As I mentioned recently, I’ve been on a home organization/home decoration kick since the calendar flipped to January. We’ve been in our house for nearly four years now, but it’s all the stuff I’ve been doing the last several months that has made it really look and feel like us. It would come as a surprise to no one that I’m incredibly particular about most things, and that definitely includes my home decor. I would rather wait and think about exactly how I want a room to look than just throw in some generic decor for the sake of having it look “finished”. Our front living room (pictured here) has perplexed me for a long time, and so I’ve been mulling this over for more than three years.
I knew I wanted some sort of art between the two wall vases above our love seat. I thought of a large canvas of the family, but since that’s what we have on the mantle in our main family room, it seemed redundant. Plus, as much as I love canvases, they become outdated quickly with the kids growing at the mind-boggling rate that they do. It’s a pretty large space to fill and practically everything I could think of to fill it was not something I wanted to commit to long term. Finally one evening while lying on the couch staring at the space, this idea came to me. A frame of instagrams! Fills the large space, still reflects our family, but no permanent commitment required. PERFECTO!
So, I got to work and this idea quickly became a reality. First step – finding a frame. Now, let me just say I’m sure you could find something just wonderful in an antique shop, paint it as you see fit, and get the same look. However, I’m so darned particular I knew it would take me ages to find my ideal frame in an antique shop and if there is one thing I don’t have, it’s free time to go searching around town in a bunch of stores. Instead, I opted to order a custom frame from one of my favorite Etsy shops Rusty Mill. (Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Rusty Mill and they didn’t even know I was a blogger until a couple of days ago. I just like their work, a lot!) I’ve ordered from them a couple times before and have always loved the products. I measured the space, chose my dimensions (30? x 40?), and they crafted my frame (no glass needed – yay!) While the frame was on its way, I ordered my prints from Printstagram. (Again, no affiliation and they don’t know I’m writing this post. This is just the company I decided to use.) Based on the size of the frame I had ordered, I knew that a few sets of their 4-inch square prints would fill the frame nicely. Again, I’m sure you could find some other printing method to end up with very similar results. I didn’t have time to mess with trying to size and print them all myself, so this was the simplest option for me.
I bought a couple of packages of mini clothes pins at Joann’s and painted them gold with metallic craft paint. (If you think that sounds time consuming, I’m with you. I totally thought it would take forever and it actually took about 10 minutes. No need for perfect detailing – just slap the paint on and let dry briefly.) I prefer the look of a uniform neutral-ish color for the clothes pins because I think too bright or too many colors might detract from the images themselves, but that’s really a personal style choice.
When the frame and prints arrived, I dug up some old hemp twine I had from some craft project of years past. I made up a single row of test prints and held it up so I could see about how many would fit in a row, and how many rows I could fit into the frame. I used a staple gun to secure the prints, row by row, to the back of the frame. Then I hung the frame in the place of honor and voila! I was finally happy with the space that had been nagging at me for so long. I absolutely love the way this project has added personality and transformed the room. Our guests always enjoy looking through the photos, and the kids love to stand on the love seat and talk about what is happening in all the different pictures.
This is a fun and easy home decor project that can be easily adapted to whatever space you have available. I’m excited to switch out some of the images in a few months with newer memories, and we’ll save the others in a book or album of some kind. Hooray for ever-changing wall art!