Showing posts with label picture frames. Show all posts
Showing posts with label picture frames. Show all posts

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Gallery Wall Surrounding the TV


Look who was unable to unearth the camera from the many boxes still piled up in our house!!

Woot woot!

It really is the small victories in life - right??  

Well, I found the camera last night, and snapped a few pictures of the gallery wall in our bedroom this morning before getting ready for work (so ignore my reflection in the TV where I'm in my robe... love that robe btw).


As you can see, I've made huge progress since the last updates I'd posted in my "how to hang a gallery wall" post but while the frames are in place, the gallery wall is far from finished...

Want to know why???

Look closer... 

See it now??  Some of the art is hanging the wrong way... upside down, sideways... and some of it is seasonal from Christmas!  Yep, there is one reading "Deck the Halls" hung upside down.  It drives me absolutely nuts. Sadly, Kris didn't even notice it.  Men!

I'm in the process of pulling together new pieces to hang, that will be more cohesive together.  I want pieces that bring out the pretty blue of the dresser (which by the way photographed REALLY blue, but is more deep teal in real life).  I also want some more color, and lots of bright white.

Some of the prints and paintings will stay... specifically the black and white surf photograph, and a few of the Clare Elsaesser pieces that I still adore.


Originally, I'd been considering spraying all the frames either all gold, all black, or all white, but I'm kind of liking the mix of black and gold...

What do you think?


The two stacked frames in the middle (top) seem a little too thick to me, but perhaps with a wider white matte, and more simple art they won't look so clunky... the pieces that are in there right now are really dark, and next to each other look like too much.


Overall, I'm really happy with how this wall (and this room) is coming together.  It's so light and bright, and the gallery wall takes away from the big looming TV that was the lone ranger on that huge empty wall for so long.

The woven hampers flanking the TV and dresser are also new to the room, fill out the wall, and help us (aka help me) keep all the clothes off the floor.

The hampers are from Target. They are amazing.  A little pricey (roughly $50 each) but worth every penny.  They are out in the room, and the woven texture keeps them from being an eyesore.  I actually think they are really pretty! And not to go on and on about the hampers, but they have these super handy detachable liners, so when it's time to do laundry, you just un-snap them and carry the whole sack to the washing machine.  Genius!

Anyways....


Aside from swapping out the art, and a few of the mattes, I was also thinking that I may also tweak the layout a bit more.

That's the thing about building a gallery wall... you REALLY have to be flexible as you hang up pieces.  You'll find that frames you thought you liked in a certain spot don't look right once they are hung, and that certain spots need something larger, smaller, or nothing at all.  Blank space is as important in a gallery wall as coverage, and slight asymmetry feels purposeful as opposed to aiming for perfect symmetry and having a frame hanging slightly off.  Living with it for a while has really helped me see what I want to move, but it's really minimal.  Remember the original layout plan?


I don't want to say our gallery wall has a completely different layout, but it's definitely different from the original.  There are a few more frames (the mock up didn't take into account scale accurately... both the scale of the frames and the scale of that enormous wall.

To put it in perspective, some of the large frames that look relatively small here are 27"x20"... not small at all!


More pictures to come once we have hung all our new pieces, but I felt I owed you all a little taste of what's been happening in there...

Happy Thursday!
xoxo

Thursday, September 5, 2013

DIY Embellished Picture Frames


I got my inspiration for this easy DIY from Courtney over at A Thoughtful Place, but she got her inspiration for this project from House Beautiful... it all trickles down folks!


I have jumped wholeheartedly on the "gold" bandwagon, but realize that it's best used in moderation... it takes serious self restraint from taking a can of gold spray paint, gold leaf, and gold leaf pen (yes, they make a pen my friends) to everything in sight.  I'm in the process of revamping our currently gold framed gallery wall to something a bit more simple (I think)... but I digress...

Back to my little gold edged frames...


Our entryway has had an empty wall ever since I moved out the ornate Ikea mirror into our hallway... I'd been looking for a larger federal mirror, but having put myself back on a budget after a few shopping sprees, and a splurge on new bedding and the dresser DIY for our bedroom, I've decided to hold off on a pretty federal mirror for now.

The question of what to hang in this spot plagued me for a while, and then I spotted these frames in Courtney's living room, and decided to give it a go...


Super cute right??

Courtney ended up spraying tape, cutting it down to size, and then CAREFULLY wrapping it around the corners of each frame.


I took the lazy approach and taped off the corners of the frame, eyeballing about an inch and a half on each side (nope, didn't even measure), and then with a craft brush and a small pot of Martha Stewart's gold leaf paint, just dabbed each corner until it was completely covered with gorgeous texture.

Voila!!


I took the tape off the frame after the second coat went on, and the paint was still wet - it just helped get clean lines on the frame.

So... this DIY is actually just a glorified painted frame!  It was so easy - I literally finished both of these in about 10 minutes, and the paint dries fast - maybe 5 minutes until it's fully dry?


There are a few small mistakes where the paint bled under the tape, but it's fine - really from a distance, you don't notice it at all.


The entryway is really simple, but in such a small space, we figure simple is better than overdone.


Look at that crisp edge... I absolutely LOVE them!


The pretty photographs were from one of my all time favorite Etsy shops, Eye Poetry Photography.  The photographs are really dreamy and pretty, and they have a San Francisco series that I absolutely adore!


I'm not normally a HUGE fan of photographs of city landmarks (the Golden Gate Bridge or Eiffel Tower is SO overdone) but the Ferry Building is so classic, and less photographed, and I just loved the photo of the bridge at dusk - it's not the in-your-face red towers we're so used to seeing...


So that's it - the entry way got a small face-lift this week, these old frames got re-purposed, and everyone wins!

Happy Thursday!!