Second, I want to thank all of my readers who came by to have a peek, to get inspired, and who left love for each blogger.  I know, from comments on the blog as well as emails to me, that this project has been a jumping off point for many people to get their photos printed out this year.  That makes my heart sing.

Third, I was also inspired by all the wonderful ideas from the project.  I shared a few of them on Tatertots and Jello yesterday, where I will be a monthly contributor this year!  TT&J is a mecca of fabulous DIY, craft, home, and life ideas.  If you haven’t ever been, stop over and roam around.    I shared a sneak peek at one of my wall projects I’ve been working on.  And I wanted to share the rest of them today.  As is the case with many of you, my walls are still a work in progress.  I have a few more ideas I didn’t get to this past month but have every intention of finishing soon.

I am definitely creating a memory book for 2011… eventually… but for now, I found this free template from Paislee Press and created a 12×12 print full of images from the year.  I framed it in a 20×20 with a simple white matte from Aaron Brothers.

In the same room I framed several pictures of my kids and our family in black frames, some with mats, some without and included a star and a couple of signs.

In the same room above the fireplace I printed a 20×20 canvas through Black River Imaging of one of our Project12 photos from last year.  I love it because it’s totally us, with no pretenses.   (BTW, does anyone know what kind of paint to use to paint out the brass on my fireplaces???)

I loved the clipboard idea so I bought several, painted them with chalkboard paint, and hung them in the kitchen.  I love the fact that you can change out the photos so often and easily.

Up the staircase I decided to do a wall gallery of black frames with white mats.  I’m planning on adding to it little by little and including some of the kids’ artwork as well.

In the living room I have two ledges from my last house that I’ve propped a few larger mounted prints on.  I love that I can change those out often as well.  (Printed through MPixPro, except for the flag picture which is a metal printed through BRI)

And finally, in the same room I have cathedral ceilings and I knew whatever I hung had to be big!  And indeed that is just what I did.  I had four 30×40 canvases printed (Black River Imaging) of my kids and hung them right above my entry table.  It’s the first thing people see when they walk in our home.  I love them!  I’ve posted them on the blog before and have had several people comment that they are bigger in person than they look in pictures.

I wish I could incorporate all of the ideas that were shared into my home, but I don’t have that many walls!  I’m still hoping to create some sort of ancestor wall like Sara Tegman shared, a beautiful photo box like Gretchen Davis has, a beautiful bulletin board for snaps like Rachel Chaney’s, and an inspiration board like so many of you all have.  And that should cover all my remaining walls at the moment.

This has been such a fun project!  I’m considering doing something similar in the future so get those walls ready!

AND FINALLY…

The winner of the 16×24 standout is…

Staci Bailey!!!

Congratulations and everyone who entered the giveaway will be emailed a promo code for your next print order from MPix!

Happy Wednesday!

The winner of the 16×24 will be announced later this morning!!!

I was literally in mid moving mode when Wendy contacted me about this project. We were about to embark on quite a trip. We decided to move to Colorado from Connecticut to a brand new place. We actually decided to rent being we were pretty much insane and were moving sight unseen before jumping into a long term commitment such as a mortgage. When we got to Colorado to our new place we were greeted with tons of giant beautiful walls. The ceilings here are cathedral height. We have only managed to get one room done so far, our living room. I started with a 24×36 sized float wrap of one of my favorite family photos and despite it being pretty large the wall just seemed so vast and empty so I headed to my local Target and TJ Maxx hunting for various frames. I wanted to do an entire collage with different shapes and sizes. I found some pretty interesting frames to start me off and even though they are all 11×14 sized surrounding the Canvas Wrap from WHCC they look so different due to the different frames. I plan to incorporate some different size frames at some point. I also found some cool vintage keys to place in between but haven’t had the time yet to really put them up yet. I wanted to get something up though so this is what I have come up with so far!!

