Evolution of a Gallery Wall

We've lived in our home nearly three years.  In that time, the room that is now babygirl's nursery has gone through many incarnations.  The picture above is the room shortly after we moved in, when it was a guest room.

A few months later I had added curtains and a few random things, but it was still pretty sparse.  I'd always had it ear-marked as the eventual nursery, so while I wanted it to be a cozy place for guests, I wasn't going to go overboard to decorate it as a guest room.

And here it is almost exactly one year ago, thanks to a date-stamp I didn't know how to take off of my camera setting.  Good thing I figured that out!  I'll do a full tour of the nursery soon, but for now I thought I'd focus on that back wall, which I decided to make a "gallery wall", and it's evolution over the past year.  Above is how it started, the centerpiece being a needlepoint made by my grandad in 1979.  I thought it was a perfect place for a piece of his art, and the colors worked nicely with what was going on in the room.  It just makes me happy to know a piece of art he lovingly made and hung in his home for years is now in babygirl's room.  Lots of good energy there, I just know it!  The pink item is a (heavy!) floral iron sculpture I found at a local junk shop, already painted the awesome pink color.  The other small piece is a painting done by my nephew many Christmases ago, when he was maybe 3 or 4, with the three main colors of the nursery: brown, pink & orange.  That combo has been a fave of mine for ages!

This picture is from my first blog post at the end of December.  I've added a few more items- the white frame on the right side is a picture of our family from Thanksgiving 2011- babygirl's first Thanksgiving.  The frame in the lower middle is an artpiece I made in that same blog post.  The frame on the left with the wide white mat is another piece I made from some scrapbook paper and adhesive letters, which spells out babygirl's name.  The melted crayon art above it was a gift from a great friend who made it herself (with some Pinterest inspiration).  It's so cool!

Now here it is this past week!  I added a family picture taken in the hospital when babygirl was 1 (ONE!) day old.  I'd had no sleep in nearly three days, and you can tell from my puffy eyes, but it just melts my heart.  I also added a stork the hospital hung outside our door- the artwork is actually really cool!  On the lower right, I made another small artpiece from scrapbook paper and a cool bicycle graphic.  And in the upper middle, I framed a square of heavy paper from a graphic gift bag I received- art can be found anywhere!  The two black frames in the upper left are cool ceramic pieces that I just glued (with semi-permanent glue dots) cards I'd used as thank you's for baby gifts.  I loved the artwork from the cards, and thought they'd make pretty additions.  Plus they fit perfectly on the ceramic frames.  Here are a few closeups of the wall:

The thing I love about this wall is that most items are entirely homemade, and many done cheaply, or free.  There are special pieces in there too, but the cheap ones can easily be changed out/updated/evolved as babygirl grows and develops her own (great) taste.  For now it's fun to find or make art for the wall and continue to grow it organically.  I can't wait to see what it will look like next year at this time!!