I'm going to out myself here and let you in on a little secret...I pretty much have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to decorating a home.  Sure I know what I like, and have a wishlist and inspiration files that go on for miles, but it's the translation part that I seem to muddle.  Because of my lacking in this area I've had a literal suitcase full of artwork and photos that I've been dying to hang since we moved into our home this past Spring, but have been too terrified to touch.  Enter the September issue of Real Simple Magazine.  In a gorgeous article titled: Artful Ideas for Every Room I came across my picture hanging solution (top photo).  Hurray!  It took a bit of measuring (usually a danger zone for me) but I managed alright and the end results turned out pretty good.  If I was starting all over again I would probably use fewer black frames (and I will probably re-mount our feather collection onto something other than linen so it stands out more), but at least my large blank wall is now a point of interest.  And what do you know...it actually was "Real Simple." 

Photo credits for the first image go to photographer William Abranowicz (my apologies for the less than stellar photo I took of it for this post).