Gallery Gallery On My Wall...

What on Earth is that you wonder? Well...it is a stack/pile of frames I have been collecting while thrifting for some months now. It all started with a little inspiration from one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love. They created this fabulous gallery wall in one of their hallways, and I fell in love with it. I was kind of afraid at first because I am not big on cluttering up walls with things, but this was beautiful and practical. There are so many pictures and sentimental items stuffed in drawers in our house, and by gosh, I wanted to display them. I mean, why have we spent an outrageous amount of money on cruise photos that we have stuck in photo albums that no one ever looks at? Why do we hang onto sentimental items (cards, invitations, letters, etc.) that we never see? They just get stuffed in the "memory box" and stuffed away where we forget we have them. It's crazy to me, so I decided to do something about it. This gallery wall idea was just the answer.

So...I started collecting frames of every shape, size, and color from thrift stores. I ended up with 27 frames in order to cover the two walls I wanted to display items on. Yeah, that is a lot of frames, but since I shopped at thrift stores, and around our house, I only spent about $40 on all of them. FANTASTIC!!!

I just loaded them up in a box in the garage until I had enough. I didn't wait until I had collected all 27 of them to start taking them apart and creating a template for the wall. Whenever I would bring some home, I would take out the matting, glass, back, etc. and store them in a safe pile in our bonus room. I would then make a template for each frame using newspaper.

Each frame was numbered to match a template of newspaper with the same number.

Then, after I had collected all of the frames, I taped all of the templates to the walls in the entryway. This made it easy to move frames around until I liked the arrangement. Once all the templates were up and ready, I got to work with putting nails/holes in the wall. Ugh...I hate putting holes in the walls, but it was all in the name of good decorating! It was really easy to hang each frame because they didn't have to be equally spaced or in a line. I just measured to the middle of each template and then measured down from the top of the frames to figure out where each nail needed to go. Then, I nailed right into the template and pulled them off when I was finished. Believe it or not, it only took me an hour to hang all 27 frames!!! I couldn't believe it myself, easy squeezy. It took A LOT longer to spray paint all the frames...only ONE of them was white!!!

Just for the fun of it, I put the frames (unfinished) on the wall to see what it was going to look like. Oh my gosh...LURVE!!!

Now came the intimidating fun part! What was I going to put in 27 frames? Okay...25 frames (two were mirrors). Even still, the creative juices had to start flowing, and fast. I knew I wanted to display some of our cruise photos, pictures of the boys, some artwork from the boys, and some family photos, but I wanted more spunk...not just pictures. So, I went on a scavenger hunt around the house to find inspiration.

Here is what I came up with...

I found a picture we bought from a street painter on a trip to the Bahamas for our second anniversary, a wedding invitation, a gold key from church, and a postcard from our honeymoon trip stop in Cozumel. Where were all of these lovely things? You guessed it, the "memory box"!

I backed our wedding invitation with scrapbook paper and the key from church. I added the word, forgive, to the key using sticker letters. This key was given to us as a reminder that forgiveness is the key to happiness and a close walk with God. Good stuff!!!

I also made this...

and this...(our wedding date)

I took the letters we found on our second anniversary trip and created this...

I also used some bark that we found on our trip to Hunting Island. I created the "&" print on the handy dandy Hewitt Packard sitting on my desk (FREE).

I continued to scavenger and create for a good 12 hours (geez), and it ended up looking a little something like this...

I cannot possibly express how much I adore it, so I will share some more pictures so you will know how obsessed I am with it!

Looking in from the front door.

 Looking up.

From the living room.

It makes me smile every single time I walk through it. I know we will enjoy this wall for years to come. It will be ever changing so that nothing gets stuck in a box forever and never looked at  enjoyed again.

Put a Wreath on It

One of my favorite items to find while I am thrifting is an old wreath. Sometimes they are Christmas wreaths, sometimes Easter, sometimes Halloween, sometimes a tragic DIY gone bad...you get the point. I look past all that because I know that underneath all that holiday glam or just plain ugly, there is a usuable wreath. Buying a wreath like the one above, new in the store, will cost $10 to $12! What? I don't think so. I got this one at Goodwill for $1.50. Now... it was decorated (if that's what you wanna call it) with some Christmas decor. I had other plans.

While looking online for wreath ideas for a coworker, I found this beauty...



I thought it was so, so cute! I immediately had a plan for my own front door. I headed out to Dollar Tree for some flowers and to Hob Lob for an "S". Easy enough! When I got home, I found my Goodwill wreath and went to work. All done for $7.50...PAA POW!

And, in closing, a tune...

"If you like it, then you should put a wreath on it."

Thank You Mother Nature

I love spring...for the most part...the allergies that come with it, not so much. I love spring for many reasons:

1. It brings with it the warm weather that I long for throughout the winter months. (I do NOT love winter!)

2. Everything turns colorful again. The lovely flowers in our yard start to bloom, and it just makes me happy.

3. Flip flops...oh my gosh...I LOVE Flip Flops and would wear them every single day of my life if given the chance.

4. Spring Break!

5. My Wedding Anniversary which is always celebrated on #4.

6. Longer days...yay for Daylight Savings

7. Grilling Out

8. And the best for last....knowing that summer is coming and in teacher world that means...SUMMER BREAK!!!!!

So let's get on with this post shall we...

