Six Months...

Thanks, Knot.com.

Love,
Melanie

Cussing the Gallery Wall

They make it look so easy to have a gallery wall, don't they? Pinterest is full of gallery wall inspirations and how-tos. You can look at blogs all day and be inspired to create a gallery wall of your own. However, you may also cuss it out. Wait? Just me? Hmm...

Let me back up a bit. You see, our guest book was a huge tree that our loved ones added thumbprint leaves to. It's beautiful. It is roughly 2' by 3'. It cost me $300 to frame. In addition to the tree-that-cost-almost-as-much-as-my-dress, we had a shadowbox from his parents containing dried flowers, part of a tree plate, and our invitation. We also had our ring "pillow," which is a mostly-complete cross-stitch I did. I wanted a wall of memories to celebrate our wedding and what better than a gallery wall? We would have pictures of different sizes, differing frames, and different textures courtesy of the cross-stitch and a button "S" I plan on making. Brad and I sorted through all of our wedding and engagement photos until we had a respectable amount and we dubbed the project the "wall of narcissism."

I spent a small fortune on frames, lined them up wrapping paper on the floor, and traced them. I had post-its detailing picture description, orientation, color, and size. I even numbered the post-its and the traced outlines so I could be sure to line everything up again. I hung the wrapping paper on the wall, hung photos, and ripped down the wrapping paper. Everything looked good (and was good!) until I learned that photographers don't really shoot for 8x10 inch photos anymore--they shoot for 8x12 inch.  Really? So, I figured out which photos could take a crop and which couldn't, and then I set about returning and buying new frames.  Thank goodness that Michael's has started to carry digital-photo-sized frames now and I found the 8x12s without a lot of trouble. I also had the benefit of a 40% off of certain frames sale, plus a 25% of total frame purchase coupon.   I'm still on the hunt for a 10x15, though...

Anyway, here are some pictures.  We're still waiting on the photos that will go in the frames and I didn't exactly "style" the couch for the last photo.  I'm keeping it real, I guess. 

What trouble did you have with a gallery wall? Do you have any tips?

Laid out on the floor.

(I know I still owe you a post on the curtains.)

This is a bad picture, but here is the wrapping paper up on the wall.

Aww, look. With my iPhone, I have no idea how to not

let the lamp wash out the left side of the wall.

Taking down frames after learning that 8x10 won't cut it.

This is what the wall looked like last night.

New frames are up, though I still need a 10x15 to replace

the frame above the tree and four from the right.

Note: no styling, but new pillows. :)

Catch Up

I'm such a blogging slacker.  I guess this is where I tell you how busy I've been and apologize for my absence.  I am sorry and I want to be a better blogger.  It's all about finding a balance and I've been enjoying using my time these past couple of months to really settle into marriage.  This stuff is hard sometimes! Brad and I are in a really good place right now and we've really been working on communicating and acting as a team. 

Here are some photos to catch us up to current and we'll work from there. Deal?

FEBRUARY

I won a giveaway that Justine hosted for shop credit from much love, illy's etsy shop.  Please click on those links. Justine is hilarious and Illene will fill your life with adorable-ness. I persued the shop, placed my order, and in no time at all was greeted with a lovely manilla envelope.  Inside was this:

Red tissue paper packages tied up with string...

containing two of my new favorite things!

Short-haired girls can rock headbands, too.

New dress from Jason Wu collection for Target + headband=love.



 Brad really worked hard to make Valentine's a good day for me and his effort showed. We ate chocolate and watched movies all weekend! He even bought a bigger box of chocolates since he "knew [he] would eat most of them." ha!

Yummy heart of chocolates.

Pretty orange roses.

An Apple card with one of our engagement photos?

Instant points for him!

Yes, I totally ate this for lunch one day.

The chocolates look smooshed because there was no "cheat sheet"

 and so I made thumb prints in them all.

My first Coach purse. Bought for the shape/color and not the name.

Thank you, online factory sale.

An Ikea trip with a sleepy three-year-old is made better by a front-facing camera.

MARCH

March brought a lot of new babies, some tornados, a funeral, and lots of time with good friends. And that was just in the first 10 days!

I read The Hunger Games trilogy in about a week and LOVED it.

I have read that there's some controversy with how Mockingjay ended, but I thought it was just as it should be. Email me if you want to start a dialogue.

My mom got an itch to play BINGO, so we rounded up

some happy meal toys and went to town.

We didn't win, but had so much fun.

I'm really thankful that a lot of Bingo halls are smoke-free now.

Here's one of the babes I was talking about.

Brad's cousins welcomed Lumen into their lives on March 1, 2012.

Lumen with Mommy.