Originally I was hoping to do my bedroom since that is my place of retreat. I work out of my bedroom right now and the blank walls are pretty uninspiring as of now but I Plan to amend that super soon!!

The photos were all printed with WHCC. I love them!!

Thank you, Sarah!

If you’ve missed any of my guest bloggers for this project, you can find the right here:

Joyce Smith

StaceyWoods

Aubry Startin

Breeze Floyd

Tamara Burross

Carey Pace

Nancy Lary

Jules Trandem

Gail Pomare

Elisabeth Ross

Amy Lockheart

Jasmine Johnson

Hope Toliver

Kristina Buskirk

SaraTegman

Misti Dawson

Deb Schwedhelm 

Jennifer Nguyen

 Jolie Starrett 

Val Spring 

Jasmine Sargent

Ali Crane 

Jobrina Hofleit

Rachel Chaney

Kristin Young

Maureen Wilson

Gina Oh

And don’t forget to enter the contest for the MPix 16×24 giveaway!  ENDS TONIGHT AT  8 PM CST!  Everyone who enters will also receive a discount code for their next printing order from Mpix!

The weather has been absolutely beautiful this month, nothing like January at all.  Today was no exception so after church we decided to go exploring to find a new place to hike.  One of the things I adore about where we live is the diversity in the landscape.  Our house backs to “open space” with golden hills and scrub oak trees.   We can drive less than an hour west and hit the Pacific Ocean.  And just up Highway 24 we can enjoy redwood forests and lush vegetation.  Today we headed to the trees.  It felt like a different world once we entered the trail.  The redwoods towered above us letting pockets of light in here and there.  The scent of Eucalyptus hung in the air. It was cool and moist and everything was incredibly quiet, it was almost eerie.  The kids said they felt like they were in Jurrasic Park.  I would have to agree.  It was magical.  A stream and a bridge and all was well with the world.  We’re going back again soon!

Don’t stop here.  Continue around the circle and take a peek at what everyone’s been up to this month starting with Jennifer Nguyen | Snails and Pigtails Photography | Temecula, CA Photographer.  Keep clicking through the circle and you’ll end up right where you started.

I am so thrilled that Wendy started that project because it was just wanted I needed to get those photos on the walls of my house.  It now feels more like a home.  Ok, before we start, this is what everyone should go out a buy.  My husband calls it a “level” and see you put it on top of your canvas or frame and when the bubble is smack in the middle of the two lines, then you know that your artwork is straight.  I couldn’t have done the hallway without this.

Here is my kitchen and breakfast room.  In my breakfast room, I have this birdcage thing that I clip photos and cards to.  It makes for great storytelling around the table as well.  This morning, Bridgette said, “Dad, why are you in Africa?” and then my husband proceeded to tell about his mission trips to Africa.  Or, you can join clip momentos, this is Wyatt’s birth announcement that I sent out over 5 years ago…  I still like to look at it, haha.  Next to my refrigerator, I have this dish display holder.  On it, I have two 8×8 print wraps that I got from MPIX PRO.  They have little blocks attached to the back, so it stands up nicely.  Above it, I have a 11×17 calendar from Bay Photo that I make every year for the kids.  I order extra as Christmas presents for the grandparents and they love it.  The little chalkboard is for our Korean word of the day.  Today, it is “eggplant”.  Don’t ask me why, it’s what my mother-in-law gave the children this week.

Next is my daughter’s room.  Here, I have two 24×36 canvases above her nightstand and in the middle, Jennifer of Romeo & Mae  made this cute little banner.

I have lots and lots of hallways in my house, we are on one floor, so when we bought this house last April, I immediately thought, BLACK & WHITE PHOTOS down the hall.  So, I did it.  I have 3 halls total, and this is the hall leading to my master bedroom.  There are eight 16×24 photos framed here, and I got these during the penny sale at Aaron Bros.

