DIY Gallery Wall

A new apartment means making my decor fit a new area. When I unpacked my pictures, shelves, and random decorating items, I realized I wanted a different look this time. We have lived in a lot of apartments in our 3 years of marriage (8 apartments) and I feel like my decorating style never varies a whole lot. Well, I am changing that! I went to my handy dandy Pinterest boards and I chose a style that I really love. In an effort to keep this change affordable, I used most of the items I already had and gave them a different look. My new apartment (like most) has a focal wall that is obvious upon walking through the front door. I decided I wanted to create a gallery wall there. I wanted to include some religious documents, family pictures, and trendy art work in a cohesive manner, to make a fresh, modern, gallery wall! By the end of this project it was apparent to me that the trendy art really drew it all together. I purchased a set of gallery wall prints that had matching color schemes and foil. The set was super affordable and it will make your gallery wall go from ok to awesome! 

Now, usually religious documents and family pictures tend to get little attention in the average wall arrangement and I wanted to change that. So, I incorporated the documents and photos into my gallery wall using the same color scheme and style as the rest of my art work. You will notice that I added some embellishments to my documents and matted them in the same way as the rest of my art.

This made them look great with my other things!

Like I said, I wanted to keep this affordable so I picked up about 5 frames from the thrift store (ranging from $0.75-$2.00) and used some of the frames I already had. I picked up 3 fresh bottles of acrylic paint and went to work. 

After painting all of my once-ugly-frames, I became pretty excited about how they turned out and I couldn't wait to finish the project. I put some of my trendy art work in a few of them and I could see things coming together! 

In order to make them look like a cohesive set, I chose a few gold frames from the thrift store and also painted a couple of the wood ones in coordinating colors. Choosing a color scheme is important in order to make your gallery wall work. I chose light grey, gold, charcoal, cactus green, and a dark wood stain. All in all I used 10 frames. The pictures that I matted I matted all in white. Once again, I did this to help my pictures look like a set.

Once your pictures, documents, and art are all matted, framed, and set, it's time to hang them. I set my pictures close together because that was the look I wanted, but you can set them as far apart as you like. I laid mine out on my bed before I hung them to decide how they best fit together. Once I found an order I liked, I traced each picture onto wrapping paper and cut the shape out. Then I took the wrapping paper shapes and tapped them on the wall in the order I had chosen. I used a level to make sure each paper was straight on the wall. I hammered a nail in the center top area of each paper, then I tore the paper down and hung my frames on their now-ready-nails!

Once you are finished, enjoy your new gallery wall!