From a 12” x 18” mistake to a gallery wall

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to have a few of my photos developed in a 12” x 18” format. You know what’s wrong with that size? It’s impossible to find off-the-shelf  frames for 12” x 18” photos. Well, at least around here where there’s two stores that sell frames. Plus *somebody* complained that $20 is too much to pay for a frame, so even if I COULD find the right size, I’d get the stink eye.

When we drove my dad to the airport a couple of weeks ago, we took advantage of being in Halifax and did some shopping. Oh HomeSense, how I’ve missed you! Stink eye or not, I was on a mission to buy some frames. Except even trusty HomeSense didn’t have 12” x 18” frames. ARGH! So when I saw this box of seven frames for $49.99, I came up with a new plan – cut my photos to fit into these frames and create a gallery wall.

The frame set comes with two templates to create your gallery wall layout. I used one of the templates as a starting point for figuring out a layout that I liked. I cut one of my sand art photos into two smaller ones, and also cut down the chair photo to fit the largest frame. The other frames are the perfect size for note cards and post cards and birthday cards :-)

I cut out each frame outline from the template and held the back of each frame against the corresponding outline to mark where the hangers were. Then I stuck the papers onto the wall and used a small level to make sure they were lined up right.

Then I hammered nails right through the holes that I marked on the papers, pulled the papers off the wall, and hung my pictures.

My 12” x 18” photos cut down to fit the frames.

I picked up this framing system for $5.00 at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago. I’m going to put pictures of Squirt into the frames eventually, but for now I’m using some doggie birthday cards that I have. The piece of driftwood conveniently had two holes the perfect size for a couple of nails.

 

And there it is, an easy and relatively inexpensive way to add some colour and interest to a boring blank white bedroom wall.

By the way, sorry for the lousy picture quality. I couldn’t take pictures during the day because the horizontal blinds on the opposite side of the room reflected off the glass. And taking pictures at night wasn’t much better because either the flash or the ceiling light reflected off the glass. So this is the best I could do!