Bamboo Photo Mat/Spray Painting Mats

I know I've been a bit MIA lately...

You know where I've been. Do I really need to say it?

Okay... our apartments. It's the nature of the business. 
So, I just gotta go with it.

But today, I'm here to show you how much I've gotten done on the gallery wall. This has wall has been such a trying challenge for me.  But I really
r-e-a-l-l-y see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 I had a spray painting frenzy about a week ago and got 

about 10 frames painted.  Then the other day I worked on

 getting all of the pictures in the frames. 

For our family picture, I wanted to do something a little different. 
While I was down in the basement, grabbing some photo mats, I found some bamboo placements. 

I thought they might look cool on the mat.  
I disassembled it into individual sticks.

 I tried using my glue gun, but the glue kept drying to fast.  
I couldn't place it quick enough, so I cut up the sticks to make the pieces smaller, making a brick like effect.  

I just kept going around and around.  

Pretty cool and fun to do.  

This is what it looked like when I was finished.

Next, I wanted to spray paint it white.

LOVE it!!

I thought it would look nice with our family picture
 that has an outdoor setting.

I really like the way it looks!

Hubby and I were talking last night about this picture, I believe it was taken in the summer of 2011. That was only 2 years ago, but we all look so different today. It might be time for an update.

While I was putting together the picture and frames, I found some mats that would work, but were the wrong color.  Hmmm, my answer? Spray Paint!

They were all sorts of colors. But I figured I had nothing to loose.  I wasn't sure how the mat would take the paint. Would it ripple or warp? It seemed to just soak it in. This is after one coat of primer.

  I only used cheap flat paint after the one coat of primer. It took a couple of coats, but they came out perfect! See!

Almost finished! I wanted to double mat their graduation portraits, I found some more that would work.  Wrong colors again, 
so I spray painted them black. They came out perfect!

Simple and classic.  My babies... 

They've grown up so fast....
Thank you, Lord, for the beautiful years I've had raising them....
This gallery wall is definitely one I will be cherishing!
Now, I only have 3 more items to complete!  This week, I'm going to start making newspaper templates of all my frames. Let the designing begin!

Blessings to you all!