The Learner Observer

Follow me on Instagram?  Then you may already know that I completed this Gallery Wall recently, and how insanely excited I am about it.  I know… I’m capitalizing the words Gallery Wall as if it’s The Great Wall of China!  It’s not… but it’s the Great Gallery Wall of the Murray Household, ok? If your answer to the first question was “yes”, you have also already seen this:

Want to see how it turned out? Check it:

Let me just apologize for having to use iPhone photos for this.  I keep forgetting my camera at my parents’ house and I simply couldn’t wait to post about it.  This wall has been in the works for a long time, and it turned out so much better than I even imagined.  Here is how it all started:

I had several frames already and purchased more slowly over the last 8 months.  Yep… that long!  As you can see in the first picture in the collage above, I started out with very few frames.  I traced their shapes onto newspaper and taped them to the wall.  I then moved some of them around and added a few more, which you can see are the plain shapes (and I do realize this all would have looked much nicer had I not used colourful, printed newspaper the first time around… you win some, you lose some!). My husband was kind enough to hang up ALL of the things on this wall.  Isn’t he amazing?

I thought I should try to provide a list of frames and artwork I used for the Gallery Wall, adding costs wherever I can remember them still!  Above are the things I started planning with.

Gallery Wall Supplies:

• 3  HAVERDAL frames  – $7.99 each at IKEA (used for the cameos)
• 2 sets of NYTTJA frames (one white, one black) – $3.99 each at IKEA
• 1 pack of KORT art cards – $3.99 at IKEA (framed with NYTTJA)
• 1 white RIBBA frame – $14.99 at IKEA
• 1 BILD poster – $5 at IKEA (framed with RIBBA)
• Letter “M” – $3.99 at Walmart
• Brass letter “t” – $5 at Urban Outfitters – on sale, purchased in July of 2012, no longer available on their site. Side note: yes, I did purchase the AWESOME brass stencil months before we even had any actual thoughts on what this wall would look like.  I just knew I would love it wherever it ended up!  Also, I attempted to purchase the “m” brass letter, but it was sold out!
• Chalkboard (and here) – Antique shop find/DIY project.  Approximate total cost: $15 (not including cost of paint used for other projects).
• Teapot framed artwork – Bridal shower gift from a lovely friend
• White square Threshold frame – $7.99 at Target
• Estimated total of seven other frames – $60 (all on sale between $5-12 each, purchased over the last 2 years)
• Cameo artwork & photo prints – $3

TOTAL ESTIMATED COST: $150.00

You wonderful Instagram followers will also remember seeing this:

This little lovely was a portrait of me done by Alisha when we were in Teacher’s College.  Isn’t she brilliant?  I used washi tape on the mat to liven it up.  I ended up adding washi tape on several of the frames, actually, and the two shadow box frames have small photos taped to inside.

Here’s a close-up of each side of the wall:

Pardon the glare – we have sliding doors to the deck directly across from this wall, so it’s inevitable!  Also, pardon the empty frame – no 5×7 photos to be found in this house!

So there you have it… my somewhat planned Gallery Wall.  I say somewhat because although I went as far as cutting out newspaper frame shapes, there is nothing meticulously measured or planned, there are nail holes hiding behind some of these frames already because they had to be moved, it’s all very much interchangeable – let’s face it, we all know how likely I am to move some of these around or at the very least, change the photos in the frames!

A look at the whole living room now that one more step has been completed?  Sure!

There you have it.  One of the many projects currently on the go is complete… for now!

Linking up here and at The Re-purposed Life.