How to Hang your Frames

I have so many frames and no where to put them all! At least that is how I felt after my wedding. Cliff and I have a small one bedroom apartment and I was worried I wouldn't find enough shelves and tables let alone wall space to display all of our new pictures from the wedding and engagement. I have such a hard time choosing which ones to print off, so after leaving the photo store (aka walmart print center) I end up with more than I need. 

I have been a little intimidated to hang these pictures since I can hardly get one picture on the wall without having to pull out the nail and damage the wall a few more times before I get it where I want it. 

I finally decided to just go for it today. I first started out by choosing the wall I wanted to cover. Then on the floor beneath it, I laid out my frames how I wanted them. It's a lot easier to lay out the design before getting it on the wall and feeling stuck towards the end. 

I then flipped over all the frames exactly in their spot.

I then took my very wide aluminum foil and laid two strips across the back of the frames.

This allows a perfect indentation of each frame and the hook for where the nail should be. If you would like extra guidance, you can use a sharpie to mark around the frame area and and X to mark the nail hole spot. 

After outlining each frame, take the foil and tape it on the wall where you wanted to hang the collage. Make sure it's not too overpowering, and it's where you want it. Next hammer a nail into each X. I put up each picture after I nailed each nail just to make sure it looked spatially correct. 

It may look a little odd, but it did help me make sure each frame was in the correct spot. Just take down the foil, move any frames that need it, and there you go! A perfect gallery wall that didn't take crazy amounts of measuring and stress!

Enjoy!

-Jess

Make your Own Printable

Cliff and I had such a good weekend at my best friends wedding at the St. George Temple. There were so many cute things that inspired me to do more projects.

The first item I loved was a printable. I talked with the bride and she told me it was about $20 to buy the printable and then additional costs to print it off and buy a frame. Since I am a total cheapskate, I took a picture of the printable I loved and set off today to make a similar version for FREE. 

So here is a picture of what was on a table at Taylor's wedding reception. It's not the best angle of the picture since I mainly wanted a close up of the fonts and style. 

So here is my finished product. 

I think it turned out pretty nicely. Printable's can really add character and personality to your home. I suggest adding things that make you smile and remember happy times or inspire you. To find similar fonts that the original created, I went to some free font sites including dafont.com. If you are sick of the fonts on your computer, you may spend hours downloading free fonts to use. You can use these fonts in any program on your computer after they are downloaded. 

A simple way to recreate this printable without any fancy programs would be to make it just in a Word document. Type what you like, and play around with the fonts until it looks just how you like it. I personally used Adobe Illustrator, but any program that uses text would work perfectly. 

I plan on putting this in a photo collage in my living room. I will put up pictures when it's complete! 

Let me know what you think!

-Jess