Next is my office.  When I sit at my desk, I have the view of these three square photos with my favorite frame company, Obrien & Schridde .  Whenever this company has a sale, I snatch up at least 3 frames.  On the right, I have a tabletop photo carousel from Pottery Barn.  My kids love this because they can turn the carousel and look at cards or old 4×6 pictures of themselves.   To the right wall, is my “KOREA” display.  I’m actually not happy with it yet, but it’s a start.  I have six 16×20 pics framed, but after looking at it, it wasn’t working, so I didn’t want to bother my husband.  I also have a 11×14 photo on a little holder, these are always fun..  Perpendicular is a 30×40 photo framed of me and the girls taken by Danette Kay Photography.

Last is an example of photos that are too small.  I realized after printing this 24×30 photo and framing it, that it was too small.  Look how tiny the one of my husband and me looks, and that is a 16×20 photo.  Like Jennifer Nguyen, I also love the glassless look.  In any case, when ordering photos, I say GO BIG!!

Thank you, Wendy, it was fun!!

Thanks, Gina!

If you’ve missed any of my guest bloggers for this project, you can find the right here:

Joyce Smith

StaceyWoods

Aubry Startin

Breeze Floyd

Tamara Burross

Carey Pace

Nancy Lary

Jules Trandem

Gail Pomare

Elisabeth Ross

Amy Lockheart

Jasmine Johnson

Hope Toliver

Kristina Buskirk

SaraTegman

Misti Dawson

Deb Schwedhelm 

Jennifer Nguyen

 Jolie Starrett 

Val Spring 

Jasmine Sargent

Ali Crane 

Jobrina Hofleit

Rachel Chaney

Kristin Young

Maureen Wilson

And don’t forget to enter the contest for the MPix 16×24 giveaway!  Everyone who enters will also receive a discount code for their next printing order from Mpix!

When Wendy came up with this fabulous idea of sharing our homes and wall displays, I was super excited because I had a few things that were perfect to share. I also requested to be toward the end of the month because I had a couple of canvases on order and i wanted to be sure to have them. Big mistake, big mistake!! Huge. (said in my best pretty woman voice) Why?? Because after seeing an entire month of all the beautiful wall displays and canvases that everyone has shared, I am feeling like I need to be redecorating my house… oh and getting some more natural light!! Ok now that you have called the WAAAAA-mbulance for me

This is my big project that I am working on. Right when you walk into our home you see this wall display. The wall is huge and I plan on continuing to add to this display over the next couple years. There is no rhyme or reason to it, I order what I want when I want it. Right now there is a 20×20 and 20×30 gallery wrapped canvases, 2 small 10×10 canvases, 16×20 standout and a framed 10×20.

Turning left into our dining room, first you see what I like to call the wall of truth!! Ha. The first 2 are from about 3 years ago and make me laugh even now!! The more recent one is Tanner and Maggie with a couple of their best friends. I am so in love with this image because it shows the 4 personalities so well. Maggie messing with Tanner, Tanner taking it, Layne who is always concerned with Tanner, and Allyn who is The BEST at doing exactly what she has been told to do. I have a spot there waiting for the next image that I capture of Maggie aggravating Tanner.

Then just to the right is the first canvas (24×36) that I ever ordered…

Heading down the hallway is this little display with 4 5×7 black frames.

Lastly in my bathroom, I get to see this gorgeous image of the kids at the beach. (12×24 Standout)

Now I am off to look at paint samples…

Thanks, Maureen!

If you’ve missed any of my guest bloggers for this project, you can find the right here:

Joyce Smith

StaceyWoods

Aubry Startin

Breeze Floyd

Tamara Burross

Carey Pace

Nancy Lary

Jules Trandem

Gail Pomare

Elisabeth Ross

Amy Lockheart

Jasmine Johnson

Hope Toliver

Kristina Buskirk

SaraTegman

Misti Dawson

Deb Schwedhelm 

Jennifer Nguyen

 Jolie Starrett 

Val Spring 

Jasmine Sargent

Ali Crane 

Jobrina Hofleit

Rachel Chaney

Kristin Young

And don’t forget to enter the contest for the MPix 16×24 giveaway!  Everyone who enters will also receive a discount code for their next printing order from Mpix!

