Attention, new moms and moms-to-be: You’re going to want to steal this gallery wall idea from Jamie, a hardworking supermom who juggles the daily demands of a high-powered finance job with raising her adorable five-year-old daughter, Meriella.
When Meriella was about eighteen months old, Jamie began to teach her the alphabet. As part of the memorization process, the mother-daughter duo drew an item to symbolize each letter (A for avocado, B for bear, and so on.) The letters eventually made their way from the Miller Family’s beach house on the East Coast to their new home in Denver, where Jamie had them custom framed to create a showstopping gallery wall in Meriella’s playroom.
Who: Jamie, Independent Financial Consultant, and her daughter Meriella.
What: The letters of the alphabet designed by Jamie and Meriella as part of a learning exercise, custom framed in several styles (floated, matted, and full-bleed) in our White Gallery Frames.
From Jamie: I didn’t plan to frame these when the project first started; this was just meant to be a fun way to teach Meriella and get her involved in the process. The project took about a year to complete, with the two of us working on the drawings whenever we sat down together to go over the alphabet.
I did most of the drawings, but Meriella helped with little things like the buttons on the coat, and the dots on the ice cream cone. We focused on things that she likes: Avocados are her favorite food, she’s obsessed with elephants, she wants to learn how to play the violin. In the end, my favorite picture is probably the dog—I think that’s the best drawing I’ve ever done of anything!
Custom framing the letters was a bit tricky, because they’re all different shapes and sizes, and some are on different types of paper. In the end, we chose White Gallery Frames to keep everything looking clean and cohesive. Some drawings we floated, some we matted, and some we framed full bleed. It all depended on the size of the picture, and the edge of the paper. We also created one final image—an exclamation point—to complete the space.
Jamie and Meriella continue to reference their unique gallery wall as Meriella learns to read and write—proving that custom framed artwork can be beautiful and educational. We hope their impressive collaboration has inspired you to create something similar for your own home! Once you’re ready to get started, head here.
