I have been ashamed that I spend so much time photographing and documenting other family and their milestones but not mine.  So it was time to change that.  So last fall we had a beautiful set of family photos taken. I will commit to it each year from here on out.  And I do believe that when it is displayed in a tasteful way, quality portraiture really is art, and there is no better way to enjoy or appreciate your investment that to display it.  Digital photography is great, but your photos are not being enjoyed on a disk. At the same time, hanging a big wall is daunting…so I did a little research, and wow, did this little technique that came from several different people on Pinterest ever work wonders…huge time and wall saver!  I did not even hammer in one extra nail to get this right, and if you know me, that is amazing…!

This is what I wanted the final product to look like…but how did I get it without my husband having to repair and patch 75 000 wall holes from my usual “guesstimate” technique?

Here is what you need:

Level

Craft paper, wrapping paper or other roll that you can trace out of you picture on.

Nails

Measuring tape

Masking tape (or other tape that won’t damage the walls)

Pencil

Hammer

STEP 1. I did this a different evening and so I forgot to photograph it, sorry guys!  I have a feeling you can visualize….Easy Peasy.  Trace around the outside of your framed photos or Canvases onto paper and cut out. I used a old photography paper drop, but the dollar store sells rolls of plain brown packing and craft paper that would work great too.  Avoid newsprint…it will leave marks on the walls.

STEP 2. On each piece of paper that you have cut or, trace out the picture hanging hardware that is used to hang the picture…this will allow you to place your nail perfectly. This photo show it with the nail in, but you can see how I traced the hanger so that I would know exactly where the nail would go.

STEP 3. Decide what you want your wall to look like!  I have a great program to help clients visualize their family photos on their own walls and to decide what sizes and shapes will give them the wall they are hoping for…but once you have them all in front of you, you need to lay them out and play with it until you have it just right.  This is my bedroom floor, it took a little playing but this is what I decided on.  Snap a quick cell picture of it so that you can refer back as you are hanging.

STEP 4.  Measure your wall and your collage of art  (mine only had an extra 2 inches of space to spare…phew! I totally lucked out there, not planned at all) and find your centre point.  I started with the biggest piece and worked my way out.  Measuring the largest canvas edges from each side and correlating that to where it needed to be on the wall.  I just used a little pencil mark on each side of where it was going to need to be on the wall.

When you are planning one large photo, or a smaller compilation, keep in mind that standard gallery height is 64″ from the ground because that is the standard height the eye is drawn to when looking at walls…how that was researched I have no idea, but if you look at 64″ on the wall and a photo centered to that, it is appealing.  My lay out was so big that I kept this in mind, but it wasn’t too helpful here.

Step 5. Using my pencil dots on the wall as a guide and my LEVEL to make sure that I was getting it straight (another thing that I am totally NOT famous for…), I started taping my papers to the wall.  I gave myself a 1.5″ space between each picture and kept stepping back as I was putting them up to make sure I was happy with how they looked.

As I worked my way out from my center photos (no more measuring needed, other than the border between them), I adjusted a few things to make it look just right and here was what the full paper wall looked like when I was done.

Double check that everything is level before you move on.

STEP 6. Now if you are happy with the layout, you get to start nailing.  Your pre traced outlines will tell you exactly where to nail.

STEP 7. Take the paper down and your nails are all perfectly lined up.

Step 8. The most fun part…Hang and admire!

Seriously, every time I walk up the stairs in my house I smile.  And if you have any idea about me and my silly heart infection and climbing stairs this year, it is so lovely to see this at the top. :)  I am so happy that I finally have some “family art” on my walls.  I am already planning my next project!

It seems like a lot of steps, but in the end it was way faster that it would have been my old, horribly ineffective way. And that is without taking into account all of the repairs my sweet Craig would have had to do to fix the walls after…So he liked this technique too.

Time to get inspired and plan something for your walls!