Minted

Our living room was in desperate need of a redo. When Minted contacted me to see if I wanted to select some of their original artwork, I was pretty excited to see what they had to offer. I also immediately thought it seemed like the perfect time to create a DIY gallery wall tutorial.I spent several hours going through their gorgeous and unique artwork to create a favorites list. After narrowing down to my four favorite pieces (Marvelous Aurora 2; Reflecting Amongst The Fog and Light; Landsplashes Series – Bridge ; By Dawn’s Early Light), I had to figure out how I was going to showcase all this lovely artwork.I’ve been eyeing a DIY gallery wall tutorial on Pinterest for awhile now, so I decided this Minted collaboration would be a great time for a living room makeover and DIY gallery wall. I originally planned to create a small gallery wall with the four Minted prints, but since our living room wall is so long, my husband suggested we create a much larger gallery wall by incorporating some of our own artwork.Since starting the blog two years ago, we’ve amassed quite a lot of still photography – food, flowers, nature -- you name it. We scoured through two years of photographs and settled on turning some of our flower photographs (some from this So Cal post) into 24 x 36 black and white photographs to compliment the bright Minted selections I made. We purchased these inexpensive IKEA poster frames and they blend well with the black wood Minted frames. To envision the design of the gallery wall, I taped newspaper on the wall to envision how the paintings would look. Since this method was fairly time-consuming, my husband mocked up the eight paintings on photoshop so we could play with the layout in a quicker and more visually effective way. We settled on our design and waited for our paintings and prints to arrive.When the paintings arrived, it was so much fun to open and unwrap each painting and read about each of the artists. I was especially drawn to the Landsplashes Series because the artist is from my hometown of Green Bay. Learning a little bit about the artists makes the art feel that much more special. It also feels nice to support artists working on their own small businesses.The process of hanging each piece of art took awhile because we wanted to ensure the paintings were as straight and evenly spaced as possible. We spent a lot of time doing math and measuring to ensure the proper positioning between each painting. It took us a couple hours, but we are so happy with the results. The wall above our couch is eye-catching, modern and vibrant. If you are interested in designing your own gallery wall, here are some of my favorite sites that walk you through the process. Layout Ideas: hometalk; pottery barn; Jennaburger; and a how-to: momtastic.A special thank you to Minted to the gorgeous artwork and to my husband for his ingenuity and patience. If you haven’t heard of Minted before, you should check them out. They are an online marketplace showcasing independent artists from around the world who were discovered by participating in ongoing art competitions. Minted sells unique stationary, artwork and some home goods.

Minted

DIY Gallery Wall Tutorial: Living Room Makeover