Happy Thursday, ya’ll! I hope you’re having a great day! I got to go out earlier and meet with my hubby on his lunch break and had some delicious Thai food. Mmmmmm. So good. I always get Tofu Pad Thai, 1-2 stars depending on the location (I’m a wuss, I know) and it’s always fantastic.Β I know I should branch out, but I’m worried about not liking something else! Any of you out there have good recommendations for what to get at a Thai restaurant? I need help! Thai dilemmas aside, let’s move on to my post for the day – my new travel themed gallery wall! I’m in love.
Ever since completing my map/quote project I knew that it needed to be featured in a gallery wall. My husband and I love to travel and all things associated with traveling. We both even love the airport, as weird as that may sound! Between the two of us, we’ve been to Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Argentina, Chile, Italy, Mexico, Uruguay, Canada, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. As you can tell, we’ve got the travel bug for sure! We hope to make a trip down to Peru to see Machu Picchu next October. So excited!
So considering we love travel so much, I thought that a blank wall in our home would be a perfect place to set up homage in the form of a gallery wall! I included a couple of crafts I have made, as well as some store bough frames and pieces. Let’s check out a before picture. If you took the Sooter Cottage Tour, you might recognize this sad looking wall:
I had haphazardly put up a few picture frames after we had moved in but that was about it. Boooo-oooo-ooo-rrrinngg. So this morning I decided to get creative and throw together items I had made, already had, and or had recently bought that fit the travel theme I was going for. I then just started putting piece by piece up on the wall, starting with my framed map quoteΒ and ending with my chalkboard banner. If you are unsure of where to start or are worried about things looking just right, a common technique is to trace each frame onto a piece of brown craft paper and then tape them up on the walls and move them around until you have the right configuration. I was too lazy to do this, so I just started with my biggest piece and moved down the line to the smaller pieces, fitting them in where they looked good. Here is the end result!
I’m in LOVE, I’m in love, and I don’t care who knows it! (Name that movie. It’s my most quoted movie, ever.) It really just came together piece by piece and I can’t get over how much more awesome the space is now. Let’s take a look at a breakdown of the pieces I used in this lovely masterpiece.
1.) I had these little silver mirrored birds that my sister got me for my birthday several years ago. I have a whole flock of them that used to be on the wall in our old apartment, but I snagged two from the set and put them up for shiny interest! The green ampersand was made by taking a plain wooden craft letter and gluing on bits of faux greenery!
2.) These adorable ‘you’ and ‘me’ arrows came from Michael’s and were like 49 cents each (score!) I gave ’em a fresh coat of spray paint and actually hung them on the wall with double sided tape! I felt like the arrows and the you and me wording for me and hubby fit into the travel theme quite nicely π
3.) If you can believe it, this beautiful print is actually a birthday card from Trader Joe’s! They have tons of great and unique cards that are totally frameable, so I always peruse their greeting card section when I’m there!
4.) This cutie came from Michael’s as well and was only a buck! The absolute lowest price I’ve ever seen for pretty good looking antique style keys.
5.) Yes, this also came from Michael’s. I might have went on a *small* shopping spree for craft supplies the other day. But the great thing about this piece is that it was in the clearance section for over 50% off and the beautiful print of those to-die-for doors was already in the frame!
6.) I wanted to add a bit more red to my gallery wall to make it pop so I clipped a sweet red fabric rosette that I had made months earlier onto the edge of a frame!
7.) Printed out my Life is Sweeter printable and popped it in a cheapie Target frame. It doesn’t *perfectly* fit the travel theme, but I couldn’t resist. And there’s always this quote about books and travel: “The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.”
8.) All the postcards in the white frames are actually from our wedding! Instead of a traditional guest book we had friends and family write messages on the backs of postcards and put them in a mailbox. These ones are very precious and though you can’t see it, they have messages of love and well-wishes on the back! I love that we can use these in our home decor. They are so special to us!
I don’t think I’m quite finished yet. There are a few more things I want to add and I think I might want to paint some of those white frames so they pop out more. But I’m SO so happy with the result and it is now a great focus piece in our home! A couple more glamour shots are required, I think π
(BTW, that weird brown thing up in the corner is our broken doorbell sound box thingy. Wah wah.)
ELF! Only the bestest movie ever. And I love how you used your map quote. Thanks for sharing with Let’s Get Real (I’m co-hosting this week)!
Haha yes!! I quote Elf almost on the daily. The yellow ones don’t stop! And thanks so much for stopping by and for co-hosting the linky! π
Smiling’s my favorite
So, good news – I saw a dog today. (That one is my absolute favorite, haha)
Don’t be a cotton-headed ninny muggins!
Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?
ELF! Such a great movie! Also, I’m obsessed with this wall. I want one! I recently redid my room (back living at home) and there is lots of adventure/travel things on my walls. Here’s the post where you can see some: http://polishedarrow.weebly.com/blog/a-room-makeover-before-after
Also, I LOVE that idea of the postcards at your wedding. I might steal (borrow) that idea if that day ever comes for me! I’m also obsessed with postcards. I always pick up a few extra for myself whenever I’m traveling.
Thanks so much for stopping by and for the compliment, Jess! You make me blush π (Also, Elf is the best haha) I love what you did to your room, too! That Cali map is perfectly vintage and I love the framed hymn and quotes! And feel free to steal the postcard idea all you want – it’s a super cool way to do a guest book! π
ELF! You’d have to be a cotton-headed-ninny-muggins to not know that! Haha!! I’m gonna go drink a cup of the world’s best cup of coffee now. π And also, LOVE the wall! It came out great and is going to be so fun to tweak and add to as you add more to your travel log. π
Haha, I’m glad we aren’t cotton-headed ninnymuggins and know for a fact that Elf is the best! I’m excited to add more to my wall as we jet set around the world π
loves it! totally used that quote in one of my posts the other day ha! can’t get enough of that movie. this is awesome though, great job!
Great minds think alike! π
I’m still working on my gallery wall over our stairs and got stuck…lol. I need all the ideas I can get. Thanks for sharing on Merry Monday, your wall came out great for winging it.
Thank you so much, Erlene! It definitely was a phone project. Can’t wait to see yours once you finish it! π
I LOVE this gallery wall! I’m so glad you shared it at the Frugal Crafty Home Blog Hop–I pinned it to our link ups board. Hope to see you back tomorrow night!
Thank you so much! And I’ll definitely be back – it’s a great party! π
This turned out great! It gives me some inspiration to finally finish up my own gallery wall in our kitchen! And I love that you had wedding guests write well wishes on postcards…what a fun idea!
Thank you so much! I know, it’s super hard to start or even finish projects (I’m so guilty of this!!) but once they are completed it feels oh so good π And those postcards are super special! We still have tons from the wedding that people have written on so I will have to find some other sort of crafty display for them!