Art Wall Tips

Thank you all for the kind words you left about my kids’ play room!  They were so wonderful to read!

As I mentioned in that post, I stepped outside of the box (for me) and decided to behave like a grown up and actually do some preparation when hanging the frames for my kids’ art wall.

This is a big deal for me.  “Preparation” is a dirty word in my book.  “That’s not my bag, baby.”  And that’s why my husband was surprised when I used a level on our kitchen wall vinyl and why I don’t tape when I paint (heck, I don’t even change my clothes when I paint).

But, I’ve been trying really hard lately to do a little prep before I jump in with both feet in the hopes that it will make my projects go smoother (or at least have even better results).  It’s hard for me.  Very hard.

So, you know it must be good when I say that making templates for your wall gallery is worth the time and effort. 

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The day I finally decided to do work on this wall, I ran to my local Goodwill and got as many frames as I could find for under $2.00.  Then I ran home and painted them as fast as I could.  (On a side note, I swear I must be the worst spray painter of all time.  I have no patience (see above) and I end up getting my coats too thick and then I get runs and blotches and such.  But, “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful” as the Nester says, which very nicely sums up my philosophy on projects, so onward!)

Once they were painted, I traced each frame onto butcher paper and cut out the template. 

• Tip 1: I numbered each of the frames on the back and copied that number onto the templates so that once I had the best arrangement on the wall, I’d know which frame matched to which template.
  
• Tip 2: I also marked on the templates where the nail would go for each frame.  If you’re using picture hooks, make sure you mark where you’ll actually put the nail, as opposed to where the bottom of the picture hook will sit.

My husband came home right about the time I was finishing the templates and was impressed with my forethought, though he did scoff just a little when I complained that it had taken me a whole HALF AN HOUR to do it.

Once I had the templates, I laid them out on the floor until I found a design I liked.  Then I taped them to the wall in that pattern.  It wasn’t quite right, so I moved the templates around until I found something that worked.

Then I got out my fine measurement tool (my cell phone – what?!) to make sure that the frames were evenly spaced (sort of).

Here’s what I ended up with:

I then stared at the wall for a day or so to make sure I was happy with the pattern.  When nothing was happening FOR A WHOLE DAY OR SO, I decided that it was good enough for who it’s for and started hanging the frames.

• Tip 3: If you’re painting your frames, you might want to figure out some way to label which inserts go with which frames to make it easier to put them all back together again.  (I actually did think of this before I took the frames apart and decided to just stack the inserts in order of the frame numbers, but the stack fell over and my organization went kaput.)
  
• Tip 4: Leave your paper templates up while you hang the frames so you can make sure that you hung the frames where you intended them to go.
  
• Bonus Tip: If you have nail holes on your wall that you need to touch up, do that and re-paint BEFORE you put up your templates.  If you do it WHILE your templates are already hanging there, the paper may end up sticking to your wall in an unsightly manner.  (I’m just sayin’.)

I did have to move a few nails, but it was nothing compared to what the wall would have looked like had I gone with my instincts and just started putting frames up where I thought they should go.

And here’s how it ended up:

                

I’m quite pleased with it and I really think it brightens the room!

• Tip 5: Start your kids on making artwork for this wall as soon as you start the project, so you don’t have to badger them for days after you’re done to give you something to hang.  (Or, you could actually go through all the artwork that is stored away and use it, but where’s the fun in that?)

 

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Play Room and Day Bed Reveal

They’re done!  The day bed and the play room are (mostly) done! 

I actually used the comforter from my bed and the pillows from my girls’ beds, so the bedrooms look a bit of a mess, but hey, maybe I’ll decide to keep it this way and get a new comforter for MY room!

Let me give you a tour.  You’ve seen the day bed, but here it is again.  Doesn’t it look nice?

Mr. Harry sure thinks so…

I also grabbed the curtains from the girls’ room and the little boxes that used to hang in my kitchen.  Those boxes were definitely a Eureka! moment.  I was driving down the road, chewing on what I could put there when I realized that the boxes were sitting in the garage doing nothing, but if I were to hang them in the play room, I would have a great little place to put all the girls’ 3-dimensional art work and doo-dads!

  

And, speaking of art work!  I finished the art wall.  Generally, Thing 1 produces reams of art work each day, but I actually had to harangue her a bit to actually get the wall filled in (and you can see there are actually still two frames empty).

    

Usually, when I hang frames, I just eyeball it and move them around until I like where they end up.  Which leaves a lot of holes in the wall.  This time, I actually did the responsible, mature thing and created templates and taped them to the wall.  This turned out to be a really smart thing to do because my original plan turned out to require drastic re-working. 

I’ve seen a few bloggers do the template thing, but I might just post on it myself because I ran into a few gotchas that might be good to share.

In addition to the art work, I put up baby pictures of each of us.  Aren’t we cute?

You may have noticed that you’ve only really seen one side of the room.  The left wall has a white board and a chalk board.  I still have some things I want to do with that, so that’s not going to be shared yet.

The wall opposite the bed holds this:     Notice that the door doesn’t shut all the way?  That’s because it looks like this on the inside:

Actually, it was even worse on the inside.  I had to remove a bunch of stuff to even be able to open the doors.  I think that’s going to be next week’s project.  Should be fun!

But that’s messy.  Let’s finish with something nicer…

 

Ahhh…ready for my sister’s visit.

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