A Wall of Memories

The last few months I've been focused on incorporating my own art andcreative work into my home decor. It's been easy to add my paintings (I have those up all over the house, from our bathrooms to our bedrooms) and digital art prints (these can be seen in our guest room, hallways and kitchen). But what about scrapbooking pages? Those poor babies are inside albums and gathering dust. I create oodles of pages each month, and they go directly from the printer to an album ... rarely to see the light of day or regularly receive some love from my family.

Wouldn't it be cool if you could create a scrapbook wall? You could take your favorite or most recent (maybe they are one in the same) scrapbook pages and with some wall hangers, quickly transform your boring wall into a bigger than life scrapbook.

The other day I read a quote from Ben Franklin, "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." As I try to shine a light on our family memories, as well as my creative work, I can't think of a better way to do it than by creating a living art wall.

So here's what I was thinking of doing. I'd like to take a single wall in my house and add a funky, bright paint color to make it really pop. It might even be cool to paint the wall with chalkboard paint and in addition to your art or scrapbook pages, you can add some doodles to the installation (my kids would totally love a chalkboard wall).

Once you install an art wall like this, then you can change up the items you display as much as you'd like. Create some new scrapbooking pages, and within minutes they could be on your wall for everyone to see. Each time your little one brings home a cool new art project, swap out the old for the new. I totally love the idea of swapping out what you loved last month for what you're loving this month. It sort of makes it a living art installation.

Wouldn't it be fun to switch up the display with each new season? At Christmas you could add layouts from Christmases past or photos from Santa visits through the years. Maybe during the summer months, you could show off layouts from summer vacations you've taken through the years. At the start of a new school year, you could display school-themed layouts. The possibilities are endless.

I also love the idea that a system like this would allow me to get my memories out of a photo album and into plain site. Don't get me wrong, my family loves my albums. But they don't look at them all the time. Heck, I'm pretty sure they haven't looked at them for months and months. By creating a vibrant and ever- changing wall display we'd have a constant visual reminder of our great family memories.

What are you doing to give your memories more play? Any cool ideas on how I can display my scrapbook pages so they aren't hidden in an album? Share your ideas, I'd love to hear some other fun, uniques ways I could display my pages (and art).