Make A Hallway Frame Gallery Wall, step by step

Is not it strange how you can start a project (in this case the gallery of frames that we hoped to “wallpaper” our hallway walls with) and then simply leave the other half of it undone for a month. Not weeks. Literally a month. What is wrong with us? And it is not like we were not obsessed with the results of the first half of the project (recounted here):

We simply ran out of frame gas or something, so we switched over to console building and chair painting and closet organizing and ceramic dog gluing and tree trimming and sectional leg spray-painting and all the other odd things that we have tackled since our little wall-hole-making spree. It is so weird. What possesses Hands-on folks to work in fits and starts like that? Oh well, who cares, we are back on the frame-hanging bandwagon now. All is right with the world.

Yup, after a month of staring at taped up newspaper templates and a big ol’ stack of frames on the floor we at last mustered up the motivation to hang them up, thereby completing the big hallway o’ frames. Booyah. Here is the whole shebang:

It is everything we imagined and then some. And it only took a few hours of hammering and hammering and hammering and framing random sentimental objects (and my birthday prints) that I lurve. As for where the frames came from, we already owned around 10 (originally from Ikea and Target on clearance) and we also picked up 14 new ones from Ikea (thanks to a sweet b-day gift card from the fam). Although all of the frames are not the exact same shade of white, it is a soft layered look with some creams and other more crisp white tones that simply seem to work even though they do not match perfectly. We even embraced the whole “layered and distinct” theme and picked new Ikea frames in varying styles (some more modern and some more decorative or traditional).

We already explained the template-making process of creating a frame wall here, but John thought we should throw in a pointer about where to put the nail (with pics, because that is how my brain “eats” info). First John measures down from the top of the frame to see how many inches below the top the nail will in fact sit.

Then he finds the center of the newspaper template and measures down the same amount (4″ in this instance).

He marks the template with an x, and then simply hammers right into that x and through the template.

Once the nail’s in the wall in the right place, he rips the paper template from the wall and slips the frame onto the nail. Bam, a frame in the exact spot that we had the template. Yay math. Or yay rulers. Or more accurately, yay smart hubby.

Oh and you will notice that we began with the big frame in the middle of the arrangement (which we intentionally planned for that spot to sort of balance and ground things) so that is another pointer. If you start from the center and work out from there all the frames will not migrate left or right or up or down as much since you are starting in the center. And choosing a big frame for the middle should assist things feel kind of balanced and well-planned (even if the edges of the smaller frames around it do not line up and it is more of an asymmetrical layout from that big frame on).

Here we have all of the frames hung without any art. Except for that backwards canvas on the left. Yup I hung it with the wood on the back exposed instead of the front canvas side (I taped a pic of J & I into it a while back and liked the raw kind of rustic look). You will also notice a few black and white photos that we used to have hanging behind the sofa in our old den in 8 x 10 frames (some of them were now hanging sideways though, so there was still some work to be done on those).

Here is another angle, simply because I like to pretend I am fancy with the camera.

And yet another art-less frame POV of the whole hallway:

Oh and when it comes to babyproofing, we do plan to add heavy duty Command velcro to the lower frames that may be within Clara’s reach when she starts toddling around. She’s a fairly docile girl who certainly seems to listen when we ask her to be gentle (when petting her big brother Burger for example) so our plan is to sweetly request that she be pleasant to the frames and “look with her eyes.” But of course if we think those few low frames ever start to pose a safety hazard (or even simply become too high maintenance for the way we live) we will certainly simply get rid of them until the bean is a little older.

Anyway, back to the after pics. Here are those frames full of stuff that we already had (from these sweet birthday prints that I got last month to a ton of sentimental keepsakes, photos, and even some fairly non-traditional items that we will get to in a minute).

Here is a closer look at the little gallery on the left side:

It is full of everything from craft paper with two fortune cookies taped to it (top left) to a black & white wedding pic and even a sweet artsy photo of a water droplet in front of some patterned fabric (top right) that was snapped by my friend Laura.

