Wall Collages

We have lived in our home for over 2 years now. And the walls have remained bare. We've hung a few paintings, but I'm a little shy when it comes to picture collages. Maybe it's because I hate putting holes in my walls or maybe I hate the thought of getting every picture perfectly aligned or even worse perfectly NOT aligned if I'm going for that eclectic/different frames sort of look! Let's be honest, it's all of these reasons and probably some I'm not even remembering! Well, I decided it was time to get with it and over come my picture collage fear! Especially after I walked in my sis in laws house and she had done a collage just by eyeballing it! Really??? I don't have this special talent...it was all about the laser leveler for me and my very sweet and PATIENT husband coming to the rescue...I'll get to that part in a sec! First of all, frame selection! I went with the Ikea Ribba in silver (same as my sis in law:)! I love this frame!!!! I love that you can pay a little for A LOT of style! I love that it is a fairly substantial and chunky frame! My Mom actually walked in our home and said, "Wow! It didn't take long for you to get those pictures framed! Where did you get them done?" I was all to happy to inform her the frames were from Ikea and that it took me a few minutes to frame all of my images! Talk about bang for your buck folks!!!! Now onto the next...

It was a Friday and I decided to cut butcher paper to the exact measurements of my frames and tape them to the wall. Now I know this step probably isn't mandatory, but instead of working with a perfectly square wall I was working with the angle of my stairs. So I felt I needed to put a "rough draft" if you will, on the wall to tweak and adjust as I walked by throughout the day! Plus, I wasn't certain on the pattern I wanted to hang the pictures in. So taping the paper up gave me an awesome visual and I was able to quickly decide that I wanted the pictures all straight and uniform in width apart but graduated! Remember, I'm shy with this stuff, so for now, this is about as far out of the box as I will go!:) So, Friday night my sweet Hub helped me hang our pictures! Let me preface what happened over the course of that hour by saying, "I didn't have any room to complain, nag or even speak for that matter. I haven't hung many pictures in my life time and have ZERO room to talk!" Needless to say for the next hour, even with the laser leveler in his hands, I hissed, whined, stomped a foot or two (I know, I sound like a 2 year old) and pretty much told my patient husband everything he was doing wrong! Honestly, looking back it's soooo beyond embarrassing! I thought I was a genius by buying those 3m Damage free hanging strips! Awesome right? No holes in my walls? Wrong! Damage free my foot!!! We tried a few and it took the paint clean off!!! So now back to holes in my wall and worrying he was going to put too many in all the wrong places! I was nothing short of a nightmare I'm sure! So after all my pestering.....

SURPRISE!!!! My husband hangs one mean and perfect picture collage! With zero help from me obviously!!! After it was all done and I looked up at his perfect work with my tail between my legs he let me know he was heading downstairs to his office to unwind! Dang it! I can be such a ninnymuggins sometimes! It was upstairs with the kiddos for me with a little storytime and tucking in bed! While my two babies and I were snuggled up reading stories I sent Kimble(hub) this text, "I just wore you ragged! I'm so sorry! I know I was a butthead! You are very patient!" I know, I know, can we say world's most awesome communicator??? His response, "Love u babe!" Now that, is true love y'all! And the really crazy part is, is he's still willing to help me with random projects around our home! And I'm getting a lot better at trusting the good work he does!:)

Okay, after all that rambling the key points:

1. Pick a wall in your home!

2. Pick your images and frames!

3. Cut butcher paper or scrap wrapping paper to the size of your frames and tape them up! I promise it will work wonders for the vision of your collage. Heck, I may even get a little crazy I try a fun one using different sized frames in the near future!

4. Have fun while hanging your pics! Because it SHOULD be fun. And not the horror I made it out to be!:)

5. Also wall collages don't always have to consist of only pictures! Throw a cute little painting or two in or some fun decorative plates!!! The decorative plates idea comes from the better half of this blog, my sisser Bri! She has the cutest decorative plate collage hanging in her home! I wish I had a picture to show you! Maybe she can post a pic just to give you an idea of the creative fun you can have! No pressure Bri!!!

images by Kara