Most of us have lots of family photos tucked away – older ones in boxes, newer digital ones on our computer, phones or uploaded to instagram or the cloud. But sometimes it can seem overwhelming to display these photos on a wall in your home, even though you would like to. Here are some suggestions for going from a hidden photo collection to one you can share with guests.

Plan a theme. Lots of graduation photos and other professional shots are OK, but your photo wall can be much more fun to look at if you focus on more candid shots such as vacation photos or pictures taken at family events. You can also combine photos of your children at different ages so that people can see the changes as they get older.

Vary the size and shape of the photos. Include both horizontal and vertical shots and choose which photos to emphasize with larger sizes. Warehouse and drug stores can blow up your photos to almost any size.

Crop your photos. Often our pictures have too much unimportant background and the people can get lost. Use an inexpensive software package such as Photoshop Elements to trim the unimportant elements out and let the people shine.

Use simple and similar frames. Many art supply stores offer sales on stock image size frames such as buy one get the second for a penny. Keep your eyes open for those opportunities and buy all of the frames you need at one time. Having a consistent look for frames helps your finished wall look more professional and encourages people to focus on the photos not the frames.

In our next blog we’ll take a look at how to create an effective photo display.