We’ve all got that big, blank, BORING wall with which we have no idea what to do. And if you’re anything like me, every time I set out to fill it up I get overwhelmed by my options – nothing is good enough – and I throw in the towel for another week, month, year (yes, year!). UNTIL I find an example that captures JUST what I want and spurs me on. So in honor of The Print Shop opening this week I thought I’d put together a little inspiration for how you can use your photos to decorate your blank walls as well as some of my most helpful gallery wall design tips!

Kids Room & Nursery Wall Decor

Use some large framed art prints to fill the space above a dresser in your baby nursery or kids’ room! You can mix and match or pick prints that fit in your chosen color palette to fill in blank spaces in the other decor items you’ve already picked up. Our desert and cactus photo prints are perfect for this!

Entryway & Office Gallery Wall Decor

Make use of those shots from your favorite family vacation (these are some of my favs from MY summer vacation)! It’s so much more fun to see them on your walls than to scroll through them on a screen. If you choose to intersperse your personal photos with purchased photo prints as you design your gallery wall you can keep it personal by choosing prints of locations and settings that are special to you and your crew.

My gallery wall design tips:

1. Before you start printing your photos or hammering nails, use a design tool like Canva to mockup your layout!  You can rearrange and switch out photos and frames around til your heart’s content without spending any money OR having to get out the spackle!
2. Use the design principle of repetition with variation.  Repetition – feature photos that are all from the same setting – timeframe – people – trip – color palette.  Variation – use a balanced variety of faces, people, setting, details and rotate between them in your layout.  Let’s look at the example from my family vacation above.  I placed similar crops of my kids on opposite ends of the design (because faces draw so much focus it’s a great idea to intersperse them with images without faces to keep your design from feeling too busy and bring the real focus where you want it).  I alternated images with faces with shots of the setting or big picture.  And while there is a cohesive color palette overall (blues, greens, grays, and that pop of red that my littlest love always adds to the mix 😉), there is variety in the subjects when looking through individual images.
3. Use butcher paper to make templates of the frames you’ll be using so you can tape them up and move them around to get your layout just right before you start putting holes in your walls.
4. If you’re working with light weight frames or frames without glass (I often take out the glass, because…kids) you can avoid nails altogether and opt for a damage-free gallery wall photo hanging option like command strips.

Living Room & Bedroom Wall Decor

Get those engagement, family, and wedding photos off of your phone and onto your walls! They are the perfect way to keep your gallery wall decor meaningful and personal.

Notice all of that good repetition with variation?! ☝️☝️

You can do it! Go do some mocking up in Canva to hone your gallery wall design, find some big, pretty frames, and fill them up with your favorites photos – they’ll make you happy every time you walk by them!

And if you need some photos of the desert to round out your design and decor you can get them from my desert print shop!