Gallery Wall: Part 4, Anniversary Calendar

I had an empty 8"x10" matted to a 5"x7" hanging on my wall without any idea what I was going to put in it. Then a few days ago, as I was traipsing along on Pintrest, I saw this:

Source: eggpress.com via Heather on Pinterest

What an interesting and unique way to display a special date! I had initially assumed that I would make something like "Nelson, Est. 2005" as we have seen so many times. I actually like those and wanted one, but I already had our family name represented on the wall and I didn't want to over do it. But with this calendar, I could take down two birds with one stone. Brilliant!

I got to work on my computer designing how this calendar would look. First off, let me say that deciding on a "perfect" design is a pain and hardly ever happens. This would be one of those times that I settled for "good enough." Second, I really wish that my printer was calibrated to my screen.

Anyway, after toying around with a few different options, I landed on this design.

After printing it out, I turned my attention to phase two--framing it.

The biggest thorn in my side about the calendar that I had designed was that it had no pattern. Ugh! But I wasn't willing to put in the extra effort to try to add some, so the pattern came into play in the mat. Inspiration at its finest here, folks. (Seriously, it's not me. After mauling over a problem for a while, ideas just pop into my head. I take no credit for them.)

I pulled out a piece of patterned cardstock (that I had initially intended to use for a background when framing Darin's Eagle, but had decided against) and cut it to the dimensions of the afore mentioned mat. Then I cut the inner rectangle slightly larger than the mat's opening. For a little artistic definition, I traced along the inside edge of the opening with a black marker. Patterned top mat: done.

Finally, I taped all of the layers in place and slipped the whole thing into the frame, and voilà. Here is the finished product.

Do you have another idea for a creative way to display a date? Are you longing for a "Family, Est. <Year>" sign? Do quirky ideas pop into your head from time to time?

PS. This project was updated on 1/13/2012 at Updates to "The Wall" with Cameo.

Gallery Wall: Part 3, Awesome, Free, Key Prints

I have a small love affair with skeleton keys. Do I own any? No. Do I wish I owned some? Heck, yes. Not only do they look cool, but they have historical significance, which is also cool. Not to mention all of the things keys can represent: home, love, priesthood. And in my world, symbolism = ♥.

I was so enthralled when I found these skeleton key prints on http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com via Pintrest. And they're free! Karen is my new favorite person. (You can download them, too, here and here.) Aren't they beautiful?

After downloading the graphics, I resized and positioned them in MS Word. Then I printed them on some patterned cardstock, cut them out, popped them in some 4"x6" frames, and hung them on the wall.

I really like how they turned out. So pretty.

Have you printed your own wall art? Are you obsessed with skeleton keys? What objects hold special meaning in your life?

Gallery Wall: Part 2, Small Items of Significance

Today we are going to take a look at some of the things I put together for my WIP (work-in-progress) gallery wall that I talked about yesterday.

1. A Silver Quarter

Significance: Darin had been checking quarters for years looking for one from 1964--the last year that they were minted in silver. One evening shortly after we were married, we went to the laundry mat, and Darin got some quarters from the change machine. True to form, he checked the dates on all of the quarters. And there it was. A quarter from 1960. Years of searching, and he had finally found one. It had been living in my jewelry box ever since--until now!

How I Framed It: I decided to put it in one of my 2.5"x3.5" frames. (Honestly, what else would I put in a frame so small? Certainly not a photo.) I cleaned the glass (always the first step in framing), cut a piece of flocked cardstock from my favorite paper pack to the right size, set the quarter in the middle of the glass, placed the cardstock over the top, and put the back on. That's right. No glue, tape or other type of adhesive keeping it in place. Just the good ol' normal force between the glass and the quarter. (You can read about normal force here.)

