Make Wall Art from Black and White Photos

Our master bedroom needed a huge makeover.  The paint was old, the curtains were dusty and the artwork was outdated.  I didn't want to spend a fortune re-doing everything so I looked for inexpensive solutions to give the room a whole new look without breaking the bank.

Obviously, new paint was in order so we picked out a color called "Happy Trails" by Pittsburgh Paint which is a really warm tan like the color of a great cup of coffee with a lot of cream in it.

Next, I knew those old curtains had to be changed out, so I found an inexpensive curtain rod and bought two different scarves and draped those over the rod.  Done.

I needed to bring in some color, so I made a couple of arrangements out of silk and dried flowers.  A nice pop against the warm tan of the walls.

Now, what to do about the wall art?  I wanted to have family photos in the room but I didn't want a bunch of mismatched frames sitting around.  I was going for a cleaner look.

We recently became empty nesters so I wanted to showcase the transition my family has undergone over the past 22 years. An idea was born to make a photo collage for the wall with black and white photos and matching frames.

How I made it

Pick the photos. I chose one of my family when the two kids were very young and one of my family now. Then I found my favorite picture of just the kids when they were little and another one of them now.

Fix the photos. After selecting the four photos, some had to be scanned into my computer while the more recent ones were taken with my digital camera and were already in my computer. I have Adobe Photoshop which I used to fix the photos. They were all different sizes and colors so the first thing I had to do was make them all uniform.

I made them all 5 x 7's by using the function "Image-Size" and then the function "Image-Mode-Grayscale" to discard color. I ended up with four, 5 x 7, black and white photos. This is an important step, in my opinion, because you want them all to match.

Buy the frames. In order to accomplish the uniform look, I also selected four identical frames.

Hang them. Once the four black and white photos were in the frames, I had to decide how I wanted to hang them. The orientation of the photos (portrait or landscape) will help you decide the configuration (across in a straight line, down in a straight line, in a perfect square...).

Two of my photos were landscape and 2 were portrait so I decided to put them in a square with an irregular edge to create visual interest. We hung up the photo collage yesterday and my husband helped to ensure that the frames were all perfectly spaced.

I am quite proud of the end result. Not only do we have inexpensive wall art, but we have something to look at that is so very meaningful and will be cherished for years to come.