February Challenge Result: Collage

Our February challenge was to collect one item per day to add to a collage that we would assemble on a giant empty wall in our bedroom.  (For those who missed it, here is an update I wrote part way through the month on our progress so far.)  Today I have the end result for you!

Before + After

Though we started out intending to collect one item each day, in the end we both collected/printed our items in a few big chunks of time, which also meant we didn't add to the collage throughout the month.  Instead we had one huge pile at the end of the month that we assembled all in one sitting.

While I think it would have been fun (and probably more motivating) to watch the collage grow throughout the month, we probably ultimately ended up with a prettier product because we were able to arrange it knowing exactly everything the collage would contain.

It was like creating a giant puzzle and we had all the pieces.  It was Justin's idea (him being the analytical thinker of the pair of us) to arrange everything into piles before we started, based on the size of each item: small, medium, or large.

We started by putting up the large ones, spacing them out.

Then we added the medium sized ones, trying to intersperse Justin's with mine evenly.

Finally the small ones!  And here's the finished product!

As you can see I picked a lot of graphic patterns, flowery/girly prints, and a few cute marriage/love prints.  Justin picked graphically interesting representations of his hobbies and interests (which tend to be rather manly, rightly so).  In the end, I love how the juxtaposition of manly and cutesy came together.  It's kind of like a symbol of our marriage: two distinct and different people deciding to become one united team.

We think one thing that also helped it to look cohesive was the combination of patterns and photos/prints with content and/or words.  If it had been all patterns it could have been an eyesore.  If it had been all words/content it would have been overwhelming to look at.  But the combination of the two works nicely.

We really like what the collage has added to our bedroom, and we both (Justin especially) have grown in our appreciation for art, graphic design, and Pinterest as a result of the challenge!

For March's challenge we've chosen something that we are actually actively participating in every day and it is: YOGA!  Hoping that 10 or more minutes of yoga a day for a month does wonders for our flexibility!