A Better Frame of Mind

I've been working on this gallery wall in my dining room forever.  The room is tall, white, and zzzzzzzzzzzz boring.  I looked for weeks and weeks at curtains, contemplated sewing my own, and finally saw these curtains on sale at Target.com for $7.  Seven bucks for two panels!  I didn't realize they came in packs of two, so I actually have 4 panels now.  But, I think these create some really great drama in this boring little room.

Closeup of the colors - beige, grey, and black.  So chic.

Lovely, and it stops people form peeking in our house.

But what about this big blank wall?

I started with a bunch of random wood frames and such, and I want to create a dramatic gallery wall.  At first I was going with an all natural theme, but I didn't love it, and it frankly didn't go with my new dramatic curtain color.  So, I took my wood frames and painted them all with black spray paint.

Original frames

I started randomly throwing things in frames in my excitement to get stuff on the wall, but I had to rein myself in and try to do it a better way.  So, I took a good look at the things I wanted to frame and decided to turn them from ok to great!  A simple mat from Michaels and a shuffling of frames turned this amazing photo taken by my friend Richie at Marheine Photography from blending in with the thick black frame to really standing out in a larger, thinner frame!

First time around - picture tossed in a spray painted frame

So much better!  A simple grey mat and scrapbook paper in a thinner frame!

Other things got the good treatment as well...

PS - be sure to check out my sister's blog, Sunbeam Yellow, for the how-to on the above art.  The tree contains the lyrics to me and Jon's wedding song, and the hearts contain our initials.  Adorbs.  I simply spray painted the white frame to match the rest

Before

After

Photo Strip from our post-bar exam to Atlantic City.  Including a yellow and grey background (scrapbook paper) makes it more exciting!

Amazing story behind this business card on my old design blog

And we have the start of a great gallery wall collection!  As you can see, there's ONE more thing to put up there that's in the works, but I really like it!