The Beginnings of the Gallery Wall

We've been in our house for almost a year now, and we had yet to put any but one picture up on the walls. Until a couple of weeks ago. We kept telling ourselves that we would wait until we painted the walls. But picking paint colors and actually painting the walls just kept falling lower and lower on the priority list. 

So, even though our walls were still move-in-ready beige, I decided I wanted to try out a gallery wall. I already had a few frames that I knew I would include, but I also bought five new ones that were on sale at Michael's. And I knew I wanted to include the initial letters (e & r) that Beth got us for Christmas. I pulled all of my frames together and started by laying them out on the floor to find the best arrangement. 

The winning arrangement!

Then I traced each frame onto white craft paper and cut out the correct size and shape. I also drew a pencil mark on the paper in the spot where the nail would need to go. Once I decided on the arrangement that I wanted, I taped each square/rectangle (quadrilateral, I guess) into it's respective spot. I used washi tape since I didn't want to ruin the paint that we didn't want to keep. :)

Then came the easiest part: I hammered a nail right onto each of the little pencil marks on the paper and then just pulled the paper right off. That way, all of the nails were in (approximately) the correct spot for each frame. 

Then I hung the frames in the same layout that I had on the floor. There were some minor adjustments needed, but Richard helped with those since I was losing patience. 

The (mostly) finished product!

The layout is pretty much what I wanted, but most of the frames have filler photos at the moment. The three identical brown frames have pages from Anthropologie catalogs. The two gold frames from Michael's still have the generic pictures that they came with (but I kind of like them for now). And the black frame with the verse (Lamentations 3:22-23) used to have a watercolor painting in it, but it had a horizontal orientation and I needed a vertical frame. So I wrote out the verse on black matboard and switched them out. 

Basically, the only ones that are supposed to be there are the world map, the e & r letters, and the two small brown frames. Those frames have greeting card fronts with Oscar Wilde quotes. Love that guy.