Frame Collage!

Remember, your Will-Do Winter photos for the second part, "hang something on a wall," are due by January 10th! To help you get motivated to hammer in some nails, here's my how-to on hanging a frame collage!

Remember when I put out pictures of family weddings at our wedding reception?

Well, I really wanted to use them for something post-wedding, and the big red wall in the guest bedroom seemed to be just BEGGING for something white to be hung on it. Enter, the frame collage. 

This is what it looked like when I finished! 

So, how did I get there? 

First, I laid out all my frames on the floor to figure out how I wanted them to look. At this point I realized that all of my photos were vertical, which looked a little funny, so I went back and reprinted a couple as horizontal photos, throwing in an extra photo of Jeff & I as well in a frame I had lying around. 

Again, I laid out my frames on the floor:

At this point I realized that all of my frames were tabletop frames, and they all had 1) that black thing that makes them stand up (totally visible when hung), and 2) nothing that could be used to hook them onto a nail. 

So, I pulled all of the black stands off. I used a screwdriver to pry off the metal hinges because I didn't want them to scratch the wall. 

Then, I pulled out my trusty glue gun and some twine. I cut twine to form a hanger, and hot glued the ends to the frames.

Tips for doing this:

1) Do it so that the top of the twine (where the nail would go) ends up about an inch from the top of the frame. This will keep your frame balanced on the wall, and will allow you some wiggle room if you need to adjust the nail positioning on the wall

2) Don't be stingy with your hot glue. Actually, it's probably best if you cover an inch or two of the twine with the glue.

3) The hot glue holds best when you glue onto the wooden/acrylic part of the frame rather than the black velvety part in the center. However, if you have to use the black part it will work - just make sure you use a LOT of glue.

This frame was ALL black velvety stuff, and it was pretty heavy. One of the glue spots peeled off after it was on the wall for a few hours, so I had to go back and make the glue spots much bigger (across a couple inches of the string). It's been on the wall for three days now, and so far so good!

After the glue dried, I again positioned my frames on the floor:

The next step was figuring out how to get them on the wall in the exact same configuration. I devised a trace-and-hang method. First, I traced each frame onto lightweight paper (in fact, this was the paper Hobby Lobby wraps their breakable items in when you buy them), and cut it out. I also flipped the frames over, held up the twine, and marked a dot on each paper where the nail should go.

Next, I taped all of the papers to the wall using Scotch tape. I taped the bottom, middle paper first, and I measured it out to make sure it was centered with the bed. I taped the rest in relation to that one.

Then, I took my hammer and nails, and I hammed a nail into each paper's nail dot.

Then, I pulled off the papers (being careful with the tape so I didn't end up with peeled paint), and hung the frames on the nails!

Then I just had to grab a level and adjust each frame so they were all straight, and it was done! Ta-da!

Don't forget to email your wall photos to spiralsandspatulas {at} gmail {dot} com by January 10th!