Eclectic Family Gallery Wall

Updating areas around the house, on the cheap, is my M.O. (short for modus operandi in latin did you know that?)!

I love either, shopping my home for items I already own or creating a new vignette or gallery wall with a mix of DIY projects and upcycled decor. Recently I did just that, and created this

an Eclectic Family Us Gallery Wall

I used to have a typical, Target-bought piece of art on the wall. It was from our first-apartment-days and when we moved in, I hung it on this wall to cover the design dilemma of an unused wall phone jack.

It worked for the moment.

Ive always wanted to create something a little more unique and personalized for our family, hence our eclectic family gallery creation.

The idea started from the color blocking family heart art that I saw at Vintage Revivals. My project is really different, but it got my wheels turning on how to create a hand heart sign. I decided to have each of us (my two kids, the mister, and myself) stand in front of our front window with our hands held high in a heart shape.

Then I cropped (using a 1:3 ratio) and brightened (using the Picasa boost tool) each of the pictures to show only our hands with the trees from the outside as the background.

Once the 4 pics were done, I used the Picasa collage tool to make (1) 810 picture, and printed it.

Simple, yet so dynamic and bold.

This is how the picture ended up looking.

My littlest one had a little trouble making her heart, but I just love it that much more!

Heres a peak at our hand heart photoshoot

It sure was fun well for some of us the mister thought I was crazy.. until he saw the end result.

So the next part of the eclectic family gallery wall was the pallet decor. I had originally planned on creating a growth chart, but s ince its an awkward spot with the barstools at the counter, I thought a simple patterned pallet would be unique.

I gotta give Taryn of Design, Dining + Diapers for this idea because her rustic growth chart came out awesome and again it sparked the idea for my creation!

This was super easy to make and I just love the distressed look. I took a piece of pallet board (we have a huge stack in the garage), made a simple template with a piece of paper, then marked it with a pencil on the pallet. After that I used Annie Sloan chalk paint French Linen and Old White to fill in the areas.

Onto the next element The B the first letter of our last name.

For this project, I took a piece of scrap MDF board, hand sketched a large B and cut it out using a jigsaw. I then sanded the edges, added a coat of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint (Old White), and distressed the edges and a bit of the center with my orbital sander.

I finished off the wall with another simple pallet sign with the words US and a beautiful drawing by my son of Our Family two perfect elements to finish off our Family Us Wall.

And here it is.

Via: Eclectic Family Gallery Wall