Getting crafty at home - square picture frames and fancy paper

We moved into our house over a year ago and our decor is pretty neutral overall, I'm not a fan of clutter plus unfortunately we don't have oodles of money to spend (as I spend all of mine on clothes and beauty products, oops). We've got a proper hallway that is painted a very light grey, it looks pretty nice but I just feel like it's missing a bit of something as you walk in.  I want my personality to show a bit more in the house.  I love vintage and antique french styles (see my dressing table here) but think it's a bit OTT for an everyday house all over.

After being massively inspired by this picture, I decided to have a go myself. Boyfriend was highly dubious about this - as he is about a lot of my interior design choices until he sees the finished article and is like "oh, that's actually really nice." I'm sure he'll start trusting my judgement at some point.

Image: Better Homes and Gardens

I bought a load of fancy paper from Paperchase - I spent about £8 here - but you could really do it with anything such as wrapping paper, wallpaper, images you like, even fabric I suppose!  I bought a variety of different papers, more than I needed, as I like the idea that when I get bored I can just mix them up again and change the design fairly easily (and reuse ny spare paper as wrapping paper).

 

I then bought four 8" x 8" square white photoframes from Ebay.  I decided on white because it would go with the picture rails and staircase in our house which are all glossed white.  I struggled to find any really cheap ones but I paid about a fiver each for this plus about a fiver postage so not too expensive really.  With hindsight, I was looking at 10" x 10" frames initially but decided they'd be too big, after seeing the smaller ones in the flesh I kind of wish I'd got the bigger ones (though they were more expensive again) but hey that's a risk you take buying off the internet and I did measure and make my decision.  I'm still happy with how it looks.

Anyway, this was really easy to do, I just cut the paper to size, popped them in the frames then enlisted the help of my boyfriend and his spirit level to get the pictures straight and evenly spaced.  When you're cutting to size, take into account what the pattern on the paper will look like, sometimes bits of the paper are plainer than other.  I also used little scissors to fold out the clips holding the frames together as I didn't want to wreck my nails.  The trickiest part was hanging them, you need to measure the distances you want them and make sure they're all even and straight or it looks silly.  I enlisted the assistance of boyfriend and his spirit level for this and despite some bickering, I think they've turned out pretty well.

 

I really like it and it totally adds what I wanted to the hallway, way more interesting than how it looked before without it actually looking as weird as I was worried it was going to.  At some point I might just put the pink and black paper in all four frames but for now I'm sticking with the pink and gold and yellow and pink bird print.  Boyfriend likes it too, despite his initial misgivings.

I also recently bought this from Etsy...this is probably a bit overly quirky for the rest of the house but never mind, I like it.  Just waiting for it to arrive now!  The seller does loads of other designs, check them out on the link under the picture.  These are popping up more and more (here's one you can get from Debenhams) and apparently you can make your own but it looks a bit too complicated for me - plus I really like this double handled pink teacup and haven't been able to find any similar.

Image: The Pink Fence (Etsy)

If you're interested in what kind of house stuff I like and my inspiration, have a look at my homewares Pinterest board (it's a bit...er...eclectic to say the least).