Sunday, March 18, 2012

How to Make a Gallery Wall

Have you ever wanted to make a gallery wall but were too afraid to attempt it? Or maybe you feared your walls would look like Swiss cheese with all the nail holes because you couldn’t get the pictures lined up straight? Making a gallery wall can be simple if you know the right tips and tricks!

Make a Gallery Wall

Choose a wall where you want to have your gallery. This is a wall in our playroom. To make a gallery wall you will need just a few items: your framed art, wrapping paper, scissors, a marker, painter’s tape, a level, a ruler, a hammer, and nails.

empty wall

Gather your framed artwork or photos. These can be all varying sizes, but for this example, all my frames are the exact same size. Number the back of each art work with a small piece of painter’s tape.

label the pics

Roll out inexpensive wrapping paper onto the floor, with the white side facing upward. Lay your artwork on top of the paper and trace around it with a marker and carefully cut the shape out. Number your paper with the correlating frame number.

wrapping paper (1024x683)

Take your numbered papers, attach painter’s tape to the back of them, and start arranging them on the wall where you like. Use a level to maintain a straight and level line from one picture to the next. In the picture below, the level shows the paper on the right needs to be moved upward.

Level and adjust (1024x683)

After arranging and leveling your papers, step far back and see if you are pleased with the arrangement. If not, then make the needed adjustments.

how to make a gallery wall

Turn over artwork #1 and measure the distance from the top of the frame to the saw tooth hanger or in hanging wire. Be sure to pull the hanging wire taught, mimicking how it will hang on a wall. Write that measurement down.

measure hanging height

Take that measurement you just wrote down for Frame #1 and mark that distance on Paper #1. This is where you will place your nail. Repeat for all the frames. Now it’s time to hang the artwork! Match up your numbered frames with your numbered papers. Place the art on the nails and gently pull the paper off underneath.

transfer measurement to paper

You are left with a beautiful gallery wall that is balanced and level and you didn’t have to curse the sun and moon out of frustration! (Not that I’ve ever done that…of course).

How to make a gallery wall

make a gallery wall

For more DIY ideas be sure to check out the DIY Project Gallery Tab at the top! Click on the link to learn how to make the Shell Art like you see in the wall gallery.

Kim

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6 comments:

  1. So great Kim! Posting about a gallery wall tomorrow and will link to this. Great tips. Happy Sunday.

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  2. I am crazy adventurous with gallery walls.
    I have also learned to patch holes really well ;o)
    .......................................................
    Tania Maree xx

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  3. Looks great. I just did a gallery wall for my home office that I will be posting about. I traced the frames on newspaper and then folded the newspaper in half to mark the hangie thingey on the back.

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  4. Oh my word....great tip pulling up the wire up and measuring. What the heck is wrong with me? Why have I never done that!? :)

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  5. As I said on Twitter when I shared this post yesterday: crooked frames be damned! Thanks for making sense of how to get that magazine-ready gallery look: this one is a keeper!

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  6. Is the paint color on your wall also Atmospheric?

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