My Digital Camera Ate My Pictures

I had a party at my house yesterday for my son Jack's 4th grade class and I heard two things consistently from the Moms in attendance:

"Thank goodness school's almost out"
"I have got to frame some pictures. All mine are trapped in my digital camera"

To the first, I say "Amen, sisters." To the second, I have a few words of advice -- as you know from yesterday's post, I am the gal who frames anything and everything, so I have some experience in the area of getting the pictures out of the camera and onto the wall. Here are some simple guidelines for building your own gallery wall from scratch in a day:

Pick a blank wall that you can cover, and that you can stand far enough away from to see the whole thing in one eyeshot.

Pick at least two common elements that you want all your pictures to have so the wall has some consistency to it. Doesn't matter what -- frame color, frame size, frame profile, mat, photo type -- just pick two so your wall has some order.

Figure out a way to add some drama . I use huge blown up photos to anchor my wall, but you can use anything -- use only close-ups of faces, or paint your wall a pretty color. If you want to blow your photos up to be huge, Kinko's is a great resource. The quality of photocopies is so good now, and they can blow something up to the size of a poster if that's what you want.

When you have everything framed and you're ready to hang, this is the one and only place that I'll ever say "do it the hard way." Follow these steps, and you can't go wrong:

Lay your pictures out on the floor so you can get the composition right before you start with the hammer. It's best to put the largest items down first, then let the smaller frames either radiate out from the big ones, or fill in around them.

Now, stand on a ladder and take a picture of your floor of pictures. The camera will see things in the composition that you won't see with your eye until you hang everything up.

Trace the frames onto kraft paper, cut them out, and tape the frames to your wall in the same composition you designed on the floor. Don't forget to mark on your template where the picture hook is on the back of the frame -- that's where the nail will go. Use a level, and use blue painter's tape -- everything will be straight, and the tape won't peel the paint off your wall.

Now stand back and take a picture of your wall of paper. The camera will see the blank spots or any imbalance that you won't see with your eye.

Once you've done all that, you're ready to hang. Just hammer your nail right into the paper, tear the paper off the wall and hang your picture up.

If you want to make sure your husband is available to help you on picture hanging day, do what I do: make a habit of getting out whatever huge honkin' nails you can find and pound them into the wall with your shoe. My husband has seen me rampage through the house pounding nail after nail until I get everything just like I want it. Now, whenever I start making noises about hanging some pictures, my husband clears his calendar and doesn't let me out of his sight.

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