My Kids Are Famous!

Seriously, the reaction from my boys was awesome when they saw the photos I had printed to hang on our wall.  They were in amazement and surely thought they were famous.  I’m sure they felt like rock stars!

Let me go back a bit and explain.  I am a photographer.  I run Sweet Lemonade Photography so I have the capabilities to order pictures from professional print labs at any time.  And yet, you walk in my house and you’d never know it.  I did what I said I’d never do… I stopped printing pictures.  It’s crazy!  How did that happen?

1. Digital has made it very convenient to have everything at your fingertips on a screen…. that is until disaster strikes.  I’ll save my horror story for another time.
2. The wall is HUGE.  How can I ever figure out what size to print to make it look appropriate?
3. Indecisiveness…. that’s me.   I can quickly recommend what would look great on someone else’s walls.  Then when it comes to mine, I panic.  I’m making a serious commitment permanently scarring my walls with nails, drywall anchors, screws, etc.  You see how frightening it is, right?  The smaller decision, the tougher it is for me.  I bought a new car in 15 minutes.  Done.  I stand in the toothbrush aisle debating what color I should get for 5 minutes.  What?!?!   So choosing what to put on my walls is a major decision making process for me.

Kristin, my friend and partner of Sweet Darling Wedding Photography took these photos of my boys and I in July.  I finally decided I needed to print them.  I love the fun, relaxed vibe these have at the county fair.

The wall in our dining room is very large.  I’ve already forgotten but I think it’s around 13 feet wide.  How in the world do you print a picture without it making it look like it’s an itty bitty fish lost in a huge sea?

This is what is looked like before.  Granted this photo doesn’t give you the full idea of how empty the space was because this was taken when celebrating my middle’s Golden Birthday.  So that empty space was the perfect space to place the signs.  See, that’s why I waited 13 years to put anything up on the wall.  Yup.  That’s my story.

By about October, I got serious with what I might want to do with the wall since I loved the pics from the fair.  See these great pieces of computer paper.  

This is an incredible way to figure out what you want to do. I promise you… the sizes of prints always SOUND so much larger than what they really are.  Definitely visualize to see if it will work.  Biggest mistake when printing pictures is you print too small for the space to have it look appropriate.  I would however NOT recommend keeping the paper up on the wall from 10-12 weeks.  This is what our walls looked like celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Beautiful accent to the room, right?

Finally took the plunge and ordered acrylic prints with frames on the back that allows them to float from the wall about 1 inch.  They arrived and I was so freaking excited.  I could hardly contain myself.

Proud to say they only sat on my table for about 3 days before I got them hung.  When doing the collage, it required more math than I’ve used in all the years combined since college.   Lining them up can be tricky but as it turns out me is purty smart with numbers like 2 + 1  3/4 and I managed to get it done with only a few extra holes in the wall. 😉

So here’s the final result.  I am beyond happy with the way it turned out.  What added to the excitement was watching the boys’ shocked faces when they saw me unwrap the pictures.  Seriously, I think they felt like rock stars.  They couldn’t believe their faces were going to be hung up… and they were so big!  They loved it!  I loved it!

And now I want to find another wall in the house to print more pics of my boys to display.  They are MY rock stars and they deserve to feel like it every single day!

The large picture is a 24×30, the small pictures below of each individual boy is 8×8, 3 photos on the right are 11×11 and the two on the left I’m pretty sure are 12×18 and 12×14.  And that sign…. can we just take a moment to love that sign?  That is reclaimed wood from a 100 year old barn with Matthew 22:37 verse.  The New International Version of Matthew 22:37 is “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”[a]  Not sure what version translates it to “It’s been another day, so I love you more.” but I love it all the same.  I purchased it about a year a half ago.  This is where I envisioned it going but it took me a while to figure out what pics to put below it.

Print your memories.  You won’t be sorry.