Build Wall Art And Cherish Family Photos For Years

It was time to re-do our master bedroom and I needed a way to do it inexpensively.

Paint was a must. In some of our other rooms, we used a paint color made by Pittsburgh Paint called "Happy Trails, which is a really rich tan color.

Next, I knew those old curtains had to be changed out, so I found an inexpensive curtain rod and bought two different scarves and draped those over the rod. Done.

Since the room is primarily tan, it needed some color so I made a couple of arrangements out of silk and dried flowers. A nice pop against the warm tan of the walls.

Now, what to do about the wall art? Most people want to display family photos as I do but I didn't want a bunch of mismatched frames sitting around. I was going for a cleaner look.

We recently became empty nesters so I wanted to showcase the transition my family has undergone over the past 22 years. An idea was born to make a photo collage for the wall with black and white photos and matching frames.

How I made it

Pick the photos. I chose one of my family when the two kids were very young and one of my family now. Then I found my favorite picture of just the kids when they were little and another one of them now.

Fix the photos. After selecting the four photos, some had to be scanned into my computer while the more recent ones were taken with my digital camera and were already in my computer. I have Adobe Photoshop which I used to fix the photos. They were all different sizes and colors so the first thing I had to do was make them all uniform.

Using the "Image-Size" function in Photoshop, I made them all 5 x 7's and using the "Image-Mode-Grayscale" function, I turned them into black and whites. I ended up with four, 5 x 7, black and white photos. This is an important step, in my opinion, because you want them all to match.

Buy the frames. In order to accomplish the uniform look, I also selected four identical frames.

Hang them. Once the four black and white photos were in the frames, I had to decide how I wanted to hang them. The orientation of the photos (portrait or landscape) will help you decide the configuration (across in a straight line, down in a straight line, in a perfect square...).

Two of my photos were landscape and 2 were portrait so I decided to put them in a square with an irregular edge to create visual interest. We hung up the photo collage yesterday and my husband helped to ensure that the frames were all perfectly spaced.

I am quite proud of the end result. This photo collage was inexpensive to make and will be cherished for years to come.