Nursery gallery wall

Note: Sorry I’ve been MIA, but Baby Max is in charge around here! He’s pretty dang cute! If you want to see ridiculous amounts of proud mama pictures, check out my insta feed. And I’m going to attempt to write up our natural birth story post and pictures galore soon. Just trying to keep myself showered and baby boy fed is proving to be pretty tricky these days 🙂

Now that Max is finally here, the nursery is complete! Well, honestly he hasn’t slept a single second in his cute crib. But, it’s so fun ot actually get to use the clothes in the closet and change the diapers on the changing pad (sometimes that is fun).  I did do a few last minute nursery additions in my final weeks. Some call it “nesting”. I shared an instagram pic of the nursery wall in action back in mid February, but hadn’t had a chance to share it on the ol’ blog. So here we are… the DIY nursery gallery wall in all of it’s glory. It cost me nothing to make. It’s just a collection of goodies my mama made, I had on hand (hats, clip board, free printable, and Cricut event goodies).

The nursery has been a major work in progress over the past 5 months. If you’re new here, here are all of the deets on Baby Dorobek and the DIY nursery: Spilling the beans, 10 nursery must haves, Painting the igloo, Bambino gets a crib, the great rug hunt, mirror hanging trick, DIY ledge shelves, IKEA bench hack and envelope slip covers, and how to make super easy valances. I’m going to share pretty pictures of the final nursery soon, promise! Here’s what the gallery wall looked like for a couple of months… it was just ok. I love all of the cross stitches that my mom made and knew they would stay, it just needed a little more spunk. Not to mention, it was all hung so low, and baby could potentially pull those suckers off of the wall someday. The original plan was to hang a shelf above the gallery wall, but that seemed like a lot of work, and the caddy next to changing table did the trick.

I knew I wanted to include my embroidered burlap canvas I made that says “hello world”, the card stock deer craft from the Cricut product launch event, and the free “I love everything about you” printable from Tried and True. Plus of  course the 4 pictures my mom made. Now, let me start with… I love gallery walls, I’ve put lots of them together, and I don’t like rulers or measuring. (See giant Florida gallery wall and the corner gallery wall.) I’m a “eye-baller”. It’s gallery wall after all, it’s not supposed to be perfect! Here is the thought process I use,

1. Gather what I want on my wall.
2. If there are already holes in my wall, I start with those. In this case, I re-used all 4 of my original nail holes, as you can see in picture 2.
3. Then, I consider the center of the gallery wall. In this case, I was attempting to center the pictures in the center of the dresser and caddy. Which happened to be the paper mounted deer.
4. Clearly, I needed some more weight on the right side, above the caddy. So, I added the free printable in a yellow frame I already had on hand. I used washi tape to tape up the printable and my trusty 3M picture hanging strips to hang the frame. I wanted that spot to be something that could easily be changed out.
5. Then, I realized the card stock deer was floating and need to either be moved or something added to the space. The “hello world” sign was a perfect fit.
6. Now, there was a blank spot where the “hello world” sign lived. Those hats have been homeless in our house for months, and assuming I could find them, I knew they’d be cute on the wall! (I used Command Brand clear hooks left over from the kitchen door organizer project back in Florida.)
7. I really wanted all 4 of my mom’s cross stitches on the wall, so I added one above the card stock deer, and that left an awkward spot to the left. I got the plate charger for free from the Cricut event and hung it on the wall with my all time fave, Command Brand picture hanging strips!

I decided the plate charger needed some personalization, so I glued a chalkboard clothespin to the middle of it and added a picture! Easy fix. And I love that I can change the picture out often. Here it is up close. That’s an old pic from when Andy and I lived in China!

And here are a few fun pics of the finished (for now) nursery gallery wall!

What do you think? Are you a gallery fan? A lot better than what I started with, huh? And all for free! Are you an organized gallery wall creator or do you just throw up pics and goodies, like me? I’d love to hear…