Hang Those Pictures Baby!

Oh darn it's been awhile. Since I had Quincie in October, life has been crazy, of course you all understand. It's good to be back!

So I finally hung some pictures in my house when I was feeling wild one day. I have major commitment issues when it comes to walls and photos. So it you are feelin' it too, just head on down to IKEA and grabe their 22 1/2" x 22 1/2" frame for only $25, in fact, grab 4 of them and make a photo wall.

This is the other angle. The bottom of the lower level of frames sits at about 2'10" off the floor.

My goal with these pictures was to have a wall of photos that really portrayed our family, and since this wall is one of the most highly trafficked areas in our house, I really didn't want plain pictures that didn't have a purpose. So I went for random ones. One was from a family photo shoot, one has a variety, one was a posed one, and one was of Dave and the boys at his softball game. You'll see how they come together in a second.

The openings in all Ikea frames are a little different than ours. This frame has a 11 1/2" x 11 1/2" opening. I also wanted to have a layered look so I took a 12 x 12, tan/speckled scrapbook paper and put that in the matte, then printed the picture about an inch smaller, so 10.5" x 10.5".

I wanted to pick a border of some sort that would bring the variety of pictures together, so they looked more similar. I chose a border from NICOLE V, from a set I purchased. I also gave them each a vintage-ish look in Photoshop. There is a beautiful thing called COSTCO...if you haven't heard, and here you can print a 12x36" for $4.99. I put these on a 12x36" canvas, and brought my disk to Costco (can't upload this size) and printed the 4th print on another one.

I also wanted to add a personal touch with the dates and other one liners right on the pictures. The swirly font is free and you can find it at DA FONT and if you search on their site for the font called "the King and Queen", you too can have this swirly and lovely font. I use this font a lot. The blue brush on Q's pictures is from DESIGNER DIGITALS from one of the Valentine's sets, very cute as well.

You can also get really jazzy and mix it up with multiple pictures on one of them. This is Q, she wasn't present in the other photos.

Closer up-

In the family picture (top left) on the photo wall, Q wasn't born yet, but I love the picture. So I added her in...in a non-traditional fun way. I put an "almost invisible" pair of butterfly wings on Dave's shoulder, with a little "Q" on the wing, so Q wouldn't feel left out :). If you look closely, you might be able to see her.

So there it is...

Total Cost: $107.00, and even better, it fills up the largely empty space that was there before. Since I hung these pics, it has really been fun to see these every day. Show off your family, it's an easy way to make a space instantly more jazzy.