Steal My Free Lightroom Preset + Easy BIG Engineering Portraits

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This post is sponsored by The Great Frame Up of St. Louis but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

When The Great Frame Up of St. Louis asked if I wanted to partner to have something custom framed, I was SO excited! They’re a premier custom framing company in St. Louis with two locations – one in Creve Coeur and one in Chesterfield – and I am so excited to share the finished product(s) + our modern farmhouse informal dining room with you! And I’m giving you a free Lightroom preset to make your portraits the perfect black & white :).

I decided to have larger-than-life portraits of the kids custom framed; I was so inspired by the BIG engineering wall art I’ve seen all around Pinterest – credit here – and love the timeless feel of black & white portraits.

How to Make Your Own BIG Engineering Prints of Your Kids

I had a little photo sesh with the kids in front of a blank wall in our house. I used my ‘real’ camera so that I could print them really large, so I’d use something other than a cell phone for this project.

After I shot them, I used Lightroom to make them black & white. I actually created a free lightroom preset (for desktop only) that you can download so you can get the same classic, light, black & white look for your portraits if you want to try this at home.

Lightroom offers a free 7-day trial so you can easily recreate the look of my big engineering print portraits. Just download the trial, download my free black & white lightroom preset (on a computer, it doesn’t work on mobile), and add it to Lightroom (tutorial on how to install a preset here). Note: this preset only works on the desktop version of Lightroom.

–> Get My Free Lightroom Preset Here <–

After I was happy with the look of the portraits, I printed them at Walgreens; true engineering prints are either 18×24, 24×36, or 36×48, but I actually wanted something a *slightly* different size. If you want to go HUGE, you can do engineering prints at Staples. I did a series of three portraits, each sized 20×30, and had them printed.

THe Great Frame Up St. LOuis

Next step was having our black & white portraits framed. I went to The Great Frame Up Creve Coeur and even took Emmy with me (they have crayons & coloring books if you have to bring your babe!) and they were SO helpful! There are truly tens of thousands of combinations between the mats and the frames, so it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

I knew the overall vibe of our home is modern farmhouse, but I wanted something totally classic and timeless at the same time. I ended up choosing a classic black frame with a gorgeous silk mat and a small dark charcoal mat as well. And museum glass, which is AMAZING – I even touched it to make sure there was actually glass in the frame!

Emmy loved creating her own art 😉

Any and everything custom framed would make an amazing gift for the holidays as well – photos of the kids, an heirloom handwritten recipe, or even a special jersey – can be custom framed with literally thousands of mat and frame choices. They even deliver the finished product to your door, which was such a nice touch!

The Great Frame Up was SO generous to offer 50% off to my followers!

–> Grab The Great Frame Up coupon here <–

Our Modern Farmhouse Dining Room

When we were designing our dining room, we definitely wanted something totally informal – we previously had a formal dining room in a different room of the house and sat in it ZERO times, even on holidays. You can see the old floorplan here. The dining room is also right in the middle of a major walkway into our house – you walk from the mudroom into the dining room to get into the house – so we wanted it to be beautiful but also casual.

I was aiming for modern farmhouse with the functionality to host a party but totally kid-friendly as well – what do you think?

I absolutely love how the portraits of the kids totally make the space.

We have 2 ghost chairs (shockingly GREAT for kids, so easy to wipe down!) + I love the chandelier

I’m so excited to fill this tray seasonally with fun & festive filler 🙂

We currently have a faux lambs ear garland but I’m imagining mini pumpkins or apples for fall, some fresh pine with twinkle lights for the holidays, and something bright and light for spring.

I also love the white bench seating in the dining room – we’re waiting on navy cushions, too 🙂

And we have 2 little stools on each side for extra seating when we have guests. Otherwise, they’re totally out of the way.

I’m so in love with these black & white BIG portraits of the kids! The black frames are perfect.

See? The matting also adds an element of classic and chic to the portraits.

I’m obsessed with the way the portraits make the dining room totally ‘us’ and make our house feel like a home. I also love the way the portraits are far from perfect but perfectly capture each of my kids’ personalities. The candid shots are always the best 🙂