While we're on the subject of walls....

A few months ago I decided to do some drastic painting in the playroom and upstairs hallways. You can read about that HERE. And sadly, it's taken three months to return back to the hallway and finish it up.

I wanted to do a small gallery wall with the kids' art, as well as few family pics and happy quotes, and I have been inspired lately by collages with a mixture of frame colors like this:

I love that there is a cohesiveness, but they aren't matchy-matchy. I am also drawn lately to thin frames with white mats, so that was definitely part of the criteria when hunting for frames.

I decided to go with thin white, black, oak and gold frames. I found most of them at Salvation Army for $1 to $2 a piece, and most of them came with mats, albeit ugly ones. But that was easily fixed with a few light coats of white spray paint.

I framed some of the kids' art, and grabbed a few family pictures and quotes I already had, and then went online in search of some other fun quotes to complete the wall. For the hallway, I wanted typography that was colorful and not extremely wordy or busy, and also something I could download and print. Etsy is the place to go for prints for your walls, but weeding through the thousands of choices is a chore. Lucky for me, my friend Jande had just recently opened up a Etsy shop called InspireYourArt and it is FULL of just the things I was looking for.

I love the colors on this one:

InspireYourArt

And the simplicity of this:

InspireYourArt

And I mean, who doesn't love the irony of a dainty feminine poster with angry girl anthem lyrics?

InspireYourArt

So I purchased, downloaded, printed and popped these into their frames in no time at all. What takes the longest is arranging them on the wall. With a collage of frames in varying sizes like this, sometimes you have try try out a bunch of different combinations in order to get the right look.

What used to be my least favorite part of the house is now one of my favorites. Seriously, this is a 1000% improvement from the boring, beige and dark armpit that it was four months ago. It's happy, colorful and full of personality, and I hope that as my kids pass by it every day they will absorb some of that happiness.

And to bring you a little happiness as well, Jande is offering 50% off to all my Mid Mod readers! Her downloads are only $5, so half off is a STEAL! Go visit her STORE and enter MM50OFF at check out to receive your discount!