Making your Home Homely through Photographs

making-your-home-homely-through-photographs

In today’s world of digital cameras and smartphones, less and less of us are keeping those traditional family photo albums or displaying pictures from the family holiday proudly on the mantelpiece. And that’s a shame really, because nothing adds more personality or sense of family to a home quite like a printed photo does.

More than just an ice breaker when you have friends round for dinner or a party, photos in the home imprint the personalities of every member of the family onto the space. They also serve as an excellent reminder of the good times when things are tough. Let’s look at a few ways you can bring back some of that nostalgia and make your home truly yours by displaying your favorite shots the way they deserve!

Doing it large:

While the days of taking your roll of film in its special little lightproof casing to the local photo print shop are over for most of us, canvas printing has become more and more affordable – and it’s probably the most spectacular way to showcase your favorite pieces. All you need are your digital photos (as high resolution as possible) and your vision for them!

With canvas printing, your shots are enlarged and printed onto durable and scuff resistant canvas material, which then gets stretched by hand over a matching wooden frame. You can use just a single photo, or even create a giant collage of shots from an event like a wedding, Christmas party or family holiday. Sizes typically range from as small as A5 all the way up to A0 – which is a whopping 118 by 84 centimeters that will create an eye-catching statement piece for any room.

What’s really great about these prints is that they can be whatever subject matter you choose – family members, your beloved pets, a great shot from your holiday, or even a landscape or abstract piece that you’re particularly proud of. Combine this with the art of enhancing your photos digitally, and the sky’s the limit!

Where to place photos in your home for best effect:

The walls of your home can become your own personal art gallery that showcases all the best times from your family and brings back great memories. A particularly popular and eye-catching favorite is to group photos of different sizes together in a pleasing way. Sometimes the arrangement comes to you naturally, and sometimes you might need to experiment before it looks just right – but it’s always fun to work it out!

Staircases are a lovely feature to accent with photos, as they can take you on a journey through time as you go up and down! Why not experiment with having the earliest photos of your children at the bottom, and adding shots as they grow older as you go up? The same goes for any long pieces of empty wall space such as a passageway. Places where the family eats together or where people tend to gather when you host parties are also good candidates for showcasing your photos. This way they become talking pieces rather than lying forgotten in an album somewhere.

Subjects that bring a personal touch to the home

The photos you display in your home should be the ones that make you smile, remind you of the journey your family has been through together, and which capture the essence of what you’re all about! Here are a few examples of good subject matter choices:

Candid photos of the kids

Make sure you don’t just have rigid and posed photos from school – the best photos of children tend to be the ones they didn’t know were being taken at the time! These capture the carefree nature and wide-eyed wonder that kids do so well, and they’ll more than likely be the ones you really treasure in years to come.

Lifetime events:

If you splurged on a really great wedding photographer or have any professional shots from a graduation or prom night, then take some time to find a unique way of displaying them.

Generational photo groupings:

If you’re lucky enough to have photos of your grandparents, parents, you and your children – then you’ve got the makings of a really special photo grouping! Children often love to see what their parents looked like when they were kids, and displaying them together is a wonderful way to bring a sense of history into the home.

Put your personality on display:

Today we take more photos than ever before, and yet most of them are doomed to languish forever on a lonely cloud somewhere. But we live in the real world, and your favorite photos – the ones that tell your story and remind you of the good times – should do too.

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