Photo Gallery Wall

Back in 2009, my husband and I moved into an absolutely gorgeous home. It was less than 5 years old and the former owners didn't do any decorating, so when we moved in everything was white.... Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a bit of an artist so for me, walking into a white house evoked several emotions. Anxiety for one because, oh my god everything is WHITE and I feel like I'm in a mental institution and I have to paint everything today! Excitement secondly because oh my god everything is WHITE and I can do anything I want! Which, admittedly, proved to be much harder than I thought. Our house is set up very openly, in that each room flows into the next. I'm not a fan of boring old tan colors and, being an artist, need color in my life so with the help of my trusty aunt, and fairy godmother, we were able to get the colors flowing very nicely. I'll upload house pics in another post but for now lets get to the kitchen...

As always when I need a creative idea, I made my way over to Pinterest....while we're on the subject, thank god for Pinterest, I mean honestly...how did any of us survive creatively if it wasnt for this site? At least those of us (like me) who need to be inspired before great ideas formulate in our right brains. So being that its in the center of our house, and since its a kitchen which for families is a high traffic area, I thought of doing some neat little organization center with a calendar and a bunch of sections organized by family member...pottery barn style and eventually I will probably get to that point. But its just 2 so I felt like that would be a bit of a waste. So then the photographer in me piped up and thought you can never go wrong with pictures. Being from such a large family, and because my mom is never caught dead without her camera, we always have an abundance of pictures readily available. Plus when we host family parties, I want people to gravitate into the different rooms and photos have a way of doing that...I also love that when people are looking at pictures they begin to tell stories of that moment in time. Like little windows into the past, scattered about the walls. Kinda neat. But anyway, I found this idea, and there are hundreds like it:

Before & After

Creative Ingredients:

1. Curtain Rod - this was an extra one we had hanging (hah, no pun intended) around so FREE!

2. Michaels Ribbon - green to match the rest of the house, plus its my fave color

3. Photo Gallery Set - Target, less than $20, but i know they sell them at Michaels too (I liked this one because it had a chalk board on it - bottom right - which I use for invitations or writing whatever's on my mind, lol)

4. Vinyl Lettering - Amazon for $16.99 (word of warning - vinyl letters are a gigantic pain in the ass!)

So the only troubles we had hanging this sucker were the vinyl lettering, at times it bubbled, didnt come of cleanly, ripped at points but since its so high up we are the only people who know where the imperfections are. Then, for the life of me I could NOT tie the damn bows up there. Its at a weird angle because i wanted to make sure they looked ok, which obv. in this picture they're a little.....limp......but what I'll probably do is get a bow tying expert (read: Aunt Kathie) and then just hot glue them to the rod. My husband drilled photo hanging screws into the wall, through the ribbon to make sure the frames were secure and didnt fall. Plus, it makes it easy to switch out the pictures when all you have to do is pull up the frame, rather than take down the whole row of ribbon. And thats it kids...simple enough! 

Let me know if there are any questions or you need clarification with anything!

Live Zen.

xo

Jen