{create} a gallery wall + sources

Thanks for the all the super sweet comments about our new gallery wall! Today I have sources for you and quick instructions for easily creating your own gallery wall.

Let's start with sources. As you remember, this is the gallery wall:

Because it's so big, I split up the wall into three parts, below. You'll see below that a lot of what we picked up was from antique stores, some we made, and others we'd had on hand. If these are still available for purchase, I've linked up, and I also linked to the projects we made. Hopefully you'll see that what makes this wall so personal, and so US, is that we collected objects and prints from a variety of places, and that we're both represented here. Because we have such an extreme variety of art, I used all black frames to tie it together.

Left Side:

Fabric ampersand;Vintage hand pump, from our garage; Food on Sticks, Vintage map of St. Johns (our hood)  from a garage sale; Graphic Portland map; Vintage Letters, from an antique fair; Vintage postcard, from a second hand store; Wooden-handle wrench, from our garage; Live what you love letterpress.

Middle:

Curly Girl postcard, which says "If i had known i would get to spend the rest of my life with you" he said "I would have started the rest of my life much sooner."; Vintage Timberline Lodge pennant, from an antique store; Portal mirror; Vintage car poster, from Chris' collection; Vintage london print, from an antique store; 1932 License plate, from Chris' collection.

Right Side:

Joy letterpress; Oregon forest art, nation wide one here; Fabric; Kite Hill; Vintage car grill, from Chris' collection; Button Art,which says "Kiss Me My Fool"; Three Potato Four; Made in Oregon print;  Pic of us on our honeymoon; Vintage Letters, same as left side.

Please let me know if you have any questions about sources! :)

Now, for how we created this. Usually I am pretty good about *eyeing* placement when I'm hanging frames. But, I was a little intimidated by how big the wall is, so I wanted to be more precise .... and keep the number of nail holes to a minimum.

First, I cleared the wall. Then I found frames for all the art. Which wasn't actually a problem since I found 45 frames in our basement in January. My advice on making this project incredibly budget-friendly is start collecting high quality frames from garage sales, Goodwill, etc. I don't recommend amassing a collection of 45 (clearly we have a problem), but frames are incredibly easy to spray paint and this technique will really keep costs down. Don't have a mat that works with your artwork? You can go to any frames store, with your dimensions, and they'll cut a mat for you. Bonus: cutting mats is actually incredibly inexpensive. For this wall, I only needed three mats cut, and the total came to less than $20. You guys, that's less than $20 for 19 frames and their mats.

Next, I grabbed my roll of parchment paper. I use parchment to wrap gifts, so I always have huge roll on hand. I laid out all the frames, traced them, labeled the tracing, and cut them out.

And, then I taped the cutouts on the wall. I've seen this method all over the internet and thought it seemed like SO. MUCH. WORK. But really? It was awesome! Over a few weeks, I moved the paper around more times than I can count .... with no holes in my wall! Love it.

The result? Hanging everything on the wall was super easy. And, we didn't have to move ANY nails. Which, no matter how good at *eyeing* things I think I am, was a first.

That's how we went about creating our wall. We stretched it out over a couple months, but this could easily be done in a weekend, once you have your artwork picked out.

I hope you're all having a super week! :)