quick & cute decorating with photos

My friend Brianna wanted decorations for her dorm room, so for Christmas I decided to make her a lovely mobile with pictures from some of our fabulous picnics and secret club meetings.

But the mobile (which originally involved a wire hanger) wasn't coming out so lovely, so i simplified a bit. I printed out a bunch of pictures, as planned, then just glued them back-to-back along a length of ribbon.

Then i cut some hearts and stars from pretty paper scraps and glued those back-to-back along some shorter lengths of ribbon.

I was very happy with the finished product! The collection of pictures made us look like really fun people to hang out with! I don't know how true that is, but we sure look exciting. And i really loved the way the hearts and stars looked, and made up my mind to make some for myself sometime.

A few months later i've finally gotten around to it. Without this project in mind, i printed out a bunch of pictures my friend had sent me, mostly featuring clothes. I wanted to get a good look at them but i didn't want to be on the computer. I hadn't decided if i was going to display them in my room, glue them to a notebook, or what.

Then the other day i didn't feel like doing anything that really had to be done, and the pictures were handy and i thought of Brianna's present. A short while later, i had a new room decoration! It's prettier and more elegant than just taping photos to the wall, and it's not very much harder. I hung mine from my curtain rod.

The ones i made for myself (pictured left) seemed a lot quicker and easier than the ones i made for Brianna. Maybe because i knew it didn't have to be gift-worthy, or just because it was the second time around. But also i used photopaper for Bri's and regular paper for mine, so that might have been a factor. I also used a corner-rounder on hers for an added finish, but didn't bother for my own.