Collage Wall

So, life has been busy. I finished my first year of graduate school. This summer we sold and bought a house, then moved. I was working and doing an internship. The girls had swim lessons and we were trying to put together a new home. While we still have a long to-do list, I finished my collage wall and I'm pretty happy about how it turned out.

I didn't bother taking a picture of the blank wall before I started. I'm sure you can image a large, blank wall. Got it in your head? Good. I used butcher paper to trace all my frames and mark where the hangers are. Then I used the butcher paper to decide how to place my pictures. This was nice because I could rearrange my pictures without punching a bunch of holes in the walls.

See the little triangle? That's where the hanger is on the frame.

Once I finally had an arrangement I was happy with I started with nails. I actually used use these gorilla hangers because they are designed to hold the weight better and JM felt better about them than nails. I ended up having to shift some things around when I started hanging. You never know what is behind your walls until you start hanging things.

Lest you think this was a quick process, it wasn't. The butcher paper was on the walls for a few weeks while I decided if it was what I wanted. After some thought I bought a few more frames, and made the large blue "S" monogram. It's also a clock; I love clocks.

I also knew I wanted more than just picture frames. I thought it would be too flat with just frames. That was another reason I added the big monogram letter (its a cardboard letter from JoAnns, painted). I also put up a little shelf that will add some dimension. JM was really against the shelf initially, but he liked it after it was all put up. I love the way my wall turned out!

It fills the large wall well and it shows all our great family pictures. I like that it's asymmetrical; I didn't want it perfectly square. That also worked to my advantage when I had to shift pictures over an inch or two because of pipes or studs. Now I have several other large walls that I need to fill, but I need some art for those.