I didn’t plan to write a tutorial for this when we put up our Instagram gallery wall, but every time a post a photo in our kitchen with it in on my Instagram account, so many people comment on how much they love it and ask questions, I thought that I’d write down the details of what we did in case it helps someone else.
Which frames to use for an Instagram gallery wall?
Our wall uses Ikea Ribba frames (they are listed as 23cm x 23cm but the actual external measurements are 25cm x 25cm) with a deep box finish. We then removed the insert so that each photo fills the frame.
How many frames for an Instagram gallery wall?
Our Instagram gallery wall uses 25cm frames with a 6cm gap between each frame, so I used the following calculation.
- Decide on the length and height of wall you want to fill, measure in cm.
- Divide the height measurement by 31cm. So, say the height of wall you have to fill is 100cm, 100/31 = 3.225 so the number of frames high to use is 3.
- Do the same with the width, so say the width of wall you’d like to fill is 240cm, 240/31 = 7.741 so the number of frames across to use is 7.
- Multiply the two numbers together to work out how many frames in total you need. So in the example above, (like in our wall) you’d need 21 of the 25cm Ribba box frames.
How to print the photos for the Instagram gallery?
It took me ages to work out the best (and cheapest) way of having the photos printed. If I’m honest, I’m still not sure that my way was the cheapest or most efficient. If you find a better way, please let me know.
In the end, I worked out that ordering the biggest poster sized print from Photobox and putting as many 9″x 9″ images within that was the cheapest. I used my photo editing software to create one large image of the smaller ones together and uploaded that. I was worried that cutting them down to size would be a total faff but actually it was fine and didn’t take long at all.
If you don’t have the images saved on your phone or computer and Instagram itself is your only source of them, you can use Instaport.me to download them, but I don’t recommend this as the quality won’t be great for a 9″ x 9″ image.
Obviously, if you’re cutting and pasting images anyway, try and keep the resolution as high as possible.
How to hang the gallery wall?
- Decide where you want your top left picture to be and work out where you need the nail to go, it will be about in the middle of the frame, 1cm below the top edge.
- Bang the nail in, make sure you nail it in at a right angle to the wall (so straight in, not at an angle upwards) leaving a few cm protruding.
- Mark 31cm across from the first nail (using a spirit level) for the second one along, 31cm from the second for the third and so on.
- Mark the next row down by measuring 31cm below the first nail (using a spirit level), then for the second on in, of the second row, measure 31cm down from the one above and 31cm along (these should be in the same place!). Until you’ve got your perfect grid of nails in the formation you decided.
- Now the nifty bit, don’t worry about using the hanging hooks provided, just sit the top edge of the frame onto the nail. This is heaps easier and it means that you can adjust the positioning of all of the frames slightly horizontally for the perfect finish.
I hope that’s helpful, if you have any questions, or would like to see more shots of our wall, feel free to say hello over on Instagram, I’m @tamingtwins. I’d love to see the photos of your Instagram gallery walls!
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