DIY Travel Map Pinboard

This little project is almost too simple to even mention. But it's also so easy and so fun that I don't want guys to miss it! It's a little framed map pinboard to mark all your travels. It's easy dress it up or down to match your decor by switching out the frame or changing the map style, plus it's a great family keepsake!

We only have a handful of pins so far. My first thought was to only mark the places we'd all been together, as a family of five. But now that already doesn't make sense because we just added a new baby who hasn't been any of these places! So we might as well go back and add everywhere we've been since we were married. Maybe we'll use a different color pin to show how big our family was for each trip.

This map was a great fit for the new adventure gallery in our dining room. You can see it up on the far left above the mountain painting.

Get all the details of our gallery wall, the tutorial for our constellation wall hanging, plans to build our farmhouse table, and see how we upcycled a craigslist chandelier.

Gallery Wall: 6 Curating Tips and Tricks!

Guys, it's starting to look like someone actually lives here. We have art up in the dining room. And curtains. And there are plants. Thank goodness for nesting. So today I just wanted to take you on a quick tour of our new gallery and share a few tips for curating your own gallery wall. It's easier than you might think!

The chandelier is a Craigslist upcycle (read about it here),

we built the huge farmhouse table last year (get the plans here)

and the chairs were a happy yard sale find a few years ago.

Now, I definitely don't believe a gallery needs to be themed. I'm also a big believer in "things I like and want to hang up together" galleries. In fact our "adventure theme" was more of a happy accident when I realized I'd collected several pieces that fit perfectly with our "Adventure is Out There" centerpiece. But I do love how our theme turned out. And once I found a direction, it was so much easier to round up pieces to finish the grouping.

 So if you're trying to fill a wall but feeling a little stuck (whether you're after a themed gallery or not), these tips can help get you back on track and charging forward!

1. Start with the things you love. Have a painting from your grandma? A favorite photo? Old wallpaper you found in the attic? A life quote? If you want to love your finished gallery, you need to start with pieces that you love. Fill in the gaps to make your favorite pieces work together, but make sure they are your priority and let everything else work around them.

Curtains peeking in on the right!

2. Find an anchor. We've had this large wooden sign hanging here for over a year. It was looking pretty lonely. But I knew it would be the perfect thing to anchor a gallery wall, and I knew that I loved it. So we put it up and waited for the rest to happen. It turns out, having one large piece in the center makes it easier to find balance when you hang up the little guys.

I made this sign during one of our sister craft nights. If you check out this post, you can learn how to easily make a template to create any kind of sign! Seriously, you can print out anything you want - phrases, pictures, whatever - and turn it into a beautiful wooden sign.

Gallery Reveal

Finally. That's all I can say about this project. After months of dragging my feet buying frames, painting them, hanging them, and finally printing pictures to fill them, it is finished. Whew. And I have to say, I couldn't be happier with how it turned out! The bad news is it's so gloomy outside that I haven't been able to get pictures that really do it justice. :( So just imagine this being about 10x better than it looks in these pictures, okay? Now let's take a look!

I am SO glad I went with white frames for this wall. I love how they stand out nice and bright against the wall and they work really well with my color pictures. 

Most of the pictures are of Baby B...he's just so darn cute. Here are his teeny tiny newborn feet. :)

I LOVE the colors in these two pictures. I was able to find pictures that carried a lot of these blues and greens which helped keep the wall looking unified.

I also included things like a post card from Paris (from Auntie B) and an old key from the chest we dug up in the backyard filled with pirate booty....okay, I don't really know what it's from, so pirates seem like a good guess.

 We took new family pictures to fill the big frame front and center. How did we do it? A tripod. And LOTS of takes. With lots of dancing and waving to get Baby B to look the right direction. I know, we have mad skillz. (p.s. Christmas came early and I edited these pics with Lightroom! Woot!)

And this has to be my single favorite picture on the wall. I love that it has our whole family in an unexpected way, and Baby B's face make me laugh every time I look at it.

