Say Cheese!

We have lived in our new house now for a little over a year and I am sorry to say that I still have a lot of blank wall space.  It's not that I don't WANT things hung...it's that I haven't made the time to figure out what I want on each wall, to purchase things, to make things...whatever the case might be.  I am finally starting to get on this though because I think a house looks so much homier with pictures hung, don't you?? 

I am trying to be more thrifty about things and thanks to Pinterest I find all sorts of wonderful ideas to save money on house projects.  I knew I needed several frames for a couple of gallery walls but I also know frames can really add up.  What to do, what to do...ah!  I had a ton of old frames just laying around in drawers that were outdates - brass (just not my taste...) or just in need of some love.  I decided to sand them down and give them a fresh coat of paint to make them all black.  I had some black acrylic paint so after sanding the frames I used the black paint and viola!  Easy peasy and much cheaper than buying all new frames!

I also needed some mattes but didn't want to spend the money on those either.  So I decided to just whip those up myself with something that I saw on Pinterest.  I already had a couple that I had bought awhile back so I decided to use those for a template in making my own mattes.  I had seen on Pinterest where someone used cereal boxes and upcycled them into mattes.  I have a ton of boxes like that in my pantry that I would have just thrown away so I decided to put them to good use.

First I took the matte that I already had and traced it onto the inside of the box I was using.  I then used a utility knife to cut out the pattern from the box.  Using the cardboard box makes the matte look thicker than if you just used regular paper to create one.  This makes a difference!

Next step is to figure out how you want your matte to look.  You can use plain white paper or colorful scrapbook paper.  I opted for some scrapbook paper that I already had around the house.  Lay the matte that you cut out of cardboard on the back of your sheet of cardstock.  Trace onto the scrapbook paper so that it is the same size as your cardboard matte.  Now cut the shape out of the scrapbook paper.  I again used a utility knife here. 

Now that you have both pieces of your matte ready, it's time to glue them together.  I used rubber cement for this but I'm sure any type of glue would work.  Glue them together then make sure they fit in the frame.  I had to trim off a little on a couple of them but for the most part they were close to perfect.

Now you can place the matte in your frame and add a picture!  I'm sure my best friend won't mind me showing off her gorgeous child on here to show you my final products.  :)



Now that I had my frames and my mattes ready, it was time to hang them on the wall.  I have looked at a ton of ideas for hanging pictures in a stairway and finally decided I would just do it my own way. Everyone has different sizes of frames and different ideas so there is no right or wrong way to do this in my opinion.  I cut paper to the sizes of the frames I would be using and hung them on the wall so I could easily move it around until I decided how I wanted everything.  I wrote on the pieces of paper what size of picture would go in each so it would help me decide what to put in each frame.  I had to explain a couple of times, no, this is not some new kind of art I am trying out....

I am extremely pleased with the final product!  I will add a few more to the bottom most likely.  I love having family pictures on this wall!

We also recently finished up another photo gallery in our basement.  We are doing a music theme in that room as we both grew up around music, playing music, listening to music, etc.  I used old photos of our family members playing instruments and some newer ones of hubby playing the guitar.  I mixed in a couple of cool wire pieces that I found at Hobby Lobby.  One more project completed!