Nursery News – Gallery Wall
Above the changing station we had a big blank wall. And what are big blank walls perfect for? Yes. Graffiti.
But since I had not welded a spray paint can in quite some time (let’s not talk about my rebellious years, shall we?), I decided that instead of bubble letter gang signs, that an art gallery would have to do.
First, we installed that round mirror. I liked the fact that the round shape was repeated in other areas of the room (the light fixture and the side table)…and I also adored the aspect of allowing more light in the space (seeing as how we completely darkened one wall with the pallet wood). The icing on the mirrored cake was the fact that this baby was only $20 at Ikea.
The next step was finding the right lamp. I wanted something white, cheap, and simple. Enter Goodwill. I scored the base for only $3 and the shade was $15 at Target…so for only $18 I got a simple white cheap lamp. One hundred points for me.
Now here comes the fun part…the placement of the frames. In order to get the right placement I followed a very strategic plan…it was called “Nail-the-frames-up-step-back-and-take-a-gander” method. You can see the steps here:
didn’t like that last one…so…moved it down a bit. Let’s resume….
PAUSE. didn’t like the last two…so…more switcheroo…
Yup. That’s it. Now that the frames are in place, I went to work whipping up some art in photoshop to fill the frames.
And now for the finished product:
Most of the art is cabin/lodge/outdoors related…and I got them all printed at scrapbookpictures.com (they have ok prices but TONS of different print sizes).
So there you have it folks – my very own owlish gallery wall that can grow with Will as he gets bored with the images. I love the fact that one day his own art can take the place of the photos or he can snap his own photos to frame. What do you think? Anyone out there with a sure-fire way to create a killer gallery wall? Maybe someone uses that wrapping paper trick where they trace the frames out on the floor first? Perhaps you have tried doing the template method? Or maybe you can just rock out spraypainted graffiti?
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The step-by-step photos are WONDERFUL. And what cuteness..I love the owl theme. The entire nursery is just delicious!
Your gallery looks great. I’m a HUGE fan of owls!
So cute! I am having an owl themed 1st birthday party for my daughter on Saturday and would LOVE to track down a print of that “Owl love you forever…” poster. Where did you find that?!?!?
By the way – love the entire nursery!!
Hi Jaime,
The poster is actually a little ditty I whipped up in photoshop. Then I got it printed online. If you want it, just email me and I can send it to you.
XO – Katie
Are you still offering this print? If so I would love a copy!
I am doing my little boy’s room in owls and birds.
Sure Molly – just email me and I’ll send it to ya
xo – kb
Looks super cute!! Where did you score the frames?? I also love the OWLS!!!
Looks great! And I love how you did it… just kind of layering it all!! Where did you get the frames??
Hi Sheyenne and Emily,
The frames are from Ikea. They have a ton of different sizes and come in black, white and other wood tones. Hope this helps!
XO – katie
I love the composition of the wall. It is so hard to balance the the large round shape with the smaller rectangular ones, but you did it effortlessly. Kudos to you. It makes me want to have more babies just so I can decorate a nursery as cute as this one. On second thought, maybe I should finish my girls’ bedrooms
.
Ah! That quote!!! It’s from my favorite childhood book! What a great idea!!
I LOVE how you wrapped it around the mirror a bit — and that owl saying is freaking adorable. Owl love it forever.
LOVE the “owl love you” print. Thanks for the tips – I also love how the mirror and the prints aren’t perfectly centered. It makes it unique and now Will can see himself in the mirror!
I love it!!
When I first started my gallery I gathered all my frames & arranged them on my bed in all sorts of different groupings & took a picture of each arrangement. It made it so much easier to pick the best arrangement. Now that those are up on the wall I just add the new ones like you did. I have a ton of push pin holes in my wall so I try to cover them up with the frames as much as possible.
we used the wrapping paper method to hang a small gallery of duck images in our bathroom. grand total cost was less than $3! yay for thrift-store finds and using what you have!
i love your owl theme. it’s outdoorsy and cute without being too cute (if that made any sense). i also love the practicality of being able to change out images easily as time goes by. great job!
Looks great! Sometimes I just nail things up and change it around as I go (as you did) and other times I cut out shapes to use as templates and move them around the wall before nailing (you know, when I don’t want a thousand nail holes in the wall!). I’m actually about to hang a plate collage on the wall and will be doing the template method for that one since it’s in the dining room and I don’t see myself filling in holes and painting them anytime soon.