This picture shows my newly found matting trick. I found the mattes for my frames at Dollar Tree, of all places! I got packs of 2-3 depending on the size for $1 each. And since I'm cheap and didn't want to buy specialty mattes for my oddly shaped frames I used the small mattes and backed them with colored card stock to fill in the extra space! Easy and fun! I used gray to make the pictures pop, but it would also be fun with a coordinating color if you wanted a brighter theme. If you look closely you can also see in the pic below that I used the same technique to put two pictures into a larger frame.

So let's take a quick look at the cost of this project:

• $8 - frames (I bought all my frames at yard sales & didn't pay more than $0.50 for any of them. Some were less than that, even 2/$0.25 or from a free box, but for the sake of the cost breakdown I'm going to just say they were $0.50 each)
• $6 - mattes (in multi-packs from Dollar Tree)
• $3 - 8x10 family pic (printed at Walgreens - it turned out kind of dark, I'm not super impressed)
• $2 - 16 4x6 prints (bought on sale from Snapfish - they turned out great)

Total Cost: $19

So 3 months (ha!) and $19 for a fun feature wall in my living room. And one that I can easily update by switching out pictures! I'm so happy it's done and it turned out so good. Are you thinking about making a gallery wall? Or have you done something similar already?

P.S. I'm one frame away from finishing the upstairs gallery, so I should have final pics of that soon!

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Day 7 - Making a Gallery Wall

A whole week done already? That was fast! Today we'll be looking at a cheap way to bring art into your home, and I'll be dressing up the nook at the top of our stairs at the same time.

Our master suite upstairs is still very much a work in progress that started when we painted all the dark wood paneling. This is the space at the top of the stairs all painted and fresh, but looking pretty empty.

I like the contrast of those black and white pictures against the pale yellow wall, so I decided to try taking it a little further and create a photo gallery wall (See our finished gallery wall here!). I started by collecting an assortment of frames at yard sales earlier this summer. I picked frames of all shapes, sizes, and colors. This is definitely an instance where looking for potential is important. Frames can look all kinds of ugly, but a coat of spray paint can make a world of difference! Once I had enough I painted them all glossy black with spray paint. (I learned in my first gallery wall attempt that spray paint is definitely the way to go!) This time I used the cheap stuff from Lowe's and was surprised at how even the finish was, but let me tell you, it stunk to high heaven. And I feel like the paint rubs off a little, but since these won't be handled (ever) I wasn't too worried about it.

Then I mapped a layout using newspaper and put all my nails up just like I did with the gallery wall in the living room.

Then all that was left was washing the glass and hanging up my spiffy new frame collection. (Yeah, I somehow missed 2 when I took the rest out to be painted, but they'll be up soon!)

I added mattes to some of the frames to make it look more...official? I don't know, I just think pictures look really good with mattes. :)

Project Cost Breakdown:
$5.00 - frames from yard sales (just an estimate, they were all $0.50 or less)
$1.00 - spray paint
$2.00 - mattes (from Dollar Tree)
$0.50 - picture hanging kit (from Dollar Tree)
Total: $8.50

So that was a pretty cheap way to get a whole wall of art and I love that it welcomes us upstairs, even though the rest of the room isn't finished yet. :) I ordered pictures to fill it in (and some for the downstairs gallery, finally!) So I should have a finished product to share soon!

How about you? Every made a gallery wall? Or do you have another spiffy piece of art that you made on the cheap? Or maybe you made the most of an awkward space in your home? Come on, spill it. What potential have you found today?

Day 3 - Use a Book

Do you have an old book laying around that you probably won't read again? If you do, get it out because we'll find some good ways to use it today!

Even if you don't have a book on hand, you could get one pretty cheap at a yard sale or thrift store. I had an old Reader's Digest novel sitting around that I used to make the mobile in Baby B's room. I used a combination of my mom's Cricut and good old fashioned scissors to cut out bird silhouettes from the book pages and colored card stock. I sandwiched the two kinds of birds together to get two sided birds to hang for the mobile.

