Pinterest Challenge

It's the week of nesting! I've been working on making our house more homey for a while now and I'm ready to share some projects!

Today's project comes from an idea I found on Pinterest. It's an online idea board where you can post ideas that you see as well as see other people's ideas. If you're not already addicted to Pinterest. Don't join... you'll spend hours saving ideas and not actually doing them! For me, that lack of action ends today with my first "Pinterest Challenge". I've challenged myself to actually execute the projects I've "pinned"!

Here's the original photo that started my project:

Someone else tagged it with the comment, "wood plaques at hobby lobby for $1, paint and mod podge the pic onto them".
(But, if you actually click through the link, it's a post about someone who actually makes and sells these: which you can find here.)

Adding photos to the house was long over due... before this we only had two photos in our home! One of the reasons I've been hesitant to add photos is that a lot of our wall space isn't large and flat. We have panels of space here or a spot of space there. Not very conducive to hanging a large print. So when I saw this, I knew it would be perfect for our home. (with some changes, of course!).

Our walls already have a lot of color and the spot I picked out for this project is navy. So instead of painting the boards all different colors, I chose all white boards with black and white photos:

After buying the boards (for a cohesive look, I chose to buy all the boards the same size and type and to have all the photos horizontal) I went to Home Depot and chose a white paint (it's amazing how many different shades of white there are!). I bought the sample size, since I didn't need much.

After painting, drying, repainting and re-drying the boards, I was ready to add the photos. Chris and I had painstakingly chosen six photos that fit our criteria (looks good in black and white, includes family members and is horizontal), but I know that in just a few months, we'll want to switch out those photos (hello, Baby Hill!). So my first thought of modge podging them wasn't going to do.

Here's my solution:

I glued down photo corners that we used to all use when scrapbooking in the old days. They are glued to the wood, so it's easy to take the photo out and replace it with a new one.

And here that photo is on the wall:

The black and white image with the "throw back" photo corners almost gives the project a vintage-y look.

To hang the photos, I enlisted Chris' help, who attached these little guys to the back:

Then we played around with the order forever and landed on this arrangement:

(For the awkward panel of previously "just navy" wall space.)

(For an equally awkward spot of "wow, that's a lot of navy" wall space.)

After taking all these photos with my fancy-pants camera, I realized that I didn't get a shot of the both walls together. So here's a really bad iPhone photo:

Let's not focus on the poodle skirt that needs to go up in the attic (don't ask), the laundry that needs to be hung on the table (eventually!) or the fact that it looks as though there is a TON of boring blank wall space in the left-hand corner (it looks good in person, I promise!). But instead, we'll see how nice the row and column of photos look and how well they bring the room together while showing some fun family memories.

Some day, I'll order new black and white photos and ask for them to be matte, as the glossy pics give a glare that I don't love. But for now, I'm happy to call my first Pinterest Challenge: DONE!