DIY: Gallery Wall

I've had the bug to create a gallery wall for a while, but was too lazy. It seemed like a lot of work to figure out the alignment and hang everything up. But while my husband was in China and I was bored, I realized I pretty  much had most of the pieces I wanted to use. I worked on a few additional pieces and before I knew it, I had my wall laid out on our living room floor.

I had to do a few extra steps because we had some shelves on the walls from the previous owners and they were a pain to get off. Half the screws were stripped and each shelf had seven of them. I had to go buy a long drill bit to finally get them all out. Then I had to paint the spaces they were in because the old owners painted around them. Thankfully, they left us all of the leftover paint from all of the rooms in the house. I'm pretty sure the paint was well past its expiration date, but it worked.

Offending shelves on left wall (old owner's furniture and stuff)

I didn't trust myself to hang all of the stuff myself, so I waited until the Mr. got home so he and his perfectionist self could help me hang things evenly. I didn't want it perfectly symmetrical, so that was one good thing we had going for us. 

I roughly cut paper into the shapes and sizes of my pieces and taped them to the wall. We stared at them for about a week, rearranging things here and there until we decided we liked how it look. It took us about two full hours to hang things up, along with a few frustrating moments (for my husband) when measurements didn't quite add up. But in the end, I'm thrilled with the result!

The final product.

The little asterisks by some of the items means I made it or it was something special that I framed. I love that the wall incorporates so many unique things that aren't just photos.

Here's a closer look at some of the pieces:

I made this wreath over the winter and making all those flowers was a pain, so I wanted that work to be a permanent fixture on the wall. 

My sister-in-law and I took a class to create a mosaic mirror last summer. 

I bought this little frame at Goodwill for $.25 and decided to paint it. I didn't know what to put in it so I was rummaging through some mementos and found the receipt from the first date with my husband. It fit perfectly! (And let it be known that he's the one who kept it, not me! Such a sentimental chap.)

I ordered one of these plates for a friend's wedding about three months after ours and decided I liked it so much that I ordered one for us, too. (Husband's name blurred to protect the innocent.)

We saved the corks from the champagne we drank on the night we got engaged and the night we got married and wrote the dates on them. I just removed the glass from a Goodwill frame and glued the corks to some felt. 

We had a boutonniere that we made for my husband and the groomsmen for our wedding so I decided to glue one to a glass-less frame that was also leftover from the wedding. 

Three Pinterest projects rounded out the homemade wall. The ombre hearts was something I've seen all over, so I glued some scrapbook paper and hearts on top of this ugly painting I got at Goodwill. The L was just a random project I decided to do after getting a little wooden 'L' at Goodwill. And then geometric piece was a whim as well. I had a blank canvas from Goodwill and wanted to do something with it, so I grabbed some tape and some spray paint and got to it. I love the copper color! 

Finally, here's a picture that shows the scale of the wall with our giant couch underneath it.

I suppose I could have propped the pillows nicely and moved those spare frames from the floor, 

but I'm just keeping it real!