Big news! As of January 1, 2017, I launched a new line of my business. This line of business is only available January-June each year (since I always get busier in the 2nd half of the year)…
drumroll please…
Introducing…
Wall Consulting Meetings with Jess !
and…
the Frames by BBP Collection !
Where to begin?
Well, for years (I mean YEARS, guys – like fourteen of them) my clients have been asking me to help them hang photos on their walls, and I’ve never had the energy to jump into the world of wall consulting, and truth be told, the last step in all wall consulting jobs — the hanging part — kept stumping me. If I was going to go into my clients’ homes and make recommendations about what to hang where… I really felt strongly that I needed to also offer that final piece of the puzzle: I needed to be able to offer hanging services. And see, I make holes in my own walls when I do this myself. Exhibit A, from my personal Instagram feed from Sept 20, 2013 – see? I kid you not. Hanging is not my forte.
So when I connected with Tom Fiske last fall, owner of TBF Design in Milton, and he agreed to be my hanging partner? And see, hanging IS his forte. And well, the rest is history.
Oh, what’s that you say? You like history? Oh, OK, sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a… no, wait, that’s not it. Not going to sing you the Gilligan’s theme song. How about you get comfortable and I’ll tell you all about it.
Last summer and fall, as I dipped my toe into the world of wall consulting, I had some wonderfully patient clients come along for the ride with me. First I worked with the M family in Newton. At first I didn’t think I wanted to sell frames, so I thought I’d charge by the hour and go into clients’ homes and help them lay out the frames I’d source and recommend that they buy off the internet.
So first I came in and took photos of their stairway and a few other spaces. And then I went back to my desk and laid out some options for them online. But the bummer was that this process took a long time. Time at my desk laying out options, time for the M family to get together and look at the layouts I proposed and email me back to say what they liked and didn’t like. Time for me to adjust, make more suggestions… we’re talking months. But it worked out, eventually we made some choices, they ordered some prints and some frames and off they went.
But now I knew I wanted to be more involved. This was FUN, thinking about years and years of my clients’ photos coming to life in spaces in their homes. I knew I needed to get going.
So I started researching. And researching. And digging. And doo-da-doooooo (that’s like a bugle noise – like a little trumpet noise in your head — k?) I started finding frames I liked!
Frames that WORKED and looked fantastic with my photos in them.
Frames that I felt good about offering to you guys!
So thusly (that’s completely not a word, but I really like it here and I’m going to leave it) the Frames by BBP Collection was born. Ta DA!
And they’re not insanely expensive! They’re gorgeous, and each of the frames come with an archival, matted, mounted print in it as part of the price. My framed print price chart (showing print and canvas prices as well, for comparison) is here.
Aaaaaand then I thought… what does a Frame Collection need to go with it? Of course I knew I’d offer one-off framed prints as one of the things I’d sell on my website, but I also knew I’d need to start thinking about selling groups of frames.
Then came… collections!
So, I’ve developed five collections – they’re groupings of frames that look fantastic when hung together in these arrangements and that you can buy if you’re ready to go for it. The pricing for my collections (and all my frames) includes the archival matted, mounted prints. Of course we can always customize, but here’s a look at the collections:
And then… I emailed/texted/Facebooked a few clients. I whispered. “So, if I were to offer wall consulting? Would you ever want me to come talk with you about hanging photos your walls?” And people started saying yes!
So in the past two weeks I’ve had FIVE meetings with clients to talk about their walls and what to hang where. I don’t charge for these meetings, but I only offer them January-June. I bring ALL the photos I’ve ever taken of your family with me on my laptop, I bring my layout software, sample frames… and it is super duper extremely fun.
Let me walk you through it.
So for example, I met last Tuesday (just 9 days ago!) with one fantastic mama from the D family and I took a photo of her playroom wall. She had this nice big blank playroom wall.
She had an idea of what she wanted to do with the wall, but we looked at lots of options on my laptop together.
Eventually this layout was the winner:
Then she chose a frame from the Frames by BBP Collection. She could have done canvases, or even metal prints (yesterday’s meeting resulted in five 20×30” metal prints that are going in the B family’s kitchen/living/dining room space – EEEEK that is exciting and I can’t WAIT to order those)… but mama D chose the gorgeous Pratt frame in Barn Grey – one of my absolute favorites. She’s doing these six photos as 20×24” frames with 16×20″ matted, mounted archival prints.
And then came the fun part – we got to go back through all nine of the photoshoots she’s done since 2011 when she was pregnant with her first babe and look at EVERY SINGLE PICTURE to think about what to put in these frames in the playroom.
We decided to go black and white for all six photos, and we went with three photos of all three kids from different photoshoots through the years, and one headshot of each of her three kids alone from her most recent shoot. (Well, I kind of gave it away above, actually – those are the photos she chose in that final layout I showed you above.)
Isn’t this going to look amazing?
So she placed her order with me and I ordered the prints and the frames right away (this was only nine days ago, remember!) and today was my day to frame everything. I had such fun.
And tomorrow I drive them over to Tom’s frame shop, and on Monday he brings them to her house in Weston and hangs them. I can’t wait wait WAIT for pictures of the final product. I’ll update this post when they send them to me!
So anybody else want a wall consulting meeting?
Monday, February 6th, 4:30pm update
I just heard from Tom and the wonderful mama from this family almost within moments of each other, and LOOK! They both sent me photos of the six 20x24s hung on the wall.
I like this shot because it’s from nice and far away and you can see how great the photos look in the room and get a sense of how big they are on the wall. Looks pretty close to the way they looked when I laid them out using the wall layout software, eh? Just didn’t get the glass reflections in there, otherwise, yowsa, it’s accurate!
Love love!
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