Picture Perfect: Easy & Simple Framing Trick



My sister (Jen) Vana White'ing our almost completed display

Point proven...a little of Mya, a little of Oliver :)

     It's interesting how the major events in your life start to claim all of the picture frames in your home. When I graduated from University all of a sudden my frames were full of my grad pics, friends I met in University or fun, crazy moments throughout my 4yrs in school that we had captured and framed. Then when I got married all of a sudden those frames became full of Terry and I grinning ear to ear in our wedding best, perfectly posing or candidly caught enjoying our day. And then (the big one)...we had a baby. And then it just gets ridiculous. I don't think I've ever taken so many pictures in my life and I certainly know that I have never cared so much about capturing so many small moments in our day as I do now that Mya is in our life. I can't tell you how many times the words "quick, get the camera!" have been yelled throughout our house and it's not slowing down any now that my sister Jen just had a baby 3 months ago. Baby Oliver (my nephew) and Mya are chased down by parent paparazzi's all day long. So, with that being said, I decided that I really wanted to create a family photo wall where I could display some of our favourites. Naturally then, I went out and bought the frames myself and told Terry that he was going to give them to me for Christmas. Is it just me, or do other women do this too? I love a good surprise, so I don't want to know all of my gifts...but if I see something I like I figure I may as well get it as a gift so it's not like I'm really spending extra money..it's a gift, right?..sure. That's what I tell myself. And really, I'm helping Terry out too. So win-win. He really is a good gift giver though--spoils me rotten with surprises. Anyway, I randomly found these frames at Walmart in a pack of 13 (all different sizes and all coordinating, which is what I was looking for), and it only cost $18.99, so I couldn't resist. If you're looking for these same ones, they came in a huge rectangular box--HUGE. Jen and I took out about 10 different people while we were pushing this beast through the aisles of Walmart with 2 babies in tow. These are the moments in life when I wish I had a personal videoographer following me--you just can't fully explain the humour in this unless you saw it in person.
     Anyways, after being very surprised on Christmas morning when I received such a wonderful gift from my hubby, my sister, mom and I got started on mapping out my family photo wall. People ask me the same question a lot "how do you do that with a baby?". So I realize now too that I should have taken pics of the actual reality of this project. If I had taken enough pics, you would have seen me standing at the bottom of the staircase holding Oliver and bouncing like a madwoman trying to keep him from crying (little guy was ready for a nap), while my mom held Mya as she wiggled and squirmed trying to get to me. As I asked Jen to move each frame a little to the left, or a little to the right, it wasn't exactly a picture perfect or easy process. However, the thing is..we did it..and we did it quickly! 

    Anyways,  here is how we did it:

1) Grab some old newspapers. Place each frame on the newspaper and cut around them, so you have the exact size of each frame, but in paper form.

2) Get some tape and the biggest paper frame that you have. Figure out generally where the middle of your wall is (or the middle of wherever  you want your collage of frames to be) and tape the paper frame to the wall.



3) Grab the next biggest size of paper frames and place them around the largest frame.

4) Grab the smaller frames and fill in the holes until it looks how you want it to.

5) Place your screw or nail at the very top & middle of the paper frame and screw it into the wall.



6) Then pull the paper off of the wall and place your real frame there instead. Continue with each frame until all of your real frames are perfectly placed.

Make sure to get a mini level and make sure all pics are straight. In these pics we hadn't done it yet since I hadn't put all of our pictures in yet. So you can see that it would make a big difference once you're completely finished.

7) Insert pictures, and you're done!  Or, if you don't want to add pictures, you could always add scrapbook paper or patterned fabric to create instant artwork.  

Voila!! (Now we just have to fill them with all of our pics!)