“Be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud” ~ Maya Angelou
Your little one will be on cloud nine when seeing this rainbow heart shadowbox donning her bedroom wall. See how the light and clean palette of our Lucius frame allows the colorful paper hearts to stand out on any colored wall! This simple project can be done in any color palette with any paper shape so use our guide as inspiration for your next DIY design!
Optional: Heart paper punch or Cricut cutting machine
This project can be made using traditional scissors, a paper punch, or using a Cricut cutting machine to cut out the shapes. Whichever route you choose, do your best to keep the shapes the same, especially when applying the second layers of shapes on a later step.
First, cut hearts from colorful cardstock. You can go the traditional rainbow route, try a pastel rainbow or try an alternative bright rainbow palette, as seen here. Our 12 x 12” shadowbox uses (10) of each of the (6) colors shown.
Get your ROYGBIV on and lay your paper hearts in order on the smooth, white shadowbox backing. Use a glue pen to adhere the shapes to the surface. Tip: use a ruler to help line these up as best you can.
Lay a ruler on the center of your heart shape and run a bone folder or popsicle stick along the edge to score it down the middle. Fold the heart and rub along the crease with the flat part of the bone folder or popsicle stick for a crisp crease.
Unfold and apply glue to stick on select hearts for a dimensional look.
Repeat in a random pattern, as desired.
This glassless, dimensional shadowbox will be right at home surrounding the rainbow or unicorn décor most likely in your little girl’s space.
About The Author
Tara Nehil is author of SpotOfTeaDesigns.com, a lifestyle blog sharing home décor, crafts, party inspiration and parenting lessons learned the hard way. Her graphic design background is evident in the home she lives in and styles with her husband of 8 years and 2 young daughters. Follow her creative journey for photo tutorials, printables, budget-friendly decorating tips and ways to celebrate occasions big and small.
How To Create Cut Canvas Wall Art
February 24, 2021
There’s no negativity when it comes to this cool canvas wall art design. Well, maybe there is, but in this case, it’s a good thing! Here’s another way to transform store-bought canvases into beautiful wall art for your home. With the help of an X-Acto knife and colorful cardstock paper, you can update the basic blank canvas into a unique piece of wall art by coloring in the negative space. Upgrade the look with a beautiful Greyson Floater Frame around your finished piece of art to complete the gallery art look.
First, decide on your design. You’ll want a pattern or shape that includes negative spaces. If you want to make this exact project, download our free template linked above.
Cut out all the negative spaces in your template. We did this with our Cricut cutting machine, but you can easily do this with scissors or an X-Acto knife.
Turn your canvas over and lay your template down inside, using painter’s tape to hold it in place. Use a pencil to trace this template.
Tip: if your design includes letters or numbers, make sure to mirror your template before tracing it so you cut it out the correct orientation once flipped over.
Remove the template and place your canvas on a cutting mat. Use a new blade in your X-Acto knife to cut along your pencil marks. Tip: if your design has straight lines, use a ruler!
Cut cardstock to the sizes that will fit inside the back of your canvas to cover the shapes you desire. Run a glue stick along any interior surfaces and place your cardstock to cover.
Use scotch tape along the edges to keep the cardstock in place then masking tape around all the edges for a stronger hold.
Once complete, attach your canvases to the frames using the canvas clips and screws provided. Add a sawtooth hanger at the top.
Hang your canvases and get ready to admire this high-end look for a budget-friendly price!
The grey and natural wood tones of the Greyson Floater Frame allow your intricate artwork to stand out in a bedroom, office or any home environment.
Consider staggering the pair in different rooms or flank them on either side of a bed or table space.
About The Author
Tara Nehil is author of SpotOfTeaDesigns.com, a lifestyle blog sharing home décor, crafts, party inspiration and parenting lessons learned the hard way. Her graphic design background is evident in the home she lives in and styles with her husband of 8 years and 2 young daughters. Follow her creative journey for photo tutorials, printables, budget-friendly decorating tips and ways to celebrate occasions big and small.
