Six Tips To Create A Beautiful And Fun Nursery Gallery Wall

Since I shared our little man’s nursery reveal a few weeks back, I’ve gotten so many compliments on the gallery wall above his changing table! The longer we’ve been in our house, the more confident I’ve gotten in my design and decor dreaming, and designing this nursery gallery wall was such a fun process.

If you’ve ever wanted to design a gallery wall for a nursery or another room, these are my tried and true tips for making sure it’s warm, personal, and balanced instead of feeling too cluttered or mismatched like some gallery walls do.  I hope these tips will inspire you to try your hand at designing a gallery wall of your own!

1) Select one inspiration piece to guide the whole design.

The entire gallery wall in our nursery was inspired by two little prints from Hobby Lobby that I have admired for months: this little fox and bear painted with some war-paint and feathers.  They remind me of little boys trying to be so serious and strong, just like their daddies, and I love the little pops of color in their paint! The combination of white, gray, black, and a pop of blue became the basis for the whole wall.  Having one key inspiration piece helps focus the gallery wall and make sure everything is cohesive!

2) Choose 1-3 main colors for all the frames or other pieces.

Nothing ruins a gallery wall quicker than having too many clashing colors and patterns! I usually try to choose two neutral colors and one brighter color any time I’m decorating a wall (like this shelf gallery wall I created in our front room).  When the frames are mostly neutral, you can have some fun pops of color in the art itself without it becoming too overwhelming! I went with white/cream, black, and a light blue inspired by the Hobby Lobby animal prints.

3) Make sure every piece has a complement.

If you’re doing a bigger gallery wall with more than 3-4 pieces, try to make everything have a complement.  Notice how I have two cream pieces (the pennant and the feather frame), three black pieces (the animal prints), two white pieces (the deer head and picture frame) and two wood pieces (the shutter and arrow).  When you lay out the gallery wall, try to arrange it so that the complements generally aren’t next to each other so things feel more spread out and even (I break this rule a little bit with the black C, so know that it’s all just a matter of what you like and think looks balanced in a given arrangement!).  Having complements like this naturally helps to balance everything and makes sure no piece feels out of place.

4) Bring in something whimsical and fun.

When you’re decorating a kid’s room (or any room, I would argue), you’ve GOT to include something whimsical and fun! We can’t be too stuffy and serious for a room where everything will be played with and loved on (or in our case, for a gallery wall above a changing table that will most likely be peed on by our ornery son).  I love this silly moose head and the animal prints with their serious expressions.  They’re the perfect touch of fun and innocence in contrast to the more calm feather print or the picture of me and my husband!

5) Choose at least 1-2 items that aren’t rectangular.

I’ve seen beautiful gallery walls of all rectangular frames, but I’m a big fan of mixing things up and having different shapes.  I love how the arrow, pennant, the letter C, and moose add some visual interest to this gallery wall and break up the pattern of squares and rectangles!  A gallery wall in a little one’s room isn’t about being stylish or artsy fartsy as much as bright and fun, and non-rectangular pieces are one way to add some whimsy and joy.

6) Include at least one item of a different texture.

Texture if the perfect way to make the gallery wall seem more warm and personal, something that was very important to me when we made this wall for our little guy.  Woven things are apparently going to be very “in” this season, so something like this fabric pennant or the rough wood arrow is the perfect way to make the gallery wall feel more cozy.  You could also do something fun like a little ribbon garland, some pom-poms, etc. You can find the tutorial for this little initials pennant I made here if you want to try one yourself!

Gallery walls can be so beautiful and fun and are a great way to display lots of pieces of art that you love and bring you joy.  I hope you’ll take the plunge and try to design one on your own!

P.S.  According to my hubby, the number one important rule is that everything be securely fastened to the wall. In other words, when our curious little boy tries to rip things off the wall he will majorly struggle because everything was meticulously measured and drilled directly into studs (instead of my usual strategy of using Command strips and commenting how using a level is too much work).  I’d say hubby and I balance each other out well!

If you’ve ever designed a gallery wall, what were some of your biggest challenges or the best tips you’ve learned? 

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