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Thursday, January 22, 2015

My Gallery Wall- On a Budget

Those of you who are my Facebook friends might remember me asking you to share your gallery walls! Thank you for sharing if you did, you all definitely got the wheels turning.

I've wanted to do a Gallery wall for some time now. I just love being able to share a few pictures of our family along with other things of interesting textures. I actually love any kind of collage on the wall- plates, empty painted frames… my only thing is BALANCE. Some people have it some people don't.

Most of the gallery walls I really loved I found on pinterest- just like every craft I do now days right? So I saw elements from each that I really liked and decided on what i'd like to incorporate.

-Beautiful white frames with decorative edges
-Pops of color
-Mirrors
-Letters
-Empty frames..maybe

So how do you do a gallery wall without breaking the bank?

I wasn't sure honestly! I told Danny that even though I wanted to do this I fully expected it to end up being pretty pricy. Gorgeous unique frames can be very expensive. Of course this is what every husband loves to hear right! No. Not at all. But he was a trooper and believes in my dreams and all that for gallery walls so we went to Michaels to see what we could find.  We both downloaded their app so at least we could use coupons. I was pleased to find out their frames were on sale! They were buy one get one half off I think. So I walked down isles and isles of frames and found none at all that had the look or feel I wanted in white.

Danny had ventured over into the wood craft section and was letting Rowan entertain himself with a little wooden rocking chair when he came across some frames! He called me over and I was so excited to see the selection of raw wood frames they had. And they were very reasonably priced.  Like around 5$ plus or minus a couple of bucks depending on the size. I picked out a few frames with the orientation of my photos in mind and also chose a T for our last name from the same area. I did find a couple of mirrors there I liked but they were 10$ each and I just couldn't do it.  So I went home and got busy on my project. If you've noticed me do little furniture facelift jobs with a blue and coral-y color I used those same paint cans for my pop of color frames. I wanted them to match my living room and didn't want to buy new paint so there you go.
Here's one style of raw wood frame that I purchased to put our family initial in. I painted it really well with one layer of my blue chalk pain. Buuut I started feeling like it was a little too intensely blue for one of my biggest frames so I dabbed my sponge brush in a teeny bit of white and just drug it over the edges in little streaks. It softened it up just enough and gave it a great shabby chic feel!


 The rest of my frames I painted white with one coral frame and the word family to add more colors that would tie the Gallery Wall in with the rest of my living room's decor.  Here's what I had after just my frames were painted.


Once I got to this point I selected the sizes and photo's I wanted for each frame and ordered them online through Sam's Club. Then I went hunting for the pieces to complete the wall. I went to Ross … I was really sick that day and not at all feeling like shopping but we only have one small table and it was covered in frames. With a toddler in the house I knew it would be a matter of time before he got ahold of one and ruined it. So I wanted my table back and to have the gallery wall up asap. I was lucky to find a set of three white framed mirrors at Ross for around 10$ as well as a little quote block.  In the end I like it but I think if i'd been feeling better I would have spent more time looking for more items that I was crazier about. 

Now according to pinterest you must trace every frame and map it out on our wall first in paper and then you will know just where to put your frames and bla bla bla too much work. Just lay them out on the floor and arrange them until you like it. Take photo's so you can see it from a different perspective. 



And here it is! I think I did tweak a couple more things after hanging it. Just to make it a little more balanced but I expected to! Love it, it's just been hardtop keep Rowan from grabbing the lower ones! Sorry my pics aren't very good. Poor lighting. So in the end, aside from our mounted family photo Danny and I figured the whole thing cost us around 40$. Not bad! 



This one is my most favorite :) 



5 comments:

  1. I love it so much!! You are such a wonderful decorator! Natural talent! I just love your posts and the projects you've done! I love it so much you inspired me to do my own! But after we move in April :) miss you! Thanks for sharing!

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  2. Thanks Traci! You always are so kind :) where are you moving to?

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