31 Days of Coffee: How To Create A Collage Wall

So remember when I told you that I'd been drinking too much coffee and reading "The Nesting Place" by Myquillin Smith at the same time? Apparently, that is a dangerous combination.

One of the things that The Nester mentions is that we have to get rid of our fear of hammering nails into walls. I'll admit it, it's the one thing I hate to do, especially after we've painted a room. What if I screw up? And that's when the Nester says a little putty and paint, and good as new, so stop obsessing.

I started thinking about the wall over my couch, the spot where the previous owners had hung a nail too high, and because I was afraid to move it, I'd hung a sunflower painting there (too high) and called it a day. But I never really liked it there.

One thing that I'm really trying to add to my home are more of the things that have meaning, and less of the things that do not. And when you move as often as we do, you find that sometimes a certain thing may have looked great on a wall or in a room in one house, but it just doesn't work in the next one.

I began to "shop the house", as Myquillin says in her book, and came up with an assortment of things that just might work together. And then I laid them out on the floor.

Some picture frames from my parents' home, a few iron trivets, and a piece of Pennsylvania Dutch artwork that I'd picked up at an antique store in our former hometown of Noblesville, Indiana. I tried a few configurations until I came upon this one.

Then I cut out the shapes from newspapers and catalogs, and taped them to the wall to see if it would work.

At this point, I called in my son, Luke, and asked him "What do you think?"

"Woah, Mom. Wow. Just wow. It looks like a cry for help! All you are missing are the crisscrossing red strings and the letters cut out of newspaper!"

Ha. Ha. Ha. Very funny.

Maybe it is a cry for help, as in HELP! I've been stuck inside my house for too long! Someone save me!

At any rate, the visual helped me, even if it disturbed my children.

The cool part about this is that you can lightly hammer the nail right where you want it, then...

...peel off the paper, and hammer the nail where you've already started the hole.

It worked out just fine.

Voila! Collage wall completed.

I can see where this wall may grow a little more over time, and perhaps those empty frames will be fun places to add a little whimsy in the future.

Luke says it looks much better than it did yesterday, minus the newspaper clippings and the soundtrack from the movie Psycho. He's quite the comedian, isn't he?

I like it when a home decor update costs me nothing...especially because we've spent all of our remodeling money on windows, paint, and landscaping. We'll be back to total DIY jobs soon as we try to get back on budget and continue to update this house on the cheap.