crafting oops!

With all the DIY action going on around the roost, occasionally a project does not go as planned – shocking, I know!

Let’s take my recent gallery wall project.

It turned out lovely, but what you don’t know is that I hit certain, shall we say, “snags” along the way.

In my impatience eagerness to transform my ho-hum frames into a fun art wall, I didn’t really stop to think about what I was doing. I blithely went along slapping paint on the frames, dreaming of the finished product. When the paint dried, and I was ready to start hanging the frames, I turned them over and had one of those, “Oh, crap!” crafting moments.

This frame, and three others, were never intended for hanging and only had those little cardboard easels on the back. Hmmm, what to do?

I thought about gluing saw tooth hangers on the backs of the frames, but 1. I didn’t have any on hand, and 2. my experiences with so-called super strength glue have shown that it doesn’t necessarily hold up to humidity or extreme cold. Soooo… I tried command adhesive strips on a test frame. Massive fail. When they say they won’t hold over a pound, they aren’t kidding.

Not willing to give up on finishing my wall without a trip to Home Depot, I finally hit on an idea that worked. I popped the backs out of the frames, traced them onto some heavy duty cardboard, and cut out the rectangles.

Next, I used my grommet setter to punch holes in the corners and set grommets. I threaded wire through the grommets and secured it with lots of knots and twisting.

Ta-Da! The frames have been up for several days now with no terrifying crashes in the night (aside: why does stuff always fall in the middle of the night? In daylight I can rationally think, “Oh, some knick-knack must have fallen off a shelf,” while at two in the morning my mind goes directly to worst-case crazy intruder/bear scenarios. I’m just sayin’) so anyway, I think my lazy and free picture hanging method is a success.

OK, time for y’all to spill the beans. Have you solved a crafting or decorating dilemma in an interesting way? Anyone else have house crashing bear nightmares?

<3
Hattie