Ski Lodge Gallery Wall

I interrupt my previously scheduled “Part 2 of my Christmas Home Tour”, to bring you the details of my Ski Lodge Gallery Wall in the living room.  The tour will resume tomorrow with my dining room and kitchen.

This project was so fun to pull together!  It all started with a pair of vintage skis I spotted on Ebay.  Here you can see the label on the well worn wood skis.  After some investigation, I found that they were probably manufactured in the early 1900’s by the Paris Manufacturing Company in Maine.

The skis had leather straps, but one is missing the leather – which didn’t bother me one bit!  I don’t know if the rope is original, but I left it the way I found it!

In addition to the skis, I knew I wanted to add a few photos and some graphic elements to the gallery wall.  The first thing I decided to use was a close-up photo of Josh and Sarah holding hands in the snow.  This was taken two years ago at their engagement portrait session.  I just love the graphic style and the contrast between Josh’s black wool pea coat, Sarah’s red paints and bright red nails!  I wanted this photo to be large, so I went to shutterfly.com and had the print made into a 20″ x 30″ canvas.  It arrived within a week of my ordering and I was so happy that the enlargement didn’t effect the vibrant colors of the original photo.

I added the vintage gloves as an afterthought.  They weren’t in my original plan, but I thought they worked perfectly to fill in the space below the large canvas print.

I wanted to include at least one photo of the boys and chose one of my favorites from when they were little and didn’t mind having their photo taken!  It was taken at the most gorgeous tree farm that we used to go to.  The tree farm was in the woods with an old stone barn.  We always tried to get a photo there at the barn and this one just makes me smile because it shows the uproarious spirit of my boys!

The ski patrol sign was really easy to design and make.  I used my Silhouette Cameo to create the design.  I made a stencil of the design and painted it on two pieces of old barn wood.  The sign is really heavy, so I used a wire hanger for this piece.  The lighter weight items (including the skis) were hung with Scotch Command Strips so I don’t have a lot of holes in the wall.  I also stenciled the white snowflake onto a 12″ x 12″ black canvas from Michaels.

I found the twig stag head early in the season and decided to incorporate it into my gallery wall.  I hot glued it to a wood plaque from Michaels that I first painted with chalkboard paint and added a little wreath in chalk to frame the stag head.  I tied some leftover wool ball garland from my Christmas tree around the stag’s neck to add some color.  The photo above the stag head was taken a few years ago in our hometown, Lititz, PA.  The red caboose sits at the town park entrance and each Christmas it gets decked out with garlands, wreaths, and lights.

Do you notice anything different in the picture above?  Yes, the red “Christmastime is Here” pillow is different from the black and white buffalo check in my first photo.  But, if you look closely, you can see that the black and white buffalo check is on the reverse of this bold red pillow with the lyrics to a song from one of my very favorite Christmas classics – “A Charlie Brown Christmas”.

I created this pillow at shutterfly.com.  You don’t have to use a traditional photo for pillows made at Shutterfly.  You can get creative and make your own design using Photoshop or even Picmonkey,  save the image as a jpg file and upload the image to Shutterfly.    Then, using the site’s design tools, select the pillow size (mine is a 24″ x 18″) and then you can select a pattern for the reverse side of your pillow.  I chose the bold black and white check.  The option to have a graphic design on the reverse makes any pillow so versatile.  I think each side works equally well on my sofa!   If you’d like your own pillow just like this one, download the image below to your computer and then import the file into your Shutterfly account.

And don’t forget to use coupon code FAVES40 today through 12/10 to receive 40% off your Shutterfly order.

A special thanks to Shutterfly for helping me create this fun gallery wall.

Just a reminder – today is Day 2 of the Christmas Home Tours!  Below you will find the links to five more gorgeous holiday homes – plus Monday’s lineup!  Trust me, you will not want to miss a single one!