Hallway Frame Project

So for the longest time I had a series of photos meandering up my stairwell with photos of my boys (of course). Most of the photos were black with some silver ones mixed in. I liked it, but I can't say I loved it. In fact it sorta bothered me but I couldn't figure out why.

A few weeks ago Sarah and I went to Ikea with our husbands in tow. She spotted these great colored frames and a major aha moment hit my brain. My friend Lynnie in Maine had done a stairwell display of her kids artwork and I loved the idea. But I wasn't quite ready to give up my photos... I wondered... could I mix the two and still make it look cool like Lynnie?

I pulled out Spencer's box of artwork that I had been saving over the last couple of years and selected my favorites. It was so fun! Then I tacked them down to different scrap booking papers that I happened to have in my stash.

Next, I nixed the silver frames (they just didn't go) but kept the black ones and sat down to select different photos to put in them. This is when it got really fun...

We're a Mac family and I have to tell you that one of my favorite things about the Apple computers is the iphoto program. I went to print my photos and clicked a button that said, "customize." Lo and behold... I was able to select mats for my photos! Yes, photo mats that print right along with my photo. I was a tad skeptical at first but was thrilled with the results. In fact, when I showed one to Kent he didn't believe me that it was printed and not "real."

Anyway... here are some photos of my semi-finished product. I picked up more colored frames at Ikea and plan to continue my project to the top of the stairs. Did I mention the frames were all of $1.99 each? I also need to pick up more black frames when the budget allows so I can continue my photograph portion of the project.

If you made it this far... here are some photos of my little project.  If you want to see any of them in detail, simply click on the photo and you can see it big.

I'm really happy with it so far and look forward to improving on it as time and money allows.