When the hubby and I arrived home from our vacation from the Low Country we drove into a yard that was about to bloom with beautiful flowers. I was so, so excited because that means that the lovely peonies that are planted in our side yard were going to decorate our yard and our house. For FREE!!! Thank you previous homeowners. Shout out to ya!

I have been waiting for a week for a few of these babies to bloom so I could bring some in the house. Today was the day.

Oh my gosh....B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L.

Snip, snip went the scissors and those flowers were coming in the house with me. I only made a small arrangement today because there weren't many that were ready yet. Maybe if I was a little more patient the arrangement would have been more grandiose. Yeah...okay...me...patient...NO!

Now they sit so pretty on my entry way table. Spring has officially been invited in!!!

What do you love about spring?

What's In A Name?

For our second anniversary, the hubs and I decided to take a trip to the beautiful South Carolina Low Country. Even though we have both been to the Low Country a countless number of times (the hubs even lived there for a bit), we decided to spend our Spring Break/Anniversary Celebration there to learn all about the history of this part of our wonderful state.

Being a teacher of SC History, I was very excited to take a trip that I could share with the students in my classroom for years to come. We visited many historical sites, including Fort Sumter, historic downtown Charleston, Parris Island, Hunting Island State Park, the Vierdier House, and many more. We also ate ourselves absolutely silly while sampling an array of different Low Country cuisine. Oh my gosh, I looooove Low Country Boil!!!

To document all of the fun places we visited along the way, we decided to find items that resembled letters so we could make a collage of letters to spell our last name. I wish I could claim the creativity for this idea, but someone else beat me to it. This idea was inspired by a print I drooled over at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago while shopping with my sis. This being a celebration of our 2nd anniversary, I thought this would be a creative way to remember the trip instead of simply standing beside monuments and taking pictures of each other. Boooorring!

I also have an idea lurking around in my head to create a gallery wall in the entry way of our house to display artifacts from trips, photos, and the kids' artwork. Check out the gallery wall created by the writers of Young House Love (the hubby can thank them for my glorious plans)!

So, without further ado, here are some of the pictures we snapped around Beaufort and Charleston to remember our trip with letters...

This "S" was on a gate to the entrance of a garden attached to a house on Rainbow Row in Charleston.

This "U" was found while relaxing at one of our favorite places in Beaufort, Waterfront Park.

Both the "L" and "N" where created using nature on the beach of Hunting Island State Park.

This was a roof peak on a historical home in downtown Beaufort for the letter "A". I used a different "A" in the collage because the background was too much of a contrast. I still love it though.

This "A" was found near one the best Brownie Sundaes I have ever sunk my teeth into in downtown Beaufort. Oh my gosh, I nearly had to find someone elses grandma to smack it was soooo good!

This "I" is from a front porch overlooking Waterfront Park.

This is my favorite!!! The "V" was taken right from a palm tree found in the park. I absolutely love coastal plants and trees. Our backyard will one day reflect that!

This "L" was on a sidewalk in downtown Beaufort. We learned that a lot of the brick work that is seen in the Low Country dates back to before the Civil War.

I couldn't wait to get home and edit each photo so I could see my vision come together. I can't even express the LURVE I have for the finished collage. I changed my whole blog's appearance so it could be displayed as my blog's banner. That should tell ya something!!!

Now, I am on a mission to get a frame to display it on the future gallery wall. Can't wait to get that one started very soon!!!

Treat for a Teacher

Okay...so to say it has been a while would be an understatement. Who knew that this teaching gig could get so hectic, and leave time for absolutely no blogging or decorating for that matter? Well, I hope to get back on the blog trail and reenter that big bloggy, bloggy world out there.

So...here goes!

During this school year, I had the privilege of mentoring a student teacher from the good ol' USC-Upstate. GAME! COCKS! (Sorry, I couldn't resist). She was with me for a few months and learned A LOT about the world of teaching. Soooooo, at the end of her journey, I decided to make her a little decor for her future classroom.

The idea crept its way into my head in Dollar Tree as I was prowling around looking for some fun Easter decor. I am walking around looking for treasures, when BAM, it hit me! I could make a school supply wreath with a chalkboard to display a teacher's name or welcome message. Woot...Woot...I still got it!!!

Here is what I started with...

Hmmmm....one hubby and one pine wood derby car later, and the top to my spray paint has disappeared.
I had most of the supplies at home, so I ended up spending $5 on the wreath, a pair of scissors, a piece of wood, and a roll of polka dot ribbon. Yeayah!

I plugged in my handy, dandy glue gun and went to town.

I painted the wooden plaque with chalkboard spray paint (LURVE). Then, I glued some ribbon to the back and threaded it through the top of the wreath to hang. I added a bow on the side for some cutesy points, and VOILA!

I can't wait to make one for myself. I absolutely love it, and I am convinced it would look perfect hanging on my classroom door!