DIY Wooden Frames- On the Cheap!

I have mentioned before that Staples offers some inexenspive B/W prints. Each one comes in a pretty large size to start. 

To my surprise, I just learned that they now offer colored engineering prints for under $10. I will be sharing more about that kind of print soon, but for now I want to share how you can create inexpensive frames for those engineering prints- so here it goes!

Once you order your prints and pick them up at Staples, wrap them around some inexpensive canvases. I purchased ours at a local craft supply store. You can secure your pictures either by stapling them or even taping them to the back of your canvas.

So here is how you make the frames.
Once you have your print and canvas ready, take some 1x2's (I purchased these at Lowe's) and measure the size you need to frame each canvas.

Next, take a and simply cut each 1x2 to size. Take a few small nails and hammer the 1x2's together to create your frame. (Just make sure to double check your measurements before cutting!)

Once the frames are done, make sure your canvas print will "fit" inside of the frames.

Stain each frame/wood piece using whatever stain you prefer.
I generally love to use Minwax Provincial stain. This can be found at any hardware store. I think we got this one at Home Depot. A little bit goes a long way.

Once your frames are dried and you've placed your canvas print inside, they are ready to hang!
I hung ours on the wall going up our stairs. A small nail did the trick since each one of these pictures/frames is pretty lightweight. 
That's another thing to love about this project! You don't have to worry about anchoring a heavy photo or frame to your walls.

I decided to place 4 on this wall. And I believe I chose the 18x24 prints for these pictures. 
All in all I'd say the total for this project cost roughly $20. And that also includes the frames!
Because we had the stain already on hand, I didn't include that in the price- BUT even if you do, this is still a pretty inexpensive project that makes a HUGE impact!

So if you are looking for a pretty quick and easy/inexpensive project, give this one a try! It makes for a rustic yet personal project that can add some character to your home. :)

The Gallery Wall- Complete!

After a bit of tweaking, I finally finished our gallery wall! I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out- even though it took some time to complete...it was worth it especially to have our memories displayed. 
I used a collection of frames we already had which was nice- it meant I didn't have to purchase any new ones. :)
Most of the frames came from Target...and a few came from random thrift stores in the area.

So to recap, I started out with not as many frames as I wanted. Because our wall is pretty tall right here, adding a few more photos made sense. And it still didn't look too overwhelming. 
The last thing I wanted was for this space to feel cluttered.

So after some tweaking, adding and taking away just a couple of frames, I decided on the best placement. That picture is below. :)

And that is all! Hoping to get some other photos ready soon of our kitchen light.

Thanks for stopping by!

A New Gallery Wall- Staircase

When we first moved into our second home not too long ago, I, of course, wanted to add some photos that meant a lot to my family and I. In our last house, we had a gallery wall of family pictures going up the staircase, and I loved it. In our new home, I wasn't sure if that was something we were going to do because our stairs are the first thing you see when you walk into the entryway of our home, so I held off and put 3 big canvas pictures there until I could decide what I really wanted.

Well, then Jennifer from Dear Lillie decided to do a gallery wall going up her staircase and it turned out beautifully! I loved it! That gave me enough inspiration to do one again and so I gathered all of our pictures from the house and chose only a select number to line the stairs. I did this so that the space wouldn't feel overwhelming. I am not really a fan of crowded gallery walls- sometimes they look awesome and well done and other times they look cluttered to me. So to avoid that, I just decided to do a certain amount and keep the frames simple with black and white.

I started out by making templates of each of the frames I wanted to use which worked out pretty well. I have to be honest and say that by the end however, I just ended up taking the templates off and just using my judgement on where the frames should go. Needless to say, that method had me putting more holes in the walls, but honestly, they are so little that it doesn't bother me. And we plan on painting the stairway walls in the future, so we can cover up whatever we need to then.

This was just the start to the pictures...I ended up adding a few more because our wall in the stairway goes up pretty high, so I wanted to add a few more we already had to fill that space. I will have some pictures of that to come soon once I have time to edit them. 
Overall, I do think that having a gallery wall here makes sense and since we loved having one in our last place, I'm excited we finally got one up in our new place. 

I'm hoping to have some more finished pictures to share later and also later in the week, I will share pictures of our new light fixture in the kitchen! Until then, have a great Monday everyone!

Stairwell Photo Gallery- Wall

Last week I showed you guys the progress to our gallery wall in the stairwell.

Well, now it is complete so I have some pictures to show you!

Let's get to it!

I blogged about my DIY wood frame last week  and we love it so!!

Also, I know the pictures are a bit dark, but I did take them at night.

However, you can still get the idea of what it looks like in the stairwell.

I really love how each picture tells a story.

Whenever our daughters go up the stairs to their playroom, they always stop and look at these pictures. Even our youngest does and it is the sweetest thing!

Now some of you guys may be thinking it looks a bit crowded (even though I may not agree!) but this is really the only gallery wall we have in the house. I took down our old one  and moved the pictures to the stairwell and love it so much better this way.

I hope you do too.

Thanks for stopping by!

Making Changes in the Stairwell

I have a semi-quick project to share on the blog today folks!

A little bit ago, I moved our entryway gallery wall to the stairwell to keep most of the picture confined there. However, it seemed that added pictures to both sides of the stairwell wall was a bit much so it was time for a quick change.

See what I mean?!?

Oh, and I had to take a picture of my two little cuties playing together while I was snapping some pictures. :)

I used my handy left-over scrap wood again to make another picture frame and I went ahead and used the same that I used for this project.

I watered the stain down a little bit and that seemed to help with the darker color- it was a bit too dark originally, but now it's more of the shade I was looking for.

This was a picture I took a few years ago at the beach.

It looks great in black and white and I enlarged the print at Staples just like I did in this post!

The whole cost for the project was under $7.00  :)

In the meantime, I am working on moving the pictures to just one wall in the stairwell, that way we only have one gallery wall instead of 2 or 3.  ;)

At some point, I need to update my house tour- hoping to get working on that soon!

Hope everyone is staying warm this week!

Thanks for stopping by!

Book Storage Upstairs

The post from yesterday continues....

As you know, the space upstairs in this little corner has been lacking in design and for a while I didn't know what to do with the area.

Recently, I purchased some boxes at Office Depot and recovered them in paper, fabric, and twine.

Now the little space looks like this!

The green lamp is from Target.

I love it's pop of color!

All of these boxes hold books from my teaching days.

They will make great reads for our girls when they get older too! :)

And the picture frame of our sweeties was a purchase from Home Goods.

Other sources include the white painted bookshelf we bought at Target a few years ago and I covered a wine bottle in twine (you can see it in the pictures above on top of the bookshelf).

Thanks for stopping by!