Family Photo Corner
This little corner of my dining room has been ignored for far too long! Thank goodness the church directory put a fire under me to get some family photos taken. And it’s about time, since my firstborn is a senior this year! My planning of this photo display started long before I got to hanging them.
Before you head to the photographer you need to decide…what to wear! The photo company suggested solids and most of the examples showed people in white shirts and denim. Nice look, but I knew we’d all look pale as ghosts with our Minnesota winter tans. The kids received cute, plaid shirts for Christmas, so that was my springboard…Mr. Fix-it and I could be in solids to balance it all out. I decided if I used colors in the photos that coordinated with my home, I would be happy with the display year round. Greens, blues, pink and red, all grounded with black, works well in my home, for every season.
The photographer did a wonderful job getting us all to look our best. As I’ve enjoyed the photos on the dining room table, I’ve been mulling over how to display them. I’m kind of weird when it comes to hanging items on my walls, because I know my tastes change often, and I don’t like “regular” framed print groupings. I try to be more out of the box. I also don’t like photos behind glass. I’m just not a glass girl. Yep-weird. We ordered one frame with the three kids in a frame, no glass, which turned out very nice. We ordered the others as prints so I could do something creative with them. My desire was for more of a mix and match look.
In an attempt to “junk” up my house, I scrounged my drawers for materials. For some weird reason, this approach always works better when I’m in a time crunch! Happy Girl was having a birthday party and I had about an hour to get this display up on the wall! I used an old hymnal as a backdrop for our family photo to reflect our love of church music. I used a clip from my desk to hang it, and made my own photo corners from cork and some fabric tape I had in the drawer. A thin piece of cardboard stiffens the photos. I wrapped some decorative paper around the cardboard for our couple photo, that actually mimicked the metal work in the larger frame. I found the cute silver clip in the drawer and the photo corners in with my scrapbooking trove.
I wanted some other items with the photos to tell the story about our family, and make the display more interesting. It also helped that the whole arrangement was on different planes, rather than a flat wall. I love the reader’s digests books, and I had seen them cut into letters at a couple stores. I was so happy to find a “B” in blues and greens! The “so many of my smiles” sign came home with me that same day. Adding a little humor, the “if you met my family” sign just makes me smile! The number five is an old stencil I had, and backed it with some old primary-school paper, and then taped it to some cork. I like the graphic punch of a letter and a number in the mix, along with some cute sayings.
Having different textures: paper, cork, metal, wood, along with the punch of colors and the black and white, creates a lively combination. It highlights the photos, but is artistic at the same time. Some elements are new, some old; that’s always a good mix.
A boring corner just turned into a cozy, sentimental reading spot that’s fun to look at, too!
