Giant Photo Collage Frame

The prices at my local Goodwills have been on the rise and to tell the truth I shop at other store wayyy more often than goodwill these days but I saw this and it was marked 10 bucks! I had to grab it. I put the ruler there to show the size. I guess it was in an office or something.

   Our open plan living area has been called “cavernous”, “huge” etc and that is not a joke. Super high ceiling and the open plan make it huge. I have always been aware of that. It should be two living areas but we always use it as sort of a large play area/foyer and the livingroom in front to the tv. When we first moved in I hung 11x17 prints in frames and they looked like snapshots on the expanse of wall. So I was hoping this large frame would work with the scale of the room.  )Please Note: Furniture is being moved around ain preparation for the X-mas tree to go up so the rooms are a mess)

With a vision I went to work! I took the frame apart and had originally planned to donate the faded mat and “lovely” print to the school art teacher but I have another vision! “Ain’t nothing a little spray paint can’t fix” is the thought behind my thinking. 

    I set aside the glass and the cardboard backing and spray painted the gold frame black (Black Lacquer because I had it on hand). This was a tough choice. Black, white, another color?? The huge livingroom walls are orange- not a soft orange, ORANGE! Exactly one shade away from true burnt orange (Hook ‘em!) We lived with cream walls for over a decade and then we went bold – and love it! I brought home an orange (“for an accent wall”) and a moss green. Hub chose the orange and once we started painting, we just kept going and love it. It is rather bold, though.

  There is a black wrought iron railing separating the dining room from the drop down sunken living room so I thought black would be better than white. Plus I knew what wrapping papers I had on hand to work with.

  The next choice was which wrapping paper to use. I had a matte bronze and a matte gold. I was also torn between color or black & white photos. Hubby said he preferred the color photos and they look better with the gold (the B&W looked better with the bronze). I wrapped the cardboard backing in wrapping paper and just scotch taped it on.

Choosing which photos is hard, too. Do you go with all time favorites? How far back do you go? As a scrapper and in a household where literally everyone even the 2 year old takes pictures, there was a lot to choose from. I think I made some good choices.

I just played with the layout and stuck them on using hermafix (scrapbooking non permanent adhesive – in case I want to change the photos out later). I do wish the photo of us in the center was bigger but that was as big as I could print it. I was fitzing around with it and fussing over the layout until my non scrapbooking sister in law said I was worrying about things only *I* would notice. So I just stopped, called it done and Hubby put the frame all back together. I was kinda scared of that monster piece of glass (my knickname is “Grace” and I am rather clumsy). Then we bent back in place the gazillion staples to hold it in. (Note: A couple of the photos fell so we had to open it up and glue them down better *TWICE*!). The blank spot on one corner is intentional. It was too small for another photo so I plan on adding some vinyl- probably the word Family is fancy font.

  I hope to find some other large scale pieces to use on this wall but- it has been blank for 17 years. I think it is in no hurry to be covered in artwork.

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