good use.

First I played with all my frames on my bed for a few days to see what arrangement I liked best.  Then I used newspaper to match the size of each frame and taped it to the wall (you like the stickers?) for a better visual.  

The next part was pure genius.  Ok, I copied the idea from a DIY blog I follow where they did a whole hallway of picture wall-ness.  Basically, I just marked on the newspaper where the hole should go and then hammered the nail through the paper before removing it.  Foolproof method minus a ton of measuring and hoping, hoping, hoping we measured right.  We didn't even have to adjust any of the frames after they were hung.  It was so slick.  Like butter. 

My trusty hammer man ducking out of the way so I
can get a full view before deciding it's finality.

I love the final result.  The whole process took a few weeks because I was really indecisive about the placing of the frames.  I must have changed the newspapers on the wall a hundred times before I settled on this arrangement.  I even took pictures I had already hung elsewhere in the house and repositioned them here.  Poor Will dealt with a newspaper wall for a couple weeks at least.  And the frame at the bottom needs some photos put in it.  I still have the manufacturer's piece of paper in there.  And now for some up-close-and-personal shots.

The 9-tile square frame is a compilation of some wedding photos.  This was a Christmas gift from my mom last year.  We love it!  It's a great piece to have throughout the years.  The colored strips of paper on the left are a few of the chains from the chain I made counting down my separation from Will.  The numbers on the strips don't have any special meaning.  I just picked some that would look good together.  One of my favorite gifts is the frame at the top of this photo holding four pictures of women.  This was my Mother's Day gift from my mom last year.  It is four generations of mothers: myself, my mom, Grammie (mom's mom), and Grandma Wood (Grammie's mom).  It's something I'll treasure for a long, long time.

This word art is something I created as a motto of sorts for our family.  I'll keep tweaking it as time goes on - maybe pick different fonts, change the color as my color-scheme changes, etc.  I love the subtle subway-art feel and the variety the words bring to the wall collage.  The picture of Emerson was taken during his 1-year photo shoot.  He scowled and scowled for the entire shoot, giving us only one smile for the last shot taken (shot #86 - that means 85 scowls before that).  We purchased the smile and this scowl because we couldn't resist not buying at least one scowl.  This is definitely one of my favorite photos of E.

The temple picture in the upper left hand corner is something I made at a relief society activity a couple years ago.  Patty and her brilliant creativity came up with this simple way to decorate the photo and then framed it for me.  The other photo of Emerson was taken when he was about 6 months old.  It's another favorite photo of him.  Now for a full view shot:

The only downer is that the frames don't exactly match my bed set, bedding, other furniture, or really anything in the room.  I'm overlooking that, though, because I love the picture wall and hope to one day match my stuff to the frames I've accumulated rather than try to match to my already mismatched newlywed furniture we still have.  I'm sure I'll change out the pictures as time goes on.  I'll for sure try to get it all matched better.  Someday it will actually be aesthetically balanced and matching. For now, I'm trying to make a house a home with what I have, and for now, I love it.