yes, this blog is alive and well... I guess "well" is relative

this post has been going to print for sometime now

but then life got in the way

we moved AGAIN (yes, all the details will be in a post very soon)

so, this post is coming to you from the trailer park ...

lets get on with it.....

Many of you have asked how I decide what and where to hang when putting together my collage/gallery walls

I tried to take photos as I designed the last one.. read photos... as bad blurry dark cell photos... not pretty photographer photos

its a very scientific method... it has taken years of college to perfect

first, I measured the wall I wanted to use and draw a box that size on my floor with yarn

then I start placing things in the box that I know I want to include. If I have not collected enough treasures to fill the box I want to fill, I start pulling things off the walls or off my desk to use as size spacers. This helps me put the wall together even if I don't have ALL my photos yet. This is why you see white squares in the next photo

now I move things around to space out the same color and to get a great variety of sizes and shapes. In other words, I don't want all that yellow in one corner, it would cause your eye to pause there instead of continuing around the corner. I also want a mix of photos and word art and a couple antiques. Its at this point I figure out what size all my empty places are, and I go off hunting around the house, or order some prints to fit the open spaces. 

The prints I ordered online need to be framed, so I gather some ugly frames that fit and set them in the mix. I didn't like how the 2 word art prints in the bottom left corner a few photos above were next to each other, so I moved them around. The UPS man (don't you love the UPS man? Please tell me I am not the only one...) brought the prints I ordered and so I set them in their places. And, this is a great time to explain that I get most of my photos mounted from my lab. Its amazing. You don't have to use frames, you can put them up with the Command velcro strips. No holes in the wall. Easy to move. The mounted prints come in all sizes. Those small photos in the bottom left are mounted, and the larger prints are also done this way. They work great on shelves and leaning up on things. 

Now we paint the frames and while they are drying, we get started hanging. Because I want them to stay lined up in a box, we started at the bottom and lined all the things in the bottom row up with the lazer level. (by we, I mean my husband). If you have been around here long, you will already know he is the bomb at this. Its not his first dog and pony show. If you didn't see my frame wall at my last house,  right click here. 

So, after all the edges are lined up, he starts working on the middle. And here you can see the frames were sprayed grey to match. 

here she is, all done. Well, almost all done. I still need to paint the small round frame. (after he got this all up, it looked great... for about 4 weeks, and then we moved... good thing we used command strips) 

Ok, here are some more phone shots (taken by my daughter) of the wall in our living room. It was done the exact same way. Please excuse our jammies. Just being real. 

I wasn't kidding about the jammies. Chuck is gonna kill me. 

I was working with photos I already had, and didn't want to spend any money to order more. The 3 empty places made me crazy, but I needed just the right sized things to fill the hole. It stayed this way for a few weeks. Finally, after a successful antiquing day, I found just what I wanted. 

BAM. Nope, your don't need glasses. Sadly, this blurry dark cell photo is all that I have to show you. And, now all those beauties are in storage. But, you get the point, right? 

p.s. - I just scrolled back and read a few old blog posts, and here is a place where you can see more of the gallery walls, with much better pics. 

Finally a new blog post, lots going on around here, sorry for the delay

Do you have lots of big blank walls in your home?

Don't be afraid of big walls..... they can be so much fun to decorate

but you have to have a plan

and a patient husband {or all the tools, and measuring, and painting, and ladder skills yourself}

here is my story:

We have one of those houses where you walk in and there is a staircase immediately inside the door. You know the kind where there is a few steps, then a landing, then a lot of steps, then a landing, then a few steps, then the upstairs hall.. kinda like a boxy "C". Well, we have that. And the wall is HUGE and goes up stairs, and has a handrail up it. 

So, what do you do with that? 

Awhile back I had a crazy idea to fill it with frames... but without photos....odd.. since I am a photographer, eh? Go with me anyway... a big crazy fun wall with gobs of color and personality. So, I began searching for frames at garage sales, thrift stores, my own garage, other peoples garage... you get the point. Then I stashed them in the garage {which may be one of my husbands pet peeves}. I didn't really care what color the frame was because I was going to change that anyway. {by "I"- I mean my sweet husband who loves to paint for me}

Ok, fast forward to this past summer. I decided that my collection was starting to overtake the garage, so it was time to get this dog and pony show started. Here is where you better start taking notes if you want to do this project.

1- I emptyied all the ugly pics and paintings that were in the frames and threw them away. {again, when I say "I"- I mean husband. I will stop telling you that and assume you get my drift}

2- I measured the frames and wrote down the measurements

3- got out my calculator and used fractions to scale down the sizes to a more manageable size for patterns

4- cut out "to scale" boxes of scrap paper that coincide with each frame size {so, if the frame was a 16x24, I made the paper 4x6} get it? my math teacher MR Gann would be so darn impressed

5- measured the large crazy boring blank wall and then scaled it down to size and decided to use my large chalk board as the "wall" for my design stage {in my photo below you can see the blue line is the handrail and the bottom line is where the landing starts- clever I know}

6- begin taping up the boxes {which represent the frames I had} to make a nice display. Moved them around and lived with it for awile. this allowed me to make sure I liked the style and design before we began on the acutal wall.. and the Fred Meyer add.. I didn't have any paper bigger than 12x12, so the recycle bin was 2nd best.. .and the color of the paper does not correspond at all to the frame color, it was the ugliest scraps I could find that I was sure would not be needed

7- sketched out the chalkboard design on paper {not to scale..math twice in one day is too much for me} and highlighted each frame in the color I wanted them painted. This helped me figure out how to include all the colors I wanted and not end up with two frames of the same color next to eachother

8- hang the frames on the wall {I am making this sound so simple and its wasn't} we have stairs and you need a fancy ladder that will work on those, and we borrowed one, and I like to change my mind. I did not paint them at this point. some were already painted the color I chose to leave them, but I wanted to make sure I loved it before asking hubby to paint..we may or may not have had a painting changing my mind issue earlier in the year... so I was trying to save face here

9- take down frames and paint them by using my color map I made..like paint by numbers

10- rehang painted frames. stand back. enjoy

p.s.- you know the best part... some of these frames come with great memories. Two are from a dear friend who moved away. I smile and think of her when I walk by. The small red ovals were in my sister in laws childhood room {not red, of course}. I love to have little pieces of many of my dear friends and family represented here. 

p.s.s- I know the red one at the top fell off the nail and is crooked. Remember the part about having to borrow a ladder, its a pain and now we don't have a truck or suburban to get it. 

p.s.s.s- last note- as if you don't already know this, these are not profesionally shot photos. These are Iphone, snapshots, so don't judge me :) See, I take regular joe photos too. and they are not lit correctly, kinda shady, and have bad coloring too. we will be talking about all that here soon, so stick around!!