2. My Young Womanhood Medallion

Significance: It took five years for me to earn this award during my teen years. It's nearly equivalent to earning the BSA Eagle award. I am very proud to have succeeded in receiving it, but I never wear it because it is gold-toned. If it's not silver, I won't wear it. It was also wasting away in my jewelry box, so I decided to put it in the other 2.5"x3.5" frame.

How I Framed It: I cut another piece of the flocked cardstock I used when framing the quarter to the size of the frame. I then removed the ring that the medallion came on since it was to deep for the frame. I got out a needle and thread and stitched the medallion onto the cardstock by the little hole at the top. It was a little plain and looked odd without the ring at the top, so I made a little bow from a length of gray ribbon I found in my stash and stitched that on as well. With everything securely sewn in place, I placed it in the frame, made sure that the medallion was hanging straight, and put the back on. I think it turned about pretty spankin' cute.

3. Darin's Eagle Award

Significance: Are you kidding? It's a BSA Eagle Award! Heads of governments' secretaries send out letters congratulating young men on achieving such an award. I went hunting on Thursday and found it in a wooden chest from Darin's youth, under his space camp patch and next to his high school valedictorian medal. (I love that man. Smart and a geek. What more could a girl ask for?) Two days ago, it was pulled from the depths where it had been languishing, and this morning it made it onto the wall.

How I Framed It: I picked up a 5"x7" shadow box at Hobby Lobby, with a 40% off coupon, of course. I was a little worried about how I would mount the medal on the backing, but the backing is velvet over styrofoam, so I just had to push the pins on the back of the "Be Prepared" part into it and it was mounted. (Score!) Next I cut a piece of cardboard to act as a mat board. I printed off the chevron pattern on cardstock and wrapped it around the cardboard mat. I taped my improvised mat in place, put the back on, and hung it on the wall. I think it looks great!

So, what do you think? Do you have any sentimental items lying around, in jewelry boxes or the bottom of drawers that you would like to get up on your wall?

Gallery Wall: Part 1, Inception

About a year ago I started seeing gallery walls (aka memory walls) popping up all over the blogsphere, in shelter magazines and catalogs. It was the perfect thing for our stairwell. As you recall, it wasn't much to look at.

Before

On Tuesday, I found images like these on Pintrest.

Source: thebirdspapaya.com via Heather on Pinterest

Source: nothingbutbonfires.com via Heather on Pinterest

Then I read this post on {twenty}something about her gallery wall.

I decided to be brave and see what frames I could pull together from around the house. I had some pieces lying around already, like Darin's father's lightning photo that used to hang over the piano (more on that later) and the letter photos piece that I wrote about here. They were just sitting on the parlor floor, making me nervous that one of the boys would ruin them. To add to the collection, I started pulling random pieces from other walls in my home and raiding the basement.

When I had everything together, I started cutting and taping grocery ads to use as templates for placement. Normally I would lay out my arrangement on the floor, use a sheet of wax paper to mark all of the nails, hang the wax paper on the wall, pound the nails in, tear off the wax paper and hang away; but that wouldn't have worked so well with the angle of the stairs. However, I did mark all of my templates with nail placements and a brief description of which piece they represented, which made hanging so much easier. Tuesday night I started hanging my templates on the wall.

I was really surprised by how many pieces I actually had. I thought it would takes months to get enough pieces to make a good size display.

I started putting up the largest template pieces first (per {twenty}something's advice), and noticed that I needed some smaller pieces to round out the collection and really pull it together. The smallest I had were 8"x10"s. (Seriously?!?)

I ended up at Target that night for something else, and I spotted this. A black, ten piece frame set for $25! That's only $2.50 a frame. Sure, the frames weren't high quality and the sizes ranged from 8"x10" to 2.5"x3.5", but it was perfect for what I needed. Needless to say, I bought them.

When I got home, I added my new little frames to my pile and took a step back. How on earth did I come up with so much stuff? I was impressed. (Sorry for the bad lighting, it was night.)

