expansion.

i've been doing some expanding over here on 33rd street (insert waistline joke here). a little gallery wall expanding.

my cheap-o ikea gallery wall had a humble beginning...

here she is way-back-when. all decked out for the holidays.

and then i added some more...

she's looking a little better here.

and then i thought of something. i never shared my trick with you. my ikea frame trick that will guarantee a perfectly straight layout. and that's just rude.

here's what i do.

you see, the ikea ribba frames (and i'm sure every other type of frame) come with a paper insert that provides the perfect template to outline the gallery wall layout. some people recommend tracing the frame onto newspaper, but that's too much work for me. this is much easier.

i level my frames by measuring 4 inches between each paper. i probably should have asked santa for a new ruler. i've had this one since, like, 1st grade or something. if you look closely, you'll see a ton of teeth marks around the 1 inch mark. i went through an oral phase. you'll also see the names of my elementary best friends carved into the ruler. maybe if i would have paid more attention during math in the early years i wouldn't struggle with it so much today.

next, tape that sucker to the wall. don't worry, you'll cover it up.

nail right through the tape.

and place the photo right over the paper. whatever you do, don't take down the paper first. if you ever want to add more frames, you'll still have the entire grid on the wall so it will be easy to expand.

ribba frames make this process particularly simple because there are no picture-hanger-thingies on the back of the frame, so you can simply slide the frame to get it nice and straight.

and now my wall looks like this...

bam! wall-o-frames. unfortunately, it's a bit crowded with the mirror frames right next to it, so i'll need to relocate the mirrors. oh well.

view from the kitchen.


i love this wall. it's the first thing people look at when they come in the house. it houses so many good memories.

perfect candid moments...

...old friends.

travel memories. plaza de toros, granada, spain.

...mbabane, swaziland, africa.

...vienna, austria.

millenium park, chicago, illinois.

traverse city, michigan.

and while i have your attention (fingers crossed), i reorganized my little table.

because sometimes you just need a change, y'know?