When I finished the mobile I had this little pile of leftover birdies. I threw them in a box of craft supplies where they sat until I thought of a way to use them, which finally happened yesterday.

I've been working on (very) slowly filling in my picture frame gallery wall. I actually only had three frames filled until yesterday, when I made it four.

I just popped a trio of birdies in a frame, added a mat, and put it up on the wall. A very simple project, but I think it turned out really cute. And I'm glad I'll have a reminder of Baby B's mobile someday when he outgrows it. Because I'm sentimental like that.

Project Cost Breakdown:
$0 - birdies (left over from mobile)
$0.50 - photo mat (I just found out you can get mats at Dollar Tree, and they come in multi-packs!)
$0.25 - frame (from a yard sale)
Total: $0.75

You can also use music sheets for cheap decorating projects, like when I used my husbands old viola books to make over a light.

And if you want some more fun decorating ideas using book pages, here are a few inspiration projects I pulled from pinterest:

How about a book page wreath?

Or using them to line drawers.

Or on the outside of drawers.

Or a pumpkin, perfect for fall.

Or why not cover a whole wall?

Who knew books had so much potential? I'll probably be tackling more projects like this in the future because I love reading, and love having decor that reflects that. So, what kind of projects have you done with book pages? Do you use books that you love, or can you not bear to cut them up? (I can't!)

Gallery Wall

I mentioned before that I've been collecting picture frames for a gallery wall (or two!) and I thought I'd share a quick progress report on how it's going. I wanted to use a gallery collage to fill this empty space next to our entertainment center in the living room:

 

When I was collecting the frames I didn't worry about color because I knew I would paint them all to match anyway. I was just looking for frames that were in good condition, had a nice shape, and had glass (if they have a matte it's a bonus!). By shopping yard sales I saved a ton of money on this project. I didn't spend more than $0.50 per frame!

When it came down to painting the frames I knew I wanted either black or white so I looked at a few inspiration pictures to help me decide. Here were the main two I was looking at:

photo from http://www.raechelmyers.com/2011/06/per-lenas-request.html

Photo from http://www.younghouselove.com/2011/04/its-done-and-we-heart-it/

After looking at my inspiration pics, I decided on white for two main reasons.

1. The black frames looked kind of dark and our living room doesn't get tons of light so I didn't want to make it any darker than it already was. 
2.  I like that the white frame wall worked with color pictures in the frames. I want to be able to do some color, either in pictures, or other art in the frames, and I think black frames on top of that would be too busy.

So I got to work painting all my frames. I took all the glass out so I wouldn't have to worry about breaking or painting any of it. I decided to use the white semi gloss I had left over from some other projects. That was a HUGE mistake! If you ever paint frames, I think spray paint is probably the the way to go! It took for.ever. and then I had to do a second coat. And they all stuck to the newspaper anywhere I dripped paint (which was a lot of places. I'm not a great painter.) and ended up being a huge headache. Consider yourself warned.

 Before I put any frames on the wall, I made a template of each one (using old magazine pages) so I could figure out my arrangement before I put any holes in the wall. I'm embarrassed to say my wall looked like this for a good month (after I decided on the layout) before I finally put up the frames that were already painted and waiting in the basement. I am ashamed. But then my husband had a long weekend off and I decided it was time! So while he entertained Baby B I got to work.

Before I took down the templates I measured the hardware on the back of each frame (some of the frames didn't have hanging hardware so I bought some kits at the dollar store). I measured in to the middle, and then down from the top of the frame to the bottom of the hardware. This told me exactly where each nail would need to go, so....

...I was able to mark this spot right onto the templates and go ahead and put my nails up. It was an easy way to get everything hung right where I wanted it. Then I just pulled the templates down and put my frames up on the nails.

Ta-da! This is just kind of a dry run without the glass or any pictures in them yet, but I like it already! That one little brown guy still needs painted, I just picked him up last weekend.

I'm already glad I decided to go with white for the frames. Nice and light.

I even like how they look empty. Maybe I'll leave them like this for a while.

I still have a way to go, but at least I've made some progress, right?