Do you display photos around your house? Do you artistically work them into the room's decor?

 Read Decorating with Old Photos

Great article Toni!  Yes Brandi, I do decorate w/photos in our home.  I love having pictures on the wall, especially of things I love and hold so dear! 

 I have a "family wall" in the living room.  I have black frames w/white mats in various sizes and looks (they came from different stores) layed out in a large overall rectangle pattern on the wall.  In the center is a removable sticker that I purchased from Dollar Tree.  It says "Family" and then underneath in script is says, "The gift that lasts forever".  I love looking at that wall, and from time to time I'll update the photos.  I also get lots of compliments on it.  It was very inexpensive to create overall, I used mostly $2 Wal-Mart frames and a few that I had recieved as gifts.  You can also get frames and very easily spray paint them black.

I'm a keen photographer (not necessarily a good one) and use some of my pics at home. The best way to do this, probably, is to stick to neutral, regular-sized frames, and then change pics once you've grown tired of an one, or there's a nicer and better one to replace it.

(I hang my pics mostly in the spare bedroom, though, so I don't inflict my so-called art on casual visitors! ;-))

Toni B.:

you resurrected my old article. It was written a long time ago.

It's on the front page of The Dollar Stretcher this week. It's a good article.

I don't personally put up photos but that can be a great inexpensive way of adding a personal touch to a house, especially if the photos are already around. I don't know how to actually make them look right for our tastes in decorating but I'd like to have some up.

When dh's grandparents died, we inherited two very long, narrow framed wedding photographs of them, very unusual for the '20's.  I brightened the frames a little with some paste gilt and have them hung on either side of our picture window.  They really are arresting and everyone that comes into the house for the first time asks and comments on them.  And no one in the family wanted these, we were given them because they were sold but not picked up at the estate sale that was held when the house was sold - go figure no one wanting heirloom family photographs! Great 'free' decorating...Liz

I need to do something like this. I loved the article, Toni! I have pictures all over the house of my boys--and I love that Walgreen's can make your color photos black and white--so easy to coordinate!

My mom had copies of her family's photos made. Some of these were her grandparents' wedding photos and grandparents' family photos. You, know, the b/w pics where the entire family is in the photo, unsmiling, with Mother and Father seated in the front row and all the children (in my mom's family, there were always 8-15 kids in a family) lined up in two rows. Some pictures date back to the early 1900s and some in the 1920s. The clothing is wonderful and so are the facial features and hair styles of the times. My parents live in a 125 year old house and mom had these photos as part of her Victorian decor in the living room. I hope to inherit them someday. She made sure she got the names written down on the back of the family members so there at least is some record.

With the digital age, so many pictures are just taken and forgotten. It's these old photos and portraits that are passed down through the generations that I need to preserve, IMHO.

mamasjob:

With the digital age, so many pictures are just taken and forgotten. It's these old photos and portraits that are passed down through the generations that I need to preserve, IMHO.