Making Memories...to Display

I'm a pretty sappy person. Maybe I just like to use sappiness as an excuse for being a pack-rat when it comes to photos, momentos, and other miscellaneous items that make me say "Aww! Babe, remember this?!". I do keep quite a bit of stuff stored away in random storage bins but I've also managed to display some special things throughout our house. Here's a look at how we show off some of our favorite treasures.

The easiest and most obvious way to display memories is with photos. While we have pictures sporadically placed throughout the house there's also a few places with hanging galleries. The first is in our living room and consists of three frames and two different sized photos. I did print the pics in black and white to make them more cohesive.


Our second gallery is in the hallway upstairs. Loren actually customized these frames for my birthday one year by cutting all the photos mats for me. These pictures are in color but I think the consistent hanging pattern lets me get away with that. Plus there's not much else going on in the hallway so the color photos are distracting from anything else.


In our computer room we have a couple shelves that display lots of different meaningful items. I have some photos there but also a painting of the beach that we purchased on a trip to Mexico, a flag that Loren received as a child, and a box with the lyrics of an Old Irish Blessing that I sang in high school choir. I think it all looks good together since the overall color pallet is the same.


We have a special wedding memories shadow box hanging in our bedroom; it's also a gift from Loren. That guy really knows how to make a girl swoon! I LOVE it and it makes me happy to see all a mix of special wedding memories everyday. Not just a wedding photo but photo strips from our honeymoon, newpaper wedding announcements, and our cake topper. It seemed appropriate to hang in our bedroom because it's a little to lovey-dovey to hang out for everyone walking by to see.


Something relatively new is some stones and sand picked up from beaches Loren and I have visited, we have them sitting on our media center. I filled up two matching square glass containers and put a piece of card stock in the vase to label the materials. We have some stones from Rialto Beach when we visited LaPush, Washington earlier this summer and some black sand that we brought back from Santorini in September.



So that's how we're displaying memories at our house. I'd love to hear how you display special items at your own pad, I'm always looking for new ideas! Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!