Wall Collage part 2 FINISHED!!

Yes that's right! I have been diligently working away at my wall collage over here. All other projects and fun things, such as crocheting, have been on total pause. I was determined not to take a break from this wall collage and move onto something else. I'm SO excited to share my wall collage project now! 

Here's everything! 

{See part 1 of wall collage here}

As you can see, I finally came to a decision on what color I would paint my frames! 

And here are all 14 of them painted.

Each frame got a little bit of sanding down, and painted with acrylic craft paint. I did have some white Krylon spray paint, but it was definitely too cold for spraying out on the balcony.. I did try it inside though! haha! Shhhh, don't tell! {I have a big old gross blanket thing that I pinned up in our storage room/closet and and did a little bit of spraying, but it did NOT turn out nice at all! I don't like that white spray paint. So using cheap dollar store sponge brushes with a large bottle of white acrylic paint was the way to go! And they turned out nice. It took SEVERAL coats to get complete coverage. I used a couple coats of polyurethane and the painting part was done! 

Then on to printing pictures and filling the frames. 

Walmart is where I print my photos. I had a few 8x10's of Hubby and me, and a really cute free print that I found on someone's blog, and I also made up a couple of my own prints on picnik. Those prints {the ones form blog and what I made} didn't print out the right color at Walmart. I was so bummed! So I asked the Hubs if he would let me buy some colored ink for our printer just for this project! They printed out in perfect color from our printer! 

I also framed fabric pieces. I already had a few of the things that I was going to frame, and just went out to purchase some mustard-ish yellow colored fabric. Walmart sells little fat quarters of fabric, and I had one already that I wanted to use, and I bought another one to fill a frame {I wanted something more black and white}. 

My round frame that I used is a little different, and it doesn't have a glass or backing. 

So this is what I did for it:

 my salad sized plate was an almost perfect fit inside the frame. so I traced it onto both sides of a pizza box and cut them out a little wider then the trace line. Taped the two together for a thicker stronger backing.

Found a bird shape online and traced it right from my computer screen to paper. Cut that out then pinned it onto white felt and cut out the design. Then I used heat and bond to secure the bird to my fabric.

Used thumb tacks to poke into the sides to hold down the cardboard since there was no backing or prongs to hold it down. 

{this is actually before all the above, I was just seeing what it would look like if I went with this idea}

And here are all my frames filled and awaiting their new home on the wall! 

I love the colors!

I forgot to take pictures of how I did big "M" monogram. I picked a font from my computer, enlarged the screen as big as I could get it and traced it right from my computer screen, lightly with a pencil of course. Then I filled it out with a pencil on my own to make it have volume and thickness and look normal, and then cut it out. Then I took a piece of black cardstock and traced that M onto it. Perfect! For the M frame I had to get another 8x10 frame just to use the glass as a backing- I wanted the M frame see through. The M fits tightly between the two pieces of glass. 

Last night I traced all my frames onto newspaper and wrote on papers which paper went to which frame. Then I turned over each frame, laid the newspaper on top of each frame and poked a whole through where the hanger was on the backs. This is for knowing where to put the nail in the wall when you put the newspapers on the wall. I arranged my newspapers on the wall, and did some arranging all night. At first I had the layout a little too bunched together, so I spread them out over the wall a little more. 

I have been SOOO nervous about actually getting everything on the wall! So Hubby put the nails in the wall for me, and I hung everything up! 

And now, here's is our new photo wall collage... 

... what we've all been waiting for.. 

.... what I have been working on for these past few weeks .... 

... hehe, here it is folks! .....

I couldn't stop squealing with happiness after seeing it all on the wall! It actually turned out as beautiful as I have imagined, and the plans that I made up on the word documents! Yes, I'm calling my own project beautiful.. I'm not boasting or being prideful, just so excited that I was able to put together something this nice looking for our home. Photos of the collage just don't do it justice. It looks so much nicer in person. And it doesn't look like a little pile of pictures on the wall in person either. Our living room is small.

I love it.