MPIX is a the consumer lab I recommend to all of my clients who order digital images. They not only offer fantastic print quality,  but they have a huge selection of products as well.   Their customer service is amazing and they are FAST!  Orders are usually sent out within 24 hours after ordering (if received before noon, they can go out the same day).  To help you in your printing endeavors, I’m thrilled to announce this giveaway!

GIVEAWAY:

Mpix is giving away one 16×24 foam-mounted standout!  (an $80 value)  I love standouts because they are ready to hang or to prop on a shelf, and they are lightweight and easy to display.  

HOW TO ENTER:

1.  Check out their website and leave a comment HERE about your plans to print and display your photos this year.

2.  ”Like” Mpix on Facebook.

3.  ”like” Wendy VonSosen Photography on Facebook.

4.  Share this giveaway (on your blog, your favorite forum, FB, Twitter)!  Tell me how you did it in the comments.    

Please leave a comment for each of the above.  One entry for each.  

Please leave a valid email address so Mpix can contact the winner AND they will be emailing a print discount to ALL who enter!!!

You can enter each method once a day each day until the contest ends on Tuesday January 31 at 8:00 PM PST.  After the contest ends, I will be randomly choosing a winner who will be announced on Wednesday morning! 

Good luck!!!

Well my dear friend Wendy, I have to say I’m pretty stoked you asked me to share how I display my personal photos throughout our crazy little home! Ive surrounded by some pretty excellent company here on your fantastic blog! Dare I say my entry here may just be the most imperfect and random way of placement of photographic art in a home? Truth be told, so many times I have gone to purchase a huge gallery wrap of each of my children but the reality is for me, its just too hard to make that selection and spend that money when they’re each changing so fast. Besides, I just know I’ll have a new favorite image next week. Our house isn’t of the formal kind these days so our displays kinda reflect that. Heck, let get real; it looks like a run a 24 hour preschool over here. You may or may not notice little fingerprints or smudges on mirrors as you tour, just please pretend you don’t for my sake…

My husband and I have both said, if God forbid there was ever a disaster in our home, we would grab the children, my hard drives and our Blurb family albums. Since 2009, at the end of every year I have collected what are my favorites from the year and told the story of our last 12 months through a Blurb book. I usually include some thoughts about the year and a sort of a mushy love note from me to them in the front. I am still working on 2011, but here’s a little peek at 2010. If you haven’t tried Blurb, I highly recommend them. Their customer service is awesome and the quality of their press printed books is super. Either way, I highly suggest starting an annual book for your family, if not for yourself. I have made copies for each of my kids too so they can share the visual journey of our crazy little family with their own kids when they’re all grown..

The “gallery” that probably changes most often is the doors of our kitchen fridge. Its usually peppered with our weekly schedule, school work, coupons and reminders and random shots from our Fuji Instax. Recently I ordered some really fun Instagram magnets from a company called Stickygram. It took all of one minute to log into my Instagram account from their site and select which ones I wanted. They were at my mailbox in less than a week! If you have some favorites sitting in your Instagram account, this is a fun way to print and display them and my kids love playing with them. I’m trying to complete an Instagram 366 this year so I’m sure Ill have many more as months roll on!

Another one of our interchangeable “galleries” in our kitchen is this little memento/blackboard I made last year. The decal is from the awesomely talented illustrator, Shanna Murray and the frameless blackboard is from Billy Boards. My kids play with my Fuji Instax most and this is where I display their random little photos with washi tape. They LOVE that camera and they love it even more when we tape up their photos!

Here is our eclectic little fireplace mantle. These photos change out quite frequently here too. We’re in this room the most so I usually have my current favorites of our kids framed here.

