Finding Prints and Pictures for the Gallery Wall

I've always been a perfectionist. And the drive for perfection is yet again getting in the way of completing my gallery wall... I'm filling the frames. My only requirement is that the pictures or prints or art or items be:

a. more art-like than posed-photo-of-self-like
b. good colors, like fitting into the colors I want the room to be, maybe bright... but I don't really know yet.
c. meaningful. rather than a picture of the girl who came in the frame or a pretty piece of paper I'd love for each piece to be valued by us for more than one or two reasons
d. appropriately sized and configured for the frames already on the wall
e. Perfect.

Is that really too much to ask?

Yes.

Yes, that's too much to ask. So here we are again getting things done, not perfectly. Now, I'm still believer in  the idea that you do it right the first time rather than make your work twice as hard undoing it (i.e. sloppy paint job means you have to get all the paint off and redo it later...). But let's just say that for the gallery wall I'd like to let it evolve.

I have other plans for very meaningful wall of frames in our hallway, but these I'd like to be more beautiful colors than anything I guess. And cheap/free actually... Either way I'd like to see un-empty frames since "we just moved in (over a year ago" doesn't work like it used to.

So I started with a few magazines that I had saved because they had pretty colors in them. Most of them nutrition magazines with great ads of fruit and vegetables. Maybe they're more meant for a kitchen, but my goal is the colors...

So I sorted through and I was left with these (to be cropped and made into little 'art').

Then I went through a few boxes of memories looking for items that could find a place on the wall and found these. I knew I was a scrap hoarder for a reason.  The first is the very sweetest note from Kyle written on the bag of an old receipt  It was written at a time when we were holding hands and falling in love for the very first time. The others are two football tickets: the one in the middle is Kyle's first LSU game in Baton Rouge and on the right is my first Nebraska game in Lincoln. Meaningful, fun, great colors right?

Then I hopped on the computer to find pictures I wanted to print out for the wall. Again trying to pic things that seemed more art-like than anything else, but I was not opposed to pictures of us on the wall. I actually happen to like looking at pictures of myself...

Or pictures of my grandmother, great grandmother, and great aunt going water skiing. Isn't that the very best picture you've ever seen?

Or pictures of the pool water at my parents' house because it's such a pretty blue...

Or wild flowers that I stopped on the side of the road to take pictures of...

or the Colorado mountains and fuzzy pictures of the trees...

You know, weird things... But I've got a little collection to start with. Looking for a few more things. Like a neat map of Colorado or East Texas. And I think I want to do a few art projects like a little pen and watercolor sketch in there somewhere too... but that's what we can work up to. Right?

Goal for the weekend: Get these printed and framed and ready to show off as soon as Monday... but don't kill me if it's not until Wednesday... okay?

Happy Friday :) It's the weekend, go take pictures of flowers on the side of the road... or pool water maybe?