Katie, where did you get your white frames?
That looks so cute and it’s so personalized for his room. I’ve wanted to try a gallery wall going up our staircase but still haven’t done it yet. One of these days….
-heather
Oh my gosh! I just realized you took the main line out of one of my favorite children’s books and ‘owl-ified’ it. My mom used to read me that story, and I adored it. Enjoy reading it to your precious baby, I am sure it will be one of his favorite memories too!
This is sooo cute!! I love it, Katie!
Love it! The “Owl love you forever..” poem is too cute!
Looks great! I love that little owl picture to the left of the quote. Super cute!
I’m sure it is but I hope that mirror is securely fastened for when your little one starts grabbing things!
Owl love you forever …
I just hear any part of that phrase and I tear right up. (Typing through tears right now!) I received the book, I’ll Love You, Forever when my son was born. I read it after being home from the hospital and cried through a whole box of tissues. My son is now ten and I still read him the book on occasion. And I still cry. So, when I start crying he finishes reading the book to me. Which makes me cry even more!!! All good crying though. There is something about the mother/son bond. Enjoy.
Very cute! My rottweiler and owls… don’t get along… he might have an apoplexy seeing your wall! LOL! (when I say they don’t get along… he is desperately SCARED of them!)
Oh. My. Goodness. This is too cute! And I love that you used crisp, white IKEA frames. Well done, my friend!
Love it….it came out so perfectly. And it is refreshing to see someone just wing it!
That looks really awesome! And I love your “owl” version of the lines from one of my favorite books to read to my son when he was little (and not so little.)
That book chokes me up every time!
Katie,
Never commented on your blog before, but after following it for a few weeks I have to say I love it…and congrats on the new addition. I love your DIY projects and am right there with you on fixing things up for the home. I work as a commercial interior designer, but love nothing more than tackling my own home. I have completely fallen in love with Goodwill since coming across your blog, however, in Los Angeles Goodwill is only ok, not great. Having said that I am a new lover of shopgoodwill.com basically an ebay like bidding site for all thing goodwill! might have spent a little to much in the past 3 months, but great deals! Also wanted to share this site I just found with you, http://www.save-on-crafts.com/ it has amazing deals on ribbon, ornaments, and balls of all kinds! haha yes, i am laughing to! check it out, they have great prices. I was looking for holiday decor, but might be buying a whole lot more!
I’ve got a great way of hanging a gallery wall – probably what you’re calling the “template method.” This way I don’t end up with a bunch of extra holes in the wall. You can see it here: http://domesticatingkate.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/even-baby-would-sit-in-my-corner/
I too, cry at that book I Love You Forever. My kids know not to bring it out unless they want to make Mommy cry. The librarian read it the other day at storytime and there wasn’t a dry eye in the room.
I do the same thing for frame collages on the wall. THere’s so many hidden holes in my house my hallways are perforated.
I am really into gallert pictures and I like how yours goes around the mirror. Love the pictures too. I am checking out that site asap.
Nice! Love those round IKEA mirrors… so versatile.
looks precious!
I am EXTREMELY anal about picture placement on the walls. So we employ the masking tape method. It involves taping off an area on the carpet that matches the size/shape of the wall collage area. Then I rearrange to my hearts content, flip the frames over to measure nail placement to 1/4 inch, and then transfer those measurements to a graph paper drawing. Then I use bits of tape on the wall where the husband needs to put nails (seriously, we do so many home improvement projects but using a hammer upright against a wall just hasn’t clicked for me yet). Works every time.
I really like the arrangement, and I have to admit that I audibly “awww’d” the owl prints.
I have a few walls similar to this in our office, guest bedroom, and living room, but ours are filled with personal momentos and our own paintings, drawings, and photographs.
Our arrangement in the office also has all white frames — don’t they look great together?
Kelly
VERY cute! My boys’ original nursery was an owl theme so this made my heart skip a beat.
Hi Katie! I looove your blog! I was wondering where you got the owl prints and the owl love you forever poster?
Love it….it came out so perfectly. And it is refreshing to see someone just wing it!
Love this! I know this is an old post but I was wondering if all these frames were the same style…like the Ikea Ribba or did you use different styles? I’m trying to design my daughter’s wall now and preparing my frame list for Ikea. Thanks.
They were all from Ikea but I can’t say they were all Ribba necessarily….it does appear that way though
xo – kb
Where did you get the frames from?
They are from Ikea and target
Xo kb