A Personalized Wall Collage

Last year I created a personalized wall collage for our living room. It took me a while to figure out just where I wanted to do this as I had been wanting one for quite a while. I knew I wanted scrabble letter tiles as part of it, and once we decided to include wall tiles in one of our monthly BOXED UP subscription box projects, I knew I could do it. In our May 2019 box, we included tiles that could say LOVE, HOME, JOY, and JOLLY and a preserved boxwood wreath served as the letter O. We also included some wooden arrows so that our members could make their own mini wall collage.
My team and I knew that it was time to offer scrabble tiles in our online shop and I decided what better way to showcase them than to make a personalized wall collage of my own as an example. At any given time, I already have so many items that get circulated around the house from my staging "room" of accessories. Yes, it's become a room... our former guest room to be totally honest. But perhaps what was most daunting for me might be the same thing holding you back from moving forward on this, even though you, too, have been wanting some kind of personalized wall collage of your own.

So let me show you how I went about starting to map out my plan...

First, I spent a lot of time with graph paper. I measured out the wall space within which I wanted to keep my entire collage contained. It needed to be more horizontally oriented than vertically. So I played with our five first names over and over... and over again. Finally, I came up with a layout I thought could work. A couple of my versions even included the word "family" but, ultimately, for our space, it seemed like a little too much for our space.

Before I could plan what pieces could be incorporated into my design around the letters, I had to get the letter tiles made and hung.

So, that I did! I went with tiles that were 5.5 inches square (and now these tiles are options in our online shop as both DIY kits AND custom orders). I decided that the easiest way for me to get the tiles onto the wall in the places that I wanted was to create a paper version first. Brown paper worked well for me to trace the letters and create a sample size for each name.

Yay! Now I had a complete visual of how they would look on the wall. So, now it was time to add the command strips and get to the hanging!

Prior to hanging, I did some research online and saw that some people add a board across the back of theirs to attach them all together to make them easier to hang. However, I did not want my tiles to stick out from the wall at all which would happen if I added a strip across the backs like that. Even more so, I did not want to add a hook on the back of each which would make them lean out a little at the tops. And, in that case, can we say "HOLY NAIL HOLES, BATMAN!" So, command picture strips came in for the win. (By the way, this is also what we recommend for our wall tiles made in the online shop.)

Now that it's been about a year since these have been up, it's been bothering me a little that I hung them about 6-8 inches too high. So, keep reading to see my solution for that...

In the meantime, now it was time to add accessories and have some fun!

I shopped my stash (aka former guest room) and went to town - I forgot to take a photo, but I re-used the brown paper version on the floor to lay out some different ideas. I love wooden arrows and had some from Hobby Lobby. Recently, I added one of our own arrows from the shop (again, keep reading). Even one year later, I still have not touched up the drywall anchors that are still visible. I'll get to it one of these days. Can you see them?
Here is what I ended up with when it was all said and done...and it worked out nicely that my farmhouse clock blends in with it, too!

Now, what does it look like today?

After living with it for a year or so, I started to feel like I had everything up just a smidge too high, so I recently started tweaking some things. (But there was no way was I going to take it all down and move it all!) I pulled one of the decorative wooden arrows we now carry in our online shop and added it at the bottom on the right.
That left me to play with the bottom left as well with more items I pulled from my staging room. Oh, and I forgot to mention, the little house shaped sign spoke to me in the middle of Kohl's and, obviously, she was convincing enough to make it into my cart. Seriously - we had a mini conversation - no joke!
After clearing a path in my staging room that's become more of a catch-all, I found a couple more wooden words in a bin and decided to add them in as well. But before I show you the current look of this personalized wall collage, I had one more thing to figure out...

The finishing touch...

I had taken down the wreath over the holidays and replaced it with my version of our November 2019 Boxed Up project - the embroidery hoop Merry & Bright decoration.
Now that I've de-Christmas-ified the house, I was contemplating what to put on that black background. DING DING DING! What if I added a picture clip and a family photo? I mean, DUH, the whole collage is based around the theme of family, right? I had not included a photo up until now since we have an entire other gallery wall of photos and a large family photo on the opposite wall. But, seriously, can you really have enough displays of your precious family? So, I ordered a 12x12 photo, screwed in a clip to the sign and boom. These photos are my favorite of all time (taken by my friend, Christy Drake of Little Daisy Photography) and it just so happens that Costco has a 12x12 print option which was perfect for the square shape of the frame!
Sometimes, things can start to snowball and I'm kind of feeling like I may end up taking some things back down. After I live with it for a week or so, I will have a better feel for my "feelings" on the matter! But here's a final look at it now...I forgot to move the bin of screws and nails and my water. But there's pretty much always something on that ledge anyway, so it seems fitting.

Dare I ask... would you have left it alone or do you like it better now?