DIY Photo Collage

My husband and I moved into our home 4+ years ago.  In that time I have had all manor of pictures or paintings and combinations there of hanging above the couch on our south wall.  This room has been the bain of my existence in this house, unfinished, bland and lacking a personality.  To top it off we have large dark furniture in the room adding to a feeling of heaviness.  Several months back I finally got some curtains and some sheers hung to soften the room a bit but that large area above the couch still taunted me and the 'mantle' above the TV was cluttered and to use a technical term, yucky. 

My original thought was to find a large painting to hang above the couch, something that had some personality with out being to overwhelming, that also fit in my budget.  I searched high and low, I went to every home goods store I could find and even tried the swap meet.  Nadda.  I couldn't find anything that a) was big enough, b) I liked enough to live with it, and c) fit in my budget.  So I sucked it up and lived with the ridiculously small canvas you see in the picture.  Pathetic. 

It drove me crazy every time I looked at my living room.  So one day I had an epiphany.  I have dozens of frames floating around my house.  I am surrounded by pictures of my family and friends.  Why not forgo getting a picture/painting that I am going to tire of after a while and do a photo collage?  Fantastic.  Now how do I do that?  I started looking on the Internet for a how-to guide to help me get started.  I've never done a photo collage before and I didn't want to dive in with out having some sort of game plan.  Unfortunately I had a difficult time finding what I needed.  I got a lot results that described how to do it but no examples of how it looked and most of them just didn't fit the look and materials I had.  I was deflated and frustrated, but I didn't give up the search.

Finally, last week I stumbled upon this site: http://designformula.blogspot.com/2008/01/making-picture-wall-collage.html.  It was exactly what I needed, not only does the site have examples, it has diagrams!  I looked at the different diagrams and picked one that has an imaginary line down the middle and you place pictures above and below that line.  I started by gathering all the frames I intended to use.  I then grabbed a large level and placed it on the ground.  I then took my two largest pictures and placed them on the 'line.'  From there I built out my diagram placing pictures here and there, trying to keep the frames different colored and shaped, the pictures themselves could be moved so I wasn't so worried about the content for the most part.  Once I had all my pictures laid out the way I wanted them, I took a picture.  Taking a picture was very valuable for two reasons, #1 it gave me a good visual of what it would look like on the wall from a different perspective, #2. it gave me a record of what I had done so if I had to pick everything up before I was able to finish, I could refer back to the picture. 

Once I had my picture taken I moved the couch away from the wall and started hanging.  I started from the middle and worked my way out from there.  I used a small ruler and a level to help keep things in a straight line.  I also used a thumb tack to test the position before putting the screws in the wall.  This was incredibly helpful and made things go quickly.  Unfortunately I was only able to get half done the first day as I was working in prime real estate for my kids to play in.  I couldn't deny them access for much longer and I didn't want them getting into my tool box or damaging the pictures.  Therefore I had to do a quick clean up including picking up the pictures from the floor. (Thank goodness I had a picture to refer back to!)

The next day I finished the collage and as I stepped back, I was rather satisfied with my work.  I'm not 100% done, I think I have some room to add some more fun frames and I have a handful of frames that need pictures (on order from Shutterfly.) Now that I have it started I feel like I've taken several large bites out of that elephant.  I plan to incorporate more graphic imagery, such as some of my daughters artwork.  I already have on framed piece of her art and would like to add one or two more.  I would also like to find a few oval shaped frames and maybe some real funky pieces to mix into the collection and help fill out the symmetry.  Overall, I'm satisfied with the end result.  Plus, now when I get a little bored, all I have to do is switch out the pictures.  My next project is to refine my TV mantle...