To Do: Update Your Photo Galleries
Winter is the perfect time to update your current photo galleries. When you're stuck in The Doldrums, it can start to feel like the walls are closing in around you, and something inside you screams for change. It can be tempting to make some huge changes - knock down a wall, redo the bathroom, buy a new living room couch - but you don't have to go all out to curb that need for change. You can create a new wall gallery, or make some simple changes to existing photo galleries, to satisfy that urge.
If creating a photo book of last year’s images is too daunting right now, then maybe swapping last year’s photos into existing frames could do it for you. You already know the size you need (because you already have the frames), and to make it even simpler, you can find photos of the same people in the frame, just a year or two older, to swap in. Update your family photo from before your youngest child was born, to a photo of all of you after the latest child was born, for example.
You can also swap in or add art pieces to spice up your existing gallery.
Here are a few non-photo-related things you could use to spice up your photo gallery:
Frame a cherished postcard, ticket stub, card, or bumper sticker
Shop your walls and choose something from another room that has gotten stale in its current spot, and try adding it to your gallery
Shadow-box (I’m using that as a verb) a 3-D object that needs to be given a place of honor in your home
Shop for art by not-local artists, and help support an artist having a hard time in a far away place (like Ukraine, Turkey, Syria, Afganistan, etc. Just make sure you read carefully about shipping (maybe a digital download that you send to a printer here is easier for both of you) and don’t get taken advantage of.)
Pull out a souvenir from a favorite trip and find a creative way to hang it
Find a fun initial (yours, presumably, but it doesn’t have to be) and hang it among your frames
Shop for vintage art that fits your color scheme
Find a quote you love, print it up and frame it
Ask your extended family for art that someone in your family made. Maybe even do an art swap, if you have a piece that you’ve gotten tired of.
Make something new to hang
Don’t at me with your excuses about not being “creative enough” to make new art for your walls. My three year old is hanging multiple crayon scribbles a day with painter’s tape and bursting with pride over each one. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to make you happy when you see it.
So for that matter, frame a piece of your kid’s art and add that to your gallery. They’ll be thrilled that you think so highly of their art.
You get the gist.
If a lack of frames is holding you back, try mix and matching frames with unframed things like posters (and the aforementioned kids’ art). Just make sure the corners are attached to the wall so they don’t curl.
Can’t/won’t put holes in your walls? Don’t forget about 3M Command hooks, strips, and adhesive. They have ones that can hold 20 pounds of art onto the wall (if your walls are textured, maybe test the effectiveness of the product with a sack of potatoes before you hang glass or something precious).
Velcro Command strips are also perfect to add to the bottom of art that is hanging by a nail but likes to shift side to side on its own (or with the elephant footsteps of your family members). Stick one side of the velcro to the back of the art at the bottom, and the other side to the wall to keep it from moving around.
Make one small change, then one more, and see how it changes your gallery and brightens your day. Go do it.
