{Inexpensive DIY Gallery Wall}

Hey, y'all!  Do you love gallery walls?  I know I do.  Recently I went to visit my sister to help her with some different projects she wanted to complete for her house.  One project we completed was creating an inexpensive gallery wall in her living room.

The wall in her living room looked like this when I arrived.

My sister had a cute owl picture hanging on the wall, but she wanted something with a bit more impact, so off to JoAnn's and Target we went!

We bought letters, an ampersand, a small canvas and a sunburst mirror from JoAnn's.  All the items were on sale, and we got an extra discount since I'm a teacher.  We bought three frames from Target.  When we brought the items home, I laid them all out on a piece of paper about the size of the wall so that we could see what arrangement we thought would work best.  This is key to getting a gallery wall you like without having a bunch of unnecessary holes in your wall.  Next my sister painted all the letters and the ampersand with craft paint while I was working on other projects.  When the letters dried, I inked the edges with different ink pads.  We covered the small canvas with some fabric my sister had that coordinated with the room.  (All we did was attach the fabric to the canvas with hot glue.)  Once all the little projects were complete, we hung everything except the sunburst mirror with Command adhesive strips.  We used a nail to hang the sunburst mirror.

When I first created the gallery wall on the floor, my sister said, "You make that looks so easy."  So here are a few tips to creating a gallery wall without a ton of stress:

1. Choose different pieces for your gallery wall that compliment each other.  I like to use a variety of finishes.  The mirror and glass in the frames are shiny and the letters are matte.  I also like to use items that are different thicknesses.  Notice that some of the frames are thin, but the letters are thicker and stand out more.  And my favorite thing to do is to use a variety of shapes: rectangles, squares, circles, and other odd shapes.
2. Lay out the pieces first to get an arrangement you like.  You can change the arrangement as you start to hang the pieces, but those changes will be minimal if you get a layout "plan" you like first.
3. The tape measure and level are your friends!  We used a laser level to level the large frame first and arranged everything else around that.  Also, we tried to make sure that the pieces were roughly the same distance from each other.

What I love most about the gallery is that it didn't take a lot of money to make a big impact on this wall, and I also love that there's still a little space left to add a few more pieces to the gallery if my sister chooses.  Since I left, my sister has added family photos to the frames, and she is in love with her new wall decor.