The bottom half of the arrangement has an old craft store peacock feather (I did not even put that on paper, the tan color is simply the naturally-toned-frame-back showing through the glass), my sweet Etsy bee-day print from John, and even a book cover (remember he also got me a book called Enjoy Life for my b-day? I simply took off the paper dust jacket to reveal the fairly cloth cover beneath it, and then chose to repurpose the paper cover as art).

And see that light pink rectangle with Clara’s name on it? That makes me melt. It is a cute vintage hankie that happened to be embroidered with her moniker. A good friend of ours (thanks Terri!) could not assist grabbing it when she realized it was such a coincidence to find something with her name on it. It is in fact truly rare to see Clara on anything (they never sell Clara magnets or keychains in stores). I enjoy it so much, and framing it is ideal since the bean does not exactly grasp the whole nose blowing concept yet.

Now we will move over to the little gallery on the right side.

The picture below makes me realize that if I am ever bored I want to move every frame about an inch and a half to the right. Never noticed it “in person” but it seems to hug the doorway on the left a bit more closely. Is not it funny how photos make you see things you cannot ever see right in front of you? Anyway, on this side we have our card stock place-holder key that used to be taped up on the other side of the wall, which we have big plans for (someday I want to Hands-on a white-ceramic-looking key with clay from the craft store). We also framed everything from an old fabric swatch, a quote that I wrote out by hand, more black & white family photos, and even a silhouette of our bald girl.

Here is a closer shot of the handwritten quote. I enjoy how soft it looks while other things on the wall jump out. It makes you want to lean in and read it (kind of like how you lean in and pay close attention when someone whispers a secret to you).

It is a quote by Tad Carpenter that I found on Pinterest (where I have been living lately, haha) that is originally from here. I enjoyed the idea of penning something that meaningful in my own chicken scratch handwriting and glorifying it behind glass for all to see (although I spaced it out a bit differently – in 7 lines instead of 8 – to better fit my frame). And yes, that is a Burger foot (and somebody needs to get his nails cut). He likes to sneaking in photos any way he can. I cannot tell you how many dog-butt-in-the-background shots do not make the journal.

Oh and here is the back of the Enjoy Life paper book jacket that I also chose to frame. Waste not, want not, right? Only the compact spine of the book cover was tossed into the trash since I used “all other parts” of it for the frame wall. Haha. It is a quote by Arthur Rubenstein that says “I have found that if you enjoy life, life will enjoy you right back.” It is true I think.

Here is another swift little making-art-from-something-else adventure. We had these charming little desk calendar pages around for each month of the year (from here) but we consistently deferred to our day planner and my iPhone instead of using/enjoying them. So I took the one for July and drew a thin red frame around the outside of it with a red Sharpie. Remember when you used to color the edges of paper like that to make straight lines on other pages beneath it in grade school? I did that all the time. When I was not doodling Steven’s name (my elementary crush, oh how I longed to hold his hand with my marker stained fingers).

Then with a thin red pen I drew a heart around the 7th. Because we were married on July 7th, so it feels like a sweet way to honor that special day with something striking that we already had on hand (which was shoved into a drawer instead of being enjoyed).

And here is a funny story about that fabric in the middle. It was in fact used as “wrapping paper” from a friend (she did not have conventional stuff around but she had that fabric sample so she made it into a little gift pouch). How chic is she? I liked it so much I put a ring frame on it.

One of the lively things about the frame wall is that it is visible from the hallway that leads to Clara’s room, the hall bath, the playroom, and the guest room. Makes me smile every time I walk back out towards the kitchen. Even when I am carrying a bunch of laundry or happened to have simply stubbed my toe on something. Seriously, the frame wall is like Prozac to me.

So there it is. One project wrapped up.

Except we have only simply begun because I am sure we will end up switching everything out a million times. But that is kind of the lively of it. I cannot wait for Clara to make me some scribbly art for me to proudly display.

Have you folks framed anything unusual lately? Do you have special memories stuffed into a box or a drawer that you are dying to get behind some glass? Did you have an elementary school crush on a boy named Steven? Are you Steven, my long lost enjoy? Haha, simply kidding. We are friends on Facebook now. It is all quite PG and he knows I no longer want to hold his hand.