Inspiration and tips on how to create an effective gallery wall - get those pictures up on the walls!

HOW TO CREATE A GALLERY WALL

With being a photographer, I have always been keen on experimenting how to best and most effectively mount your pictures on the walls. It's amazing how carefully considered framing can really set off your art work, photography or prints and make them sing and stand out from the wall. For example, this may be as a result of bringing in a hint of colour from a vibrant backing mount board, or float mounting to leave a textural edge of fine art paper or mounting directly onto fabric. And if like me, you can never decide between which picture to hang, then why not go all out and bring a cluster of framed images together and hang all together as a group, quickly creating a gallery of art on the wall. Through doing so, you can create a very effective and eye catching feature wall showing off a collection of your most treasured images.

gallery wall in the bedroom

So this is what we decided to do in our blue bedroom. We had a collection of empty frames of varying sizes, a selection of photos, art work and prints and we couldn't decide which one or two to display. So we decided to display them all!!

SOME SIMPLE TIPS I'd LIKE TO SHARE FOR CREATING YOUR VERY OWN GALLERY WALL

1.

Decide on your colours. Do your chosen frames follow a theme? For example are you after colour uniformity or do you want to create a more eclectic mix and add variety? Often the overall room design will help dictate this, alongside consideration of the colour of the wall you have chosen to hang your frames on to.

In our bedroom, we decided to stick to whites and golds in order for the picture frames to stand out against the strong blue painted bedroom wall. Which meant a little bit of up cycling was required! I painted a rectangular wooden frame with metallic gold paint in order to draw it forward from the wall.

painting picture frames gold

painting picture frames

Giving an old frame a face lift up cycle in gold!

2.

Consider Different Ways to Hang Your Pictures Rather than the Conventional Frame and Mount.

I was keen to include a collection of my screen print designs which I had recently printed onto fine art paper and I really wanted to keep the ragged textural edge. Options were to either float mount (effectively suspending the print within a frame) or I had also thought I could hang a line of picture wire from which I could peg my designs on too. I liked the idea of the latter and then thought I could incorporate this into a large sized frame and create several rows from which I could peg onto. It wasn't until I was searching for my picture wire in my studio that I then had a better brainwave idea. I came across a length of gold netting which we had bought to decorate some top hats for our wedding table centre pieces....

creating an alternative pin board for pictures

Bingo! A Perfect way to up cycle an old empty frame. I decided to scrap the wire idea and attach the netting to the back of the large white frame..

creating a feature gallery wall

and of course I couldn't resist adding a touch of gold onto this frame too!

up cycling picture frames in gold

...and hey presto! A more stylish take on a picture pin board.

picture frame ideas

Not only does it add a bit of shimmer and texture to the wall, but I can also easily change around the images we choose to display, keeping the content fresh as well as being super practical.

Here's the final frame, being kindly modelled by Richard!

gallery picture wall ideas

Then you just need a few little pegs to attach your prints!

ideas for up cycling picture frames for wall gallery

3.

How about adding a mirror?

Not all the frames have to be framing photos or art work. We added a little frame in the centre of our wall montage but couldn't find a photo for the particular size. So we changed it to a small mirror instead.

4.

How about framing a small frame within a larger empty frame,

or alternatively adding no picture at all?

Adding no picture at all makes me feel a little bit zen...which I quite like feeling!

And after carefully contemplating all these decisions, the final stage is putting it all together.

creating a picture gallery wall

And many picture hooks later, it's time to stand back and view your creative results....

wall collage

Here's a sneaky view through the lens at an alternative room set up that we've created so far..featuring our yellow chest of drawers (blog on the story of this to follow very shortly!)

bedroom feature gallery wall

A picture gallery wall, a montage piece, a wall art collage, whatever you'd like to call it, hanging pictures on the walls is one big satisfying feat.

So what do you think of ours?!

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