Friday, July 15, 2011

Joining the Gallery Wall Party

I spend a lot of time looking at design blogs. Like, a lot. So sometimes when I fall for something I see over and over, I wonder if it's too trendy. But then I remember that most of my friends and family don't log the same kinds of hours I do looking at different shades of gray, Ikat prints, white antlers, Moroccan poofs and Keep Calm and Carry On posters, and would probably hail me as totally original if I brought any of these items into my house.

So I decided to do a gallery wall.


 Yeah, they're kind of everywhere right now, but I don't care, I looove them. I decided to blatantly rip off  take my inspiration from Young House Love's gallery wall and go with all white frames. I'm glad I did, because I love the cohesive, light look, but turns out I'm not a great spray painter and some of them came out a bit drippy or bubbly. But you can't really tell now that they're on the wall, and I saved loads of money by stocking up on super cheap thrift store or clearance frames. I probably only spend $10 or so.

I laid out some different arrangements on the floor before putting it up, so the photo above is actually an earlier iteration, before I found a cute print at Target already framed for $4 of some antique keys on bright colored bands that I had to have. Some of the items we have in the gallery wall are:
-The "Hi I'm Art" print my husband bought for me on my 18th birthday, which is also the day we officially became a couple. Aww.
- An amazing pastel my mother in law did of Sebastian. That pic on the left of him looking into a pond... that's a pastel, not a photo. Incredible.
-Two prints we got on trips we took. One is a bird we bought in Canada, another is a print of Pike's Place Market from Seattle.
-Two frames have some cute fabric and wrapping paper. I thought the fabric one I did was kind of genius. I just grabbed some sample swatches of fancy Dwell fabrics I liked from JoAnn's and matted them. Free!
-There are three or four photos of S, as well as a photo of M and a photo of me as 2-year olds.
-For our wedding, nearly seven years ago, we had guests sign little cutouts of fall leaves in lieu of a traditional guestbook. I always wanted to do something with those, and I found a cute image of a tree, and I glued all the leaves overlapping one another on top.

So all in all, super personal, meaningful stuff.


It's pretty asymmetrical, but we did that on purpose, since we think this will be an evolving project. We already have a new image to frame and hang soon.

I can't express how much I love it. It just makes me happy.


I definitely don't mind following the crowd on this one.