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Greta's Gallery Wall (Part 1)

May 5, 2011
We've been holding our breath and anxiously awaiting the arrival of Greta's carpet so we can get her moved into her new room.  I have since stopped holding my breath and decided to work on the details in the meantime.  Details like switching out knobs and hanging art, because pictures on the walls won't interfere with laying carpet...whenever that happens.  
The first thing I did was gather frames I already had.  I knew I wanted white frames, so I snatched the ones that we used in our old living room and a couple from Greta's old room as well.  I played with arranging them on our dining room table until I found a display that I was happy with.  Three of the frames had pictures in them that I knew I wanted to switch out, so the orientation didn't matter (Chris playing his djembe far left, Chris and I sitting at a piano far right, and Greta's silhouette).

The other things (the three ultrasounds, me squeezing her chubby legs, the graphic Gs and a brand new 16x20 gallery-wrapped canvas of the three of us from CanvasPeople) were there to stay.  Now it was just a matter of filling up the other three frames.

I headed down to the "office" (our desks got plopped there and that's the only indication of it being an office right now) and started looking through books and papers to find frameable items.  Within the first 10 minutes I found a beautiful color wheel in one of my watercolor books and cut the page out put it in place of the silhouette.

Maybe I am trying to get her art career started early, or just helping her learn her colors.  Either way, it is a beaut framed.  In those 10 minutes I also found the folder we took home with us from the hospital right after having Greta.  There were a few instructions in it, her hospital birth announcement and her first little footprints.  Ah ha!  I snatched the footprints and decided to work with them.

They definitely left a lot to be desired.  The cheesy border and font (bleh), and the portrait orientation of the page wouldn't work with my landscaped frame.  I scanned the page into my computer and opened it up in Photoshop.  I made sure to make my art board 8.5"x11" (and landscape) so that the little feet would stay the same size...it would be pretty pointless to frame her first footprints larger or smaller than they actually were.  I started going to town erasing everything but the prints of her feet and some of the border directly around them until I was left with this pleasant surprise.  Little pink feet.  Print.

I double checked the size to make sure they were identical (they were!) and replaced Chris and I at the piano with these footprints that have changed my life.

One frame left to fill.  I decided on something typographic to balance out the Gs on the far right...and I'm a sucker for typography.  I stuck with the basics.  The alphabet and numbers.   This project literally took 2 minutes.  I just setup my page to 8"x10" (that's the size of the opening in my matted frame) in Illustrator.  I used 72 pt and Schoolhouse Cursive font.  Centered align. Once it looked the way I wanted, I made it all turquoise (again, to go with the Gs on the opposite side of the group) and printed it out.

And framed it.
Now I am ready to hang them, which will be a different post.  Notice how everything seems balanced.  There are three black and whites forming a triangle.  The typography is balanced along with the blues and greens on either side of the arrangement and even the little pink feet mimic the pink in the color wheel.  (Score!) The below picture serves as not only eye-candy, but a reference for me so that I don't forget how all these frames fit together.  
Psst...you can get $25 off any gallery-wrapped canvas at CanvasPeople, PLUS free shipping right now.  Head on over there
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  1. Um... 3 words come to mind instantly: Inspired. Jealous. Helpme. I had to make help me one word. To go with the three thing I was talking about. You understand.

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