Decorating Your Home with Family Pictures and Picture Frames

Make your walls a canvass of your family’s precious memories and moments. With the right choice of picture frames or custom display cases, family pictures can create an atmosphere of uniqueness and warmth. Your display can trace your family’s history and give your visitors a glimpse of your lives and loves. These photos can feature key life events such as weddings, anniversaries and graduations, or these can cover family vacations, reunions or candid shots.

Here are some tips in decorating your home with family pictures:

• Use the right frames. If you would like a section that will display photos of your grandparents or great grandparents, try using antique picture frames. The ornate designs and the convex glass will suit old sepia portraits. Meanwhile, you can use a wide assortment of frames for more modern photographs.
• Group pictures based on a theme or occasion. For instance, you can group all graduation photos or photos centered on the places where your family has been. You can also have a section featuring wedding photos – yours and your children’s. Another way to group photos is to group them by period – colored pictures, sepia or black and whites are best grouped together. Having a theme or color motif will help you choose the right type of picture frames. You can group together differently-shaped frames with the same color motif or you can use frames with the same shape and color, but with different sizes.
• Consider using scrapbook frames. Add a personalized touch to your picture frame display by creating some scrapbook frames. The scrapbook designs can be formal or fun, depending on the type of pictures you want to display. You can use design elements such as cut outs, stickers, decorated board and craft paper and glitters.
• Plan your displays before you start hanging the frames. You should have an idea of how the wall will look like given the photos and frames you plan to use. You should also know the placement and layout of the frames, as well as how the frames are centered on the wall, hallway or staircase. This will help prevent mistakes and complications once you start putting on nails and hooks on the walls. You can use cut-outs that have the same sizes and shapes as your frames and you can move these cut-outs around. Arrange and rearrange until you are completely satisfied with the set-up. Take note, the distance between the frames should be no more than two to four inches apart.
• Consider using other display opportunities. The wall is not the only available space in which you can display the photos. You can also place groups of frames on tops of shelves, dresser tops, mantles or pianos. You can also install a photo ledge. Other possible areas would be the top of the dresser table, the hall table or coffee table.
• Create a photo montage featuring a specific person or branch of the family. If you have a number of grown-up children, you can feature each child with their own spouses and children. This photo montage can be updated over the years and will remain interesting wall décor.