Photo Wall

This little project cost me very little and was a lot of fun to do.  I had all these frames in a box.  I had piles of photos sitting in their envelopes.  What good was that to anyone really?  I decided to devote part of my summer holiday time getting stuff up on the walls, making our home a little homier. 

Once I chose the right pictures for the right frames, I laid them all out on my bed and played with the order they would go up on.  I'm pretty pleased with the results.  The 'S' is our last initial.  I found it for $1.50 at Michaels and painted it black at home (I used sticky tac to hang it).  The letters for "Family" I cut out of a piece of black wall stick on strips (see DIY Wall Stick-Ons).
One of my favorite parts of the wall is the 2 pictures of my husband and I side by side.  One is on our wedding day and one is just before our 10 anniversary - similar pose, 10 years later.

Kid's Art Wall

 My son had this large, blank space on his wall that was begging for something - just what, I wasn't sure.  I'd played around with the idea of bookshelves, of storage shelves and art displays.  This idea I liked, I liked a lot.  It was very simple to do and quite effective.  Everything I needed, I already had in the house (which was a bonus).
I used the same idea I just finished with in the kitchen with the DIY Wall Stick-Ons for the wall title.  Then I measured and cut lengths of hemp rope (left overs from my jewelry making days found in my craft box), knotted the ends and pinned them to the wall.  I attached clothespins on the lines and clipped up some of my son's most recent art (he just finished a week at "Bug Zone" Bible Camp - can you tell?).  He likes it, I like it (and his brother likes it too and has asked for his own version to go up in his room next).
One more project down - how many more can I get done before school starts again?

DIY Wall Stick-Ons

We've all seen them around, wall stick-ons (I don't know if that's their real name, but that's what I'm calling them. You know the vinyl stick on art pops that just adds a little something to your room. Most of the phrase ones say something like "Family" or "Live, Laugh, Love" in a fancy font. I liked this idea a lot, but I wanted my own words of choice up there.

I didn't find these words in a store (though I did look), I made them.  I bought a plain black strip of Wall Pops from Kent (my local hardware/everything store).

And because I don't own a Cricut (though it would be awesome and so much easier if I did), I typed the words I wanted out in Word, chose a font I liked and made it big (this is Matura MT Script Capitals at about a 100 pt size).  I made sure the font I chose would be thick enough to cut out by hand.  Once I had my words, I cut around them and attached them to the wall strip with tape rolls.

I then took to the task of cutting out each letter by hand.  This was time consuming, but I was watching the Olympics as I worked.  I kept each letter in a bowl as I went to keep track of them.
Once completed, I counted out how many letter spaces I had and worked from the middle of my space out to lay out my letters, carefully removing the paper and tape on top.
I'm pretty pleased with the results.  And I have lots of Vinyl strip left.  I plan on making another phrase to hang over a doorway in our living room and have a few ideas for the kids rooms as well.