gallery wall

In my last post (see it here) I showed you the finished nursery.Now I want to share with you some of the DIY decor I incorporated.

Let me start with these book shelves.After perusing Pinterest for some inspiration, I decided to buy two wooden crates, which you can pick up from any craft store.

Using leftover paint from previous projects, I painted the inside of each crate. One a mint green and one a dark blue.After letting that dry, I then painted the outside white. This turned out to be a pretty tedious task. It took several coats to get the look I wanted. I also didn’t really tape anything off so I did have some bleeding, which I later touched up.If I were to do this again I would either prime it first or just buy the crate in white instead of natural wood to save time.

Since I stink at hanging things, my husband took the lead and used two anchor screws to attach each crate to the wall.

I then filled the now shelves with children’s books and toys. I love how this little nook turned out!Next, I want to share this gallery wall. (I’m such a sucker for gallery walls!)It all started at my shower where we had guests write a wish for the baby on little paper circles.Later on I laid out all the circles on a piece of 11×14 paper since I knew that was the frame size I wanted to use. But since that’s not a standard paper size I just cut down a piece of 11×17 paper. The idea was to make the circles look like balloons being held by an elephant, which I simply printed from Google Images.Once I had the layout I wanted, I glued each circle to the paper and drew lines to look like strings.After I found the perfect frame, I used this piece as the center and picked up a few more frames to surround it. Do you know what I used to fill those frames? One is my shower invitation and the rest are simply cut up gift bags!Talk about a simple, easy and affordable project! But also one that has so much meaning!

It’s been several months in the making, but we finally completed and hung a gallery wall in our living room. We have a lot of blank walls to fill, and after seeing this post by With Love, From California I was truly inspired! I knew it would be the perfect addition.Following her lead, Jamie and I measured the wall above our couch factoring in a 12″ perimeter. There was one tricky part though. Our couch isn’t centered along the wall because of a door that swings open. So since the couch is off-centered, we figured it was best to keep the gallery wall the same way. That way it’ll still be centered over the couch and we won’t have pieces hidden behind the door, which is almost always open wide.

Once we had the measurements, like With Love, From CA, I cut pieces of string to mirror the dimensions and laid them on the floor to recreate the wall space. I now had a place where I could play with the arrangement of frames, artwork, etc. until I got it just the way I wanted. As for deciding what went into the gallery wall, I started by collecting various frames and artwork I already had. Since I mainly had black and silver and some ivory mats, I decided to stick with that theme knowing I wanted to use just black and white photos. This was the first layout I came up with.(Notice the brown dinner plate. I liked the idea of using a circular piece there to break it up a little, but I didn’t have anything at the time that would work. I also wasn’t sure what to put in the lower right corner. Hence the ‘?’)

I eventually found a clock (on Kohls.com) that I loved. Even though we already have a clock on the mantel, this one was the perfect size and I really liked the skeletons keys on it! So I went for it. I also swapped out the silver frame with the ‘&’ for a black one that I found at Home Goods. I felt there was too much silver. I also swapped the small, silver square frame with the medium, rectangular silver frame for better spacing.I was almost there. I still needed something for that lower corner. I had thought about just making a piece of artwork out of scraps of wood we have. But then I came across another great frame, this time at Target. Finally, it was set to go!To hang it, we started by using the original measurements and marked off the corners on the wall.Jamie then took over the hanging process. He started by doing each corner first then working his way in, fixing any spacing issues or slight measuring errors along the way. (Luckily, any mistake holes just get covered.)Here’s what it looked like when he was done.And here’s how the absolute final product looks with all the appropriate photos in it. I love how it turned out!I used scrapbook paper in some of the frames.I decided to nix the ‘&’ and printed a free and custom eye chart from http://www.eyechartmaker.com. Bonus points if you know what it says!