Styled By: Connie Barnhart
February 10, 2021
Finding the decor style that best fits your life can be challenging. Some trends can look great in model homes. However, until you live in it, you may love it or hate it. This happened to me with our dining room decor. I went with a contemporary style for the dining room. I ended up hating it!
Read along how Custom Picture Frames transformed our dining room.
I initially had blue abstract art for our dining room. It was too cool with our grey walls. The abstract art wasn’t big enough to cover the large wall. I looked around for ideas to take up more wall space. Many sometimes opt for a mirror when they don’t know what to do with a wall. I considered this as well but I wasn’t sold on it. I love how pictures add a special touch to a home. I chose my daughter’s headshots because to me, home is where she is. Seeing my daughter’s pictures makes me happy and that’s what decor is all about. To me, art decor creates the ambiance and sets the mood similar to color.
I went with their Noir Classique moulding and created 30” x 30” oversized picture frames to add a luxury feel to the dining room. I have watched YouTube videos on how to make your home decor look like a million-dollar home. From this, I learned that oversized pieces add more of a statement versus smaller decor pieces. I also saw this when we went to open houses. Sometimes we would stop by million-dollar listings for fun and inspiration.
We are still in transition to a more modern farmhouse style for the dining area. I went with linen colored tufted chairs. The colors of the chairs and rug add a touch of warmth to our cooler wall color.
I have received many compliments on the dining gallery wall from Custom Picture Frames. I love decorating for the holidays. The dining room is currently decked out for Valentine’s Day! I love that I can change the pictures to decorate for every holiday. This benefit makes it an inexpensive large decor piece. I DIY painted Valentine’s Day art myself for the frames!
Custom Picture Frames now offers prints. I was shocked at how good my pictures came out. I'm not the best photographer, I use my camera in auto mode. My daughter's photos came out amazingly enlarged in 13" in X 13" in prints.
When the house is at rest (non-holiday decorated) I have the words: eat, laugh, love in half the frames to give it a dining room theme.
You can't go wrong with Custom Picture Frames to decorate your space. They have so many frame options to select from. They are hands down the best selection in sizes anywhere online.
About The Author
Connie Barnhart is a San Diego native and full-time lifestyle influencer. She shares about home decor, San Diego, motherhood, and style on her blog and Instagram. Her husband is a cyber security engineer and they have been happily married two years!
DIY Cork Art Shadow Box Display
February 03, 2021
A day without wine is like… well, we have no idea! If you’re a big fan of being wined and dined and have accumulated a large cork collection, it’s time to put those drink stoppers to use to become a show stopper! Your red wine at dinner and white wine in a bubble bath habit is about to pay off with a beautiful recycled piece of art that will fit right in next to your wine cellar or liquor cabinet. The country chic design of the Bruno shadowbox frame will play up the aged look of corks to create something to speak to your wino personality.
Recycled wine corks (if stained with red wine, even better!)
Steamer pot
Serrated knife
Hot Glue
Adhesive Vinyl
Gluestick
First, arrange your corks in your pattern or design of choice.
Next, we’ll need to trim them down to fit the shadowbox. To do this, steam, but do not submerge, the corks in water about 10 minutes.
Remove each one from the pot while still warm but cool enough to handle. A cooking tong is helpful! Use a serrated knife to trim down the cork to fit in the shadowbox. In our case, we trimmed them to ½ inch pieces.
Remove the backing from your frame, and adhere a piece of patterned paper over top, using a glue stick.
Adhere the corks in the design of choice onto the backing, using hot glue. We chose to use purple-stained cork pieces for the base of our house and the natural color corks for the roof.
Replace the decorated backing back into the shadowbox frame.
To make it extra special, add a phrase onto the front of the shadowbox using adhesive vinyl cut from a cutting machine. If you also have a cutting machine, you can grab our SVG file for free here!
Decide if you want it to have your frame hung or stand using a sawtooth hanger or an easel back and let everyone know that home is where the wine is!
About The Author
Tara Nehil is author of SpotOfTeaDesigns.com, a lifestyle blog sharing home décor, crafts, party inspiration and parenting lessons learned the hard way. Her graphic design background is evident in the home she lives in and styles with her husband of 8 years and 2 young daughters. Follow her creative journey for photo tutorials, printables, budget-friendly decorating tips and ways to celebrate occasions big and small.