On Wednesday, I started driving nails. I was so glad that I had the templates to work with. As the frames slowly went up, I would rearrange the other templates until it was just right. It was a slow process of hanging the largest pieces at the bottom of the stairs, filling in the medium frames, hanging the largest pieces further up the stairs, hanging the smallest frames at the bottom of the stairs, putting up the medium frames around the larger ones further up the stairs... You get the idea. It was a lot of working my way up the stairs, going back down to put up another smaller piece, etc.

Half of the frames have pictures in them, the other half don't. I need to paint some things black, others I need to craft before framing. It's a work in progress (hence the "Part 1"). Thursday was consumed by finding and developing creative ways to frame some keepsakes, as well as printing off some pictures I found online that I really like.

Today, Friday, you guessed it, I'll be working some more on "The Wall."

Look forward to more details on what's going up. In the mean time, here is a sneak-peek at what it currently looks like.

Pintrest: Virtual Crack for DIY-ers

I'll be honest: Pintrest scares me.

Why? Because I could waste hours and hours looking at all of the photos, gleaning ideas, and drooling over all of the pretty rooms. I resisted signing up for months because I didn't want to get caught in its addicting web.

Then younghouselove issued their fall Pintrest challenge and I cracked like an egg.

I got my invite yesterday.

^ Trouble ^

Then the rest of the day unfolded as I knew it would. I spent several hours repinning and gleaning several ideas that will marinade over the next several months. You can check out my boards here.

My Pinterest Boards

Someone do me a favor and call in a few days to make sure that everyone over here are still civil human beings and that we haven't devolved into feral, starving beasts.


PS. I submitted my photo letter art from Monday to the Fall Pintrest Challenge.

The Halloween Train Has Left the Station!

As you may have noticed, the ol' blog got a face lift. (Yay!) It's nothing spectacular, but at least it's mine and not one of the default templates.

You also may have noticed that there was quite a gap between yesterday's post and the one before. That is because I have pretty much done nothing but prep for Halloween for the last two weeks. But our costumes sure did turn out cute!

Train Engineer, Conductor, and Steam Engine

Rose Tyler and The Doctor (Doctor Who)

All of our friends and neighbors loved the train. All the credit on that one goes to Darin. He came up with the idea and did an awesome job!

Happy November, everyone!

What's in a Name?

We've all seen those wonderfully artistic photo letter collages for spelling out your family name or any other word or phrase with special meaning. I've wanted one for a while now, but wasn't sold on any way to do it.

I could purchase this from www.letterperspectives.com,

which would be awesome, but I wasn't willing to pay the $160 for the whole piece, or even $108 for just the pictures. (Seriously?!?)

I considered printing letters in different fonts on patterned paper, using chipboard letters, and trying to find photos online to use for the letters. None of these options was particularly appealing. 

Then I stumbled on this post at Little Mac Shack (seen on Pintrest here). Miss Mac inspired me to summon my courage and try taking my own pictures of objects around my home. It was an amazing experience to go from feeling completely lost and confounded to seeing letters pop up everywhere around my house.

I started snapping away; then pulled the photos into Picasa for some photo editing, uploaded them to Costco Photo, and had them printed by 5:00 PM.

A quick trip to Michaels later (with my additional 25% off any 40% off sale-price frame coupon in hand), I came home with my spoils and got to work.

A little glass cleaning and photo framing later, and I was done! I couldn't believe it! I had wanted a piece like this for so long, and all it took was half a day and $20. 

It also makes it more meaningful that the photos are of objects around my own home. Completely unique and personal. I can't wait to get it up on the wall! Here's another look without the camera flash.

I commented to Darin how grateful I am that it wasn't difficult to find a six opening frame. His reply was, "So that's why you married me--to change your last name to one with six letters instead of seven." Sure, Dear. That's why I married you. *rolls eyes*


PS. I submitted this post to the Fall Pintrest Challenge on Young House Love as mentioned here.