Gallery Wall

Wow, I just noticed that I originally started this post in May.  MAY!  Thats how on top of this whole situation I am.

Anyways....

I chose one of the walls in our hallway to host our gallery wall, our house is pretty small so this was really the only spot for one to go.  I wish I took a before photo, but I did take a picture of the opposite wall so you get a better idea.

So hard to get a good picture of these walls.

I originally started with only a few frames, and chose to put up a few of our wedding pictures, and then a wedding picture from the rest of our family - and of course, one of our sweet fur-baby Jasper.  After hanging those pictures up, I bought about six more IKEA frames with the very good intention of expanding it.  I even bought a print off Etsy to be the centre of the gallery - on April 8th! Geez louise... where did the time go!

And then I received my Secret Santa gift at work and was given this:

(Those people are not us, just the stock frame fillers.  We'll eventually get nice pics to put in there!)

This is THE BEST SECRET SANTA GIFT EVER! And my Santa was not so secret. Thanks Lindsay!

I got home that night, and it's like I couldn't sit down without doing something with that frame!  I originally wanted to put it in the nursery, but with the frame being black, it didn't fit.

Then the hubby suggested it go on the gallery wall.  Well, that just got me going.  Nesting in full force!

I got right down to business.  I grabbed the previously purchased IKEA frames from the basement, along with the Etsy print and got to work.  It took a bit of shuffling around and a few misplaced nail holes, but I LOVE the way it looks now!

Again, so hard to get a nice picture of this wall!

I bought this print from an Etsy shop called Frilly Chilly Designs.  They were so awesome to deal with and it was exactly like I pictured it.

I think it is the perfect centrepiece for this gallery wall.

I also made (and by made, I mean painted and mod-podged) this letter 'C' for our last name.

I know there are lots of methods of creating a gallery wall out there in the blogosphere, but I just flew by the seat of my pants.  No method, just madness.  And I think it looks great.

I smile a little every time I walk by it, which is very often as the bathroom is at the end of the hallway!

Now, I just have to get some pictures in the new frames! 

Etsy.... Sigh...

If you would have asked me a few months ago if I'd heard of Etsy, I would have said 'Bless you!'

I heard about Etsy through one of my favorite blogs Our Humble A(Bowe)d.  It appears that Amanda has an Etsy addiction.  She has gotten some beautiful stuff from Etsy.

So, when my husband and I were talking about what to do on the big wall in our dining room, my first thought was Etsy. 

We have a pretty big wall to fill, so whatever we were going to do, needed to be on the larger side.  We started with a pretty blank slate.

You can get pretty much anything you can imagine on Etsy, so I had to narrow down my search.  We knew we wanted to have some kind of art.  I started to peruse all of the art, and further narrowed my search to strictly photography.

I found a wonderful photography 'shop' called Slight Clutter.  The artist, Katya Horner, is extremely talented and has some absolutely beautiful photo's.

I ended up buying three 12 x 12 prints from her 'Passionate Earth' series.  I love Fall (or Autumn as some people call it) and these photos reminded me of my favorite season and warmed my heart.

We bought these photo's for only $25 each (we got them on sale!) and decided to use IKEA Versirum frames in white.

Here's a look at the photo's we bought:

'Red'

'Passionate Earth'

'Rose Petals'

I think that these photo's bring a nice pop of color to our room.

View from the Kitchen

View from the front Hallway

View of all three

Also, as an unexpected surprise, Katya also included this beautiful print for free!!:

'Another Day, Another Fairytale'

Not too sure what I'm going to do with this one yet, but it will definitely look beautiful where ever it goes!

I am sooooo happy with the end result.  My dining room finally feels 'finished', and I love it!

I also have a new love... and it's name is Etsy. Sigh....