How to Create and Hang a Gallery Wall
January 13, 2021
Gallery walls have a way of demanding attention. They inject pattern and color to a home and showcase who you are and what you love. It’s easy to see why so many love them. But, they can seem intimidating to create. Where do I start? How do I hang it? And, oh, all the nail holes!! It doesn’t have to be scary. I’m going to take you through my three favorite layouts and give you some helpful tips on how to hang a gallery wall of your very own.
Styles of Gallery Walls
There are several different styles of gallery walls. From the layout to the frames and artwork you choose, your options really are endless. That’s what makes them so appealing. There truly is a gallery wall for everyone!
Grid
The most simple layout of the gallery wall, but certainly not lacking in style, is a grouping of frames in the same style and size hung in a grid pattern. For this layout you will want to pay close attention to placement, ensuring that each frame is level and evenly spaced. These work best when the photos or artwork are similar.
Staggered
A play on the grid layout, this staggered look uses two sizes of frames, one oriented vertically and one horizontally. Stagger the vertical and horizontal frames for an eye-catching pattern along the center.
Collected
Collected gallery walls are just that, ones that have been or appear to have been collected and added to over time. Frames and sizes don’t have to match, and the beauty is in its randomness. These work well for bringing together art and/or photos that are different from each other.
How to Hang a Gallery Wall
Now that you know the style of a gallery wall you want, let’s get you ready to hang it. This part can be intimidating, but with some tips and tricks, you will be able to confidently hang a gallery wall.
Accept the Holes
You’re going to be hanging a lot of frames so you’re going to have a lot of holes in your walls. But, it’s ok. I promise. Holes can be filled and paint can be touched up. If you have some existing wall damage wait to touch up until you have your new gallery wall layout in place. That way you can fill any accidental holes you make on your way to your new gallery wall at the same time.
Renter Tip: If you’re living in a rental and your landlord says absolutely no to holes in the walls you can try Command picture hanging strips. I’ve done that in a rental before. Just make sure you are not using heavy frames and add extra Command strips just in case.
Lay it Out
Your first step is to lay all of your frames out on the floor and figure out your layout as well as how much space you want between the frames. If you’re doing a collected gallery wall it’s a good idea to take a photo of the layout so you can refer back to it if you forget what piece of art goes where.
Find Center
Grab a tape measure and a pencil. Find the center of your wall and mark it. You want to build your gallery wall out from this center point.
How to Get Even, Straight Frames
To get even, straight frames every time grab some painter’s tape, a marker or pen, and a level. And yes, nails and a hammer.
Tear off a piece of painter’s tape a few inches wider than the frame. With the frame picture side down, lay the piece of painter’s tape across the back of the frame sticky side up. Mark the centers of the hanging hardware on the tape with a marker or pen (this is the sticky side). If you can’t see the mark through the front of the tape, mark the front side as well.
Keep the tape pulled tight across the back of the frame and in place over the hanging hardware. If this is the first frame you are hanging up, sit a level on top while you find the correct position. After the first frame is hung, use a measuring tape and pencil to lightly mark the wall with the width you want between frames both above and to the sides. For my frames, I had a 2-inch space. You will use those markings as a guide for placing all remaining frames.
Press the tape into the wall and remove the frame. You now have exact marks for where to add your nails.
Hammer in your nails and remove the tape.
Now you have perfectly level and evenly spaced frames!
Touch Up
Now is the time to touch up any holes that were existing or occurred while adjusting your frame placement. Take your new frames down but leave the new nails in place so you know which holes need to be filled and which are in use.
Once everything is touched up, hang your frames back up and enjoy your beautiful new gallery wall!
About The Author
Shelley, the blogger behind Crazy Wonderful, lives outside of Houston, TX with her husband, two children, and a dog. She is currently working on making their builder-grade house feel like a home through DIY projects and thoughtful purchases. Inspiring others to create a home they love is why Shelley enjoys blogging so much. Her belief is that with a little creativity and elbow grease, you can make your home look like a million bucks without spending it.
