My Monday Round Up # 1

Well, the weekend is over and it's back to the grind for most of you. If you're a stay-at-home-mom like me, then today isn't a WHOLE lot different than yesterday, or the day before that for that matter. Aside from the fact that I tend to be a little lazier/laid back on the weekends, my week days don't differ too much from my week ends. Regardless, I did have a great weekend, primarily thanks to the beautiful 60+ degree weather! Sadly it's back to gray skies and 40 degree temps today, but I've got a little something to share that will hopefully take your mind off of the cold temps for a bit.

For the past month or so, on Sundays,  I've participated in a hashtag challenge on Instagram called "MySundayRoundup", and basically it's purpose is to post a collage of pictures that summarizes your week. It's fun for me to look back at what I've posted over the week and create a conglomeration of photos that not only remind me of the things I accomplished and/or the memories I made, but to also share that with others. After I posted yesterday, I got to thinking about how I've been racking my brain for weeks for a way to incorporate home decor regularly into this blog, while also still making it appealing to my mommy audience. Not everyone loves home decor + not everyone wants to read thoughts from my mommy brain, so I thought doing a mixture of both on a regular basis would be a happy medium. Here's what I came up with...

Starting today, I will be posting "My Monday RoundUp", which is just going to be the same collage of pictures that I posted the previous day on Instagram PLUS I'm going to include a DIY project that can be seen in one of the collaged photos, that can also easily be completed by my followers at home. The roundup for today includes the four pictures below.

The back of the front door was white until about 9pm on Friday night when I got the itch to do something DIY. I saw a picture on an IG account I follow of interior doors painted black. I've been wanting to do SOMETHING to the inside of our front door {so the back of the front door}. The outside of the door is bright blue, which I love, but I didn't want that blue on the inside because it doesn't go with the rest of the interior decor. It's been white forever, until Friday at 9pm anyway. Now it's a lovely shade of black, and I'm loving it...a lot. Wait, are there different shades of black? Is that a dumb question? 

The gallery frame wall is in our main hallway which encompasses all of the bedroom doors + main bath door. Last summer we replaced the 4 interior doors in this hallway from the standard hollow, non-decorative doors to decorative ones. It wasn't a "cheap" project per se, but it was TOTALLY worth it. The new doors completely changed the entire look of the hallway. So if you are looking for an easy way to update your house, the interior doors are a great place to start {whether it be replacing them or just painting them}. Back to the gallery frame wall though, which is going to be my DIY feature if you continuing reading. This wall was completed using 90% thrifted frames and 10% dollar tree/pre-owned frames. The frames encompass some of our most treasured memories of our family: Emerson's footprints, an ultrasound picture, a couple of our wedding photos, a journal entry from the night we got engaged, print outs of each of our home states, a gifted cartoon drawing of our family {pre-Emerson}, one of my brother + sister-in-law's wedding photos, and tons of other precious memories. It's definitely a statement wall in our home and I LOVE that I see it every time I walk in the door. It's SO easy to do too. {See below for more}

The old window frame was a $10 find thanks to my BFF, Leslie! The B+W picture inside is a $3 Office Max print {click here to read a previous post on how to get one for yourself in 5 easy steps}, and the surrounding frames were $1 wooden frames from Michael's that I painted and then inserted B + W photos of the 3 of us. The entire wall is seen below {I only inserted part of it in the collage}.

The last picture in the collage is of my daughter picking "flowers" for me, which I wrote about here. It was too precious of a moment not to include in my weekly collage. But, enough about the collage, let's talk how to make your very own gallery frame wall.

As I mentioned, most of the frames on our gallery wall were thrifted. I have to be honest, I do have "new" frames in our house, but the majority of our picture frames are either thrifted + repurposed or they were free finds. I ALWAYS check the thrift store for frames before I go out and buy them new. All it takes is some spray paint to turn an ugly frame into a beauty again, and usually frames {depending on size} are like $1-2 each. Half of these frames were wooden originally, some were already black but were super scratched up, and some were white/teal/brown, etc. I never ignore a frame based on it's color because that's such an easy fix. The majority of the prints inside the frames were printed on my home computer, though some did come from actual printing companies {like the photos of Emerson's first birthday or our wedding photos, for example}. The big print to the right of the bathroom door is of a parachuter. I found that at Goodwill for $1.50 and I just repainted over the existing frame so that it would match the rest. The "etc" sign was a really ugly wood that I painted black; also found at Goodwill for like $0.75. I believe I've mentioned this before in a previous post, but be open minded when thrifting. Don't look at things for exactly what they are, think about what they could be in the future. HAVE NO FEAR: MY VIRTUAL THRIFT STORE SHOPPING TRIP COMING SOON {more on that later in the week}.

Not only is the wall itself an easy DIY project that makes a HUGE statement, but also the art inside the frames can be another DIY. As I said, I printed a lot of these from the internet {the lips, bird, silhouette of the Jack Russell, some of the quotes, and many others}, but I also used pictures from magazines, a birthday card that Trey gave me {I LOVE using beautiful cards as art}, scrapbook paper, and a drawing that Emerson did. I tend to think outside of the traditional "use this frame strictly for a picture of people" and try to be more creative with what I put inside. There are SO many options out there; I've named only a few. The frames don't have to match either. Most of these in fact, are not similar at all. Some are really thick, some are thin, some are detailed, others are very plain. Painting ALL of the frames the same color though brings uniformity to the wall. It makes it appear cohesive even though the frames themselves are completely different. I painted our frames black because I wanted a greater contrast against the white wall. But, you could totally do colored frames if that's your thing, or for a simpler, crisper look, go all white. Also, this is a larger scale gallery wall. It can certainly be scaled down to fit a smaller wall or you could go more vertical or horizontal depending on your space. I do recommend cutting out paper the size of the frames + using painters tape to adhere the "paper frames" to the wall while you're deciding on a layout that works. Nothing worse than nailing 50 million holes in the wall, only to realize you don't like the layout. Additionally, I wasn't super anal about spacing between the frames, primarily because it's time consuming and I am lazy in that regard, but I tend did try to keep them all lined up on the right edge {as in not having one protrude out past the others}, but it doesn't always work and that's okay. They don't need to be perfect to be beautiful.

That's the key to any good DIY project: it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful. :) I hope you've enjoyed the first installment of "My Monday Round Up" and that you've found some inspiration here If you do in fact find some, be sure to share it with me. I'd love to see what you come up with! I'll be back next Monday with another week of home pictures + another easy DIY! Until then...XO!