Kitchen Update: Gallery Wall

Happy Valentine's Day, you guys!

I finally hung the gallery wall in our kitchen that I first posted about back in November. I'm loving it, it makes such a difference in the room!

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Before this wall just held 4 blank canvases wrapped in patterned paper from Paper Source. Nothing spectacular, but they added color and some fun to the kitchen when we first moved in. I wanted to take more advantage of the space though and go for some things that were a bit more sentimental or at least more indicative of our style now.

{way before...the floors are now dark walnut and there's a little white kid's table with black chairs for Maura at the end of the island!}

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So I collected some artwork, downloaded and printed some free stuff from the web, framed some postcards...and I got me the beginnings of a gallery wall:)

I chose black frames (after holding up white ones too and deciding I liked the contrast against all those white cabinets) and clustered them fairly close together so that I can add more as time goes on. I will admit that I finally tried the whole cutting-out-random-paper-the-exact-same-size-as-each-frame-and-taping-them-on-the-wall-first/template thing and it made the hanging of all the actual frames so much easier!!

Here's some sources/what everything is:



No. 1: Original watercolor painting of two hens (Sheila and Betty) by artist Alison Fennell (Eastwitching on etsy) that I won at the Give Hope Adoption Auction over at The Wayman Family Nest earlier this year. Read all about it here. I love these hens!!




No. 2: Super cute owl illustration that I downloaded and printed from Katie Moon, the wonder behind oohmoon.com..she created and offered a free illustration every day for an entire year!!! Now that the 365 days/illustrations are over, you can buy them for a couple bucks each...all kinds of awesome over there:)



Nos. 3 and 4: Kerry Transport and Gallerus Oratory by Irish artist June McIntyre (prints from an original batik and silk painting respectively). Purchased these at her gallery in Dingle while in Ireland in 2007 with Paul and my sister. I love the idea of buying original works of art or other local home decor items from our travels instead of little silly souvenirs.



Nos. 5 and 6: Fort Point and Crissy Field postcards from my trip to San Francisco this past summer with my sister. They were too small to fill these 5 x 7 frames, so I just mounted them on coordinating colored card stock for a fun pop of color border.



No. 7: Love this sweet saying...a free printable download from Joni over at Lay Baby Lay (there's a blue one as well for boys).



Maura really likes this new wall too. Because everything is a recognizable object now instead of a pattern, she walks by here and points out each of the birds, makes "bock bock bock" and "hoo hoo" sounds, says "baby" for the little silhouette. Its an educations gallery wall too:)