Gallery Wall

Some projects I can skip right through, some only take a day or a few hours of a day or a few hours over 2 or 3 days.  My Gallery Wall project started maybe in January, and I only just finished it a few weeks ago.  The main wall is done, but actually I want to wrap the gallery wall all the way around our upstairs hallway.  We'll call that Stage 2 of it.  Stage 1, however, is finally done.

It takes a while to find frames, position them and hang them, find pictures for those frames, and then actually put the pictures in the frames.  I actually just updated some pictures as I finished, because after this summer I have a LOT of new picture and I wanted to show case them:)

First, I had to gather all the frames that I have been collected over the years.  Brace yourself, there are a LOT of frames up in the Bland house.

This is not even all of them.  I have over 100 frames just laying around!  I think everywhere I went for 3 years, I bought a frame.  All of them were cheap, or even free (I apprehended some from mom) and I had way way too many.

Anyways, I sorted through the ones I wanted to use, spray painted a few (no brown wood on my walls please!) and started creating my wall.

I used newspaper to help me with this.  I traced each and every frame I wanted to use so that I had a frame like paper to manipulate without having to put holes in the walls.  I made sure I flipped the frame over and put a little hole in the paper where the nail or screw would have to go.  This takes the guessing away from the process so you can place the paper where you want it, move it around until it's right, put a nail through the guide hole and voila!  You hang your picture up and pull the paper off!

I had about 50 of these little guys....so I got to work!

My big ampersand was the middle piece of the wall.  I got that from a thrift store and spray painted it a bright blue.  I love how that color looks with the gray.  Then, using painters tape, I hung up all my little guides and moved them around until I like the arrangement.

I then spend hours of many days hanging pictures, finding pictures, changing pictures...you get the idea.  Today, we have this...

The brass key is a fun addition I found in a gift shop in St. Michaels on our 1st year anniversary.  Some of the frames hold art, others hold pictures.  There is even a frame up there that has a picture of our old lake house (my favorite place on earth, but my family decided to sell it.  Sniff) with the keys that opened the doors.  I'll probably move those items to a shadow box type frame.

The B for Bland I found at Goodwill.  The big frame with the blue fabric at the foot of the stairs has a collection of Instagram photos that I ordered from Printstagram.

This map at the top of the steps will eventually be glue to a cork board, and we are going to pin all the places we've been in the country.  I need to get a map of the world too, maybe a smaller one, for worldly travels.  Let's be honest, I've seen much more of the world then I've seen of the US.  I'm ok with that;)

The great thing about this project is that we can always update it.  As the years go by and we make new memories, I can always switch up the pictures.  I can also always add more frames!

I chose to go with black AND white frames for a few reasons.  One, I didn't want to have to paint the frames all one color, that would be too much work.  Two, I like the contrast of the colors, plus the pops of some of the other color I have in there.  It's pleasing to our eyes.

I just love the ampersand.  I kiss it everyday!  Ok, not really, but I want to!

The pictures in the white frames are cities from all over the world.  I actually have 6 more cities to hang out somewhere, they didn't fit here but I love all of them so I am thinking of putting them in our hallway upstairs eventually.  I love cities and maps, and it would be cool to have a lot more of those around.  It goes well with the theme of our house, which is around the world type stuff;)

The plan is to also eventually add wainscoting to the stairwell.  I think that would be really pretty.  We have to replace our carpet too, it's old and ugly.  All in good time though!

For now I am happy looking at the gallery wall.  I love walking up and down the stairs and seeing all of our good memories and trips and families.  It brightens any bad day!!  Enjoy!