In + On: Accessories

While working as a wedding photographer you will get three questions constantly. First, "You make a ton of money, right?" (Awkward!) Second, "What camera do you use?" (Usually followed by the less exciting, "If I had your camera I'd take awesome pictures too..." Um, gee thanks.) And last but not least, "How should I hang my pictures on the walls?" ...I don't know about you, but this is a huge conflict for me! While I love personal photos on walls, I love love love interior design too and the two don't always mix. I definitely won't say it's concrete, but I will say, in general, hanging pictures of yourself, family or personal photos is somewhat of an iffy business in the design realm. I have seen it done well on occasion, but for the most part, again "in general" it's not gonna be phenomenal. That has prompted me to have this kinda-sorta rule that I use, I put my personal pictures in my personal spaces (like my upstairs hallway) and use art in the public areas. I feel like this is a good compromise, and honestly, I'm much to lazy to change out personal prints often enough to keep them up to date, so it's a much better practice for our home. I find art for my walls everywhere from Google images, to book pages, to vintage sheet music & creating my own text art. You can also search Etsy or Art.com for even more inspiration. And Aaron Brothers "buy one get one for a penny sale" is probably the best thing that ever happened to my walls. It happens twice a year, I'm sure your walls will thank me. The important part to me is that I use images that are meaningful in some way to me, or that they have some sort of significance that can be universal. For instance our dining room features images from my favorite person ever, Da Vinci, a piece featuring all of our children's birth dates along with a native american pattern (I'm part apache). It still has so much meaning!

 
I've had this thing for tortoise shell since high school when I constantly bought and broke pair after pair of tortoise shell glasses. (I'm a little clumsy.) So this past week as I looked for ways to protect my new iPhone, I was ecstatic when I found a tortoise shell case! Of course, in my search, I came across so many other beautiful shell items that I think are dreamy. It's definitely on the top of my best accessories to have list.

(Links & credit for all the inspiration images can be found on my Inspiration Den Board)