How to Hang a Photo Gallery Wall

I love my sister-in-law's gallery wall and finally attempted a little one myself. Some photo walls I like and others I don't, so I'd been trying to figure out how to approach a photo wall without it looking cluttered. My neighbor and I were talking over her photo wall and I was so impressed she was taking on a project I've been meaning to tackle as well. So I finally got all the frames out since it's my "day off" and I'd decided to focus on our home. Here's how it went down: 

I . . . 

looked at a lot of Pinterest photo wall examples, 

laid my frames out on the floor to create a shape I liked, 

took a photo of what I had laid out to reference, 

measured the width and height of my layout, 

measured the wall to center my layout, 

drew lines on the wall with a pencil, 

started hanging photos starting with the center one and working my way out, using pencil marks with each frame to mark the top of the frame and the nail point beneath it, 

tried to stay alive as the boys tried to pull me backwards off my step stool,

and spent time surfing Amazon Prime  wallet-sized photo frames with plans to sprinkle a few little baby frames around the edges for fun. 

One thing I've observed--and this is just my opinion, but I think gallery walls work well when you keep the frames really close together, especially if you have a lot of them. The wider the spaces between the frames, the more cluttered and interrupted it feels. If you keep everything close you can create one big modern blob-shape instead of a speckled wall of individual frames that don't have a strong relationship with each other. It's also easier to keep the frames generally straight; they can't get too crooked without running into their neighbor frames. Symmetry can also be boring; the blob keeps your eyes moving around the pool of pictures. 

Observation 2: Keeping a consistent amount of space between the frames is also more feng shui; when looking at some Pinterest examples I noticed the gallery walls with random spacing between frames (2" here, 5" there, 1" here, etc.) look a little messy. Definitely lay out your photos before hanging to figure out what fits where. 

The Best Buttermilk Biscuits Ever

Alton Brown's Buttermilk Biscuits and my interpretation:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Mix dry ingredients together in a bowl:
2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt

Add
2 tbs butter
2 tbs shortening

With your friendly fingers, pinch and crumble the butter and shortening into the flour until . . . crumbly.

Add
1 C buttermilk (half a pint, if you were curious. Suck it up and buy buttermilk; don't use milk.)

Fold and mix batter gently with a rubber spatula until you have a ball of dough. On a floured surface, flatten that ball to 1" thick. Cut with round biscuit cutter or (what I use) a glass. I usually get 8 or so biscuits.

Bake on greased cookie sheet for approximately 15 minutes. I'm not a fan of the brown, bitter taste of an over-baked biscuit. Finicky overly or underly hot ovens should be watched! When the biscuits are or lightly golden and speckled on top they're ready. The bits of butter brown and give it that speckled look--not to be confused as whole wheat speckles because we're not interested in healthy, fibrous foods. Heavens no. 

Cheesy Twist: Add 1/2 cup grated Asiago (or other cheese) and/or 1 tsp garlic powder to the dough. 

Slather with BUTTER  (as this is really just a butter medium recipe) and pull out your homemade jams and honey! Serve piping hot. 

Recipes: White Bean and Bacon with Spinach Soup

This is one of my husband's favorite dinners. He says it tastes like he's eating bacon. Even my super-super-super picky two-year-old eats this up while he'd normally steer clear of spinach and beans presented in any other form. Bacon is magical. A spoonful of bacon makes the medicine go down, apparently! 

Ingredients:

1 lb dry navy beans

2 cans chicken broth 

Bay leaves 

1 large onion

1 clove garlic 

2 carrots (or 1 small sweet potato)

1 package bacon, chopped into 1/2" pieces (or ham/ham bone) 

Spices: pepper, sage, thyme, paprika, creole seasoning, nutmeg, garlic powder (if fresh garlic missing), honey/brown sugar

1 block frozen leaf or chopped spinach OR fresh spinach leaves 

Crusty sourdough bread or buttermilk biscuits with butter

Instructions: 

Soak 1 bag navy beans overnight. Drain and put in crock pot on low if cooking 8+ hours or high if cooking 5-6. Or simmer on stovetop for 3 hrs. 

Add 2 cans chicken broth and water until liquid is maybe 1" above the beans. Add two bay leaves. 

A couple hours before you plan to eat, add the other stuff. Dice one onion, a couple carrots, and cut up a pack of bacon into 1/2" pieces. 

Cook bacon a little and drain grease. Add onions and cook till starting to brown/turn clear. Add carrots. Season sautée with fresh ground pepper, creole seasoning, sage, thyme, paprika, and a couple dashes nutmeg. Add to crock pot. 

Drizzle a little bit of honey (1 tsp or 1 tsp brown sugar)--a good trick for savory soups to tone down any bitterness. It's like adding salt to cookies. A little sweet in the salty. 

Add frozen block of leaf or chopped spinach. 

Before serving salt to taste. Serve with crusty bread or biscuits with BUTTER, the very best part.