The Moderately Eclectic Gallery Wall

I love a good gallery wall and this wall has been begging for a transformation for a while. We had company coming in this past weekend and that motivated me to finally print the family photos and get them up!

I considered just going to Michaels or Target with a few coupons and forking over a decent ammount of money for new frames. I opted to check my local dive of a thrift store one more time before spending the big bucks and boy, did it pay off.  I picked up nine frames for $16 and all but two had the glass intact. I already had my empty frames and the oranate one at home. And I snagged one more for free at a garage sale on the way home. MY KIND OF SHOPPING.

The biggest challenge was finding a good looking frame a the thrift store for the largest, central family photo. I wanted a 16x20 photo, but settled for a 16x20 frame with no glass for $1. I THE headed to Micheals to find some glass. It couldn't have been easier. They sell pre-sized glass and backing for around $10 and a nice mat cost me around $5 with a coupon.

I knew I would need to paint some of the frames when I bought them. I just picked ones that were interesting, and had good and varied shapes.

I picked my photos for each frame and placed and order through MPix. Then decided which frames were to be painted. I went with black for 4 of the frames.

I also printed up our family monogram and 'est. 2006' on our laser printer and added those to the unusually shaped frames.

Choosing the layout for the photo gallery was definitely the hardest part. I couldn't find any examples of anything similar that I liked, so I just started arranging and rearranging. I focused on seperating the similar colored and shaped frames and creating invisible diagonal lines with the layout. The lines make the composition asthetically pleasing without your eyes immediately picking up on why.

Once it was laid out, Soren did the hanging. And I LOVE IT. It is much more my style than store bought Target frames- perfectly moderately eclectic.

To acheive something similar, I would recommend:

  

-varying the shape, size, color and style of your frames.

-throw in a few interesting empty frames

-add a monogram or words

-create invisible diagonal lines with your frames