This is my office or what I like to call “the desk at the top of the stairs where i can see everything“. Even after 5 years, Ive never really been able to decide what I want to hang above that desk so I ended up randomly propping stuff up against it. (Perfect for the lazy lady, no hammer or nails needed.) I printed up this little 20×30 calendar template from Paislee Press this year instead of opting for my regular monthly flip gig. I love it because it gives the look of a big organized gallery without too much thought. I printed this through WHCC using their 2mm Styrene so it could prop up easily without a frame.

I also recently framed this group of photobooth strips our family took on a recent trip to Santa Monica Pier. I am a sucker for a good old fashioned photobooth! The new ones just don’t cut it in my opinion; I like the faded old nostalgic 70s look.

This funky little gallery runs along our staircase and entry way. I usually change up the photos in here about every 6 months. Some of the good ol’ favorites stay and some frames I change out more than others. I’m not going to lie, this was the biggest pain in the BUTT to create- I was spray painting and hanging for over a week. That being said, there is not a day that goes by that I’m not elated I hung all these. About 2 years ago, I ended up scrounging together all my ugly old mismatched frames that had no place in our home and spray painted them either a matte black or matte eggshell. I added art mattes to some from Aaron Brothers and left some without. I might clean it up someday but I kinda like the randomness of it for now. Oh, and that little print smack in the middle is from Studio Mela, one of my favorite print shops on Etsy. I just felt overwhelmingly that “Let Love In” was just kind of a perfect theme for this gallery.

–

Can I just tell you how excited I was when Wendy asked if I could be a part of her Art Display series this month? It was just the kick I needed to fill in the empty frames (yes, I had frames up, but they were empty) on our walls. When we sold our home and moved cross-country last year, I decided to change the walls in our house. I wanted to put away all our fine arts painting and just put up black and whites images of our family framed in black frames with white mats.

My goal was to let our walls reflect us….where we had been and where we are at the moment. In order to do that, the easiest thing (and possibly the cheapest) was to start collecting frames from all over and slip photos in as I wanted. I love gallery wraps but did not want to be tied to the same images on the walls nor did I want to use up wall space with just a couple of images (plus I like to change it up as I take pictures and have new favorites).

Above my kids workstation, I hung six square frames…

Around the kitchen and back entryway are most of the frames…

I used chalkboard clipboards to hang these set of three.

I purchased art hangers from Pottery barn years ago. Now I like to hang the kid’s artwork and some black + white photos to display their art.

The only color frames I hung were these four…discontinued from Pottery Barn years ago, but I still love them.

Near one entryway, I chose to hang different sized frames…

We have another hallway that is long and dark, but has these great art spotlights. I chose to hang several different sized frames in groups of three or two. The really big 48×48 frames are from Pottery Barn. I loved them, but sadly haven’t taken the perfect photos for them….yet.

In one of the girls’ rooms, I hung three 11×14 frames over the bed.

In my office/craft room, I wanted to get a little creative so I got these frames and attached string and chicken wire to the back of them to hang up Polaroids.

Finally, my inspiration boards near and above my computer. Random pictures are tacked up along with my kid’s artwork and whatnots.

Now the fun part for me will be to change the images within the frames and wait to see who notices in my family.

Thank you Wendy for doing such a great series. It has been fun to pour over old pictures and put everything together!

Thank you, Kristin!

StaceyWoods

Aubry Startin

Breeze Floyd

Tamara Burross

Carey Pace

Nancy Lary

Jules Trandem

Gail Pomare

Elisabeth Ross

Amy Lockheart

Jasmine Johnson

Hope Toliver

Kristina Buskirk

SaraTegman

Misti Dawson

Deb Schwedhelm 

Jennifer Nguyen

 Jolie Starrett 

Val Spring 

Jasmine Sargent

Ali Crane 

Jobrina Hofleit

Rachel Chaney