Have you ever seen a piece of wall art at a high-end retailer and thought “I could make that!”? Chances are, you can! Today we’re showing you how to make a high-end dupe of a wall art piece found at Anthropologie using a skein of white yarn, craft glue, and spray paint. The natural finish of the Tierra Floater Frame allows the beauty of your string maze to stand out while in your home. Lean it on a mantle, display it using the included hanging materials or hang it front and center of a wall gallery.
Cover your work surface, lay a piece of white canvas down as your base, and put on a pair of disposable gloves. Things are about to get sticky! Pour some white glue into a bowl or plate, add a small amount of water and mix to thin slightly.
Cut long pieces of white thread and fully submerge them into the glue mixture. Lift out and lay onto the canvas in a pattern similar to the high-end version. This includes lots of loops and curves with straighter lines.
Allow the thread layer to dry fully and make sure it’s secured to the canvas.
Spray the entire canvas with white spray paint. This will blend the color of the yarn and the color of the canvas as one.
Once fully dry, secure the canvas in the Tierra frame using the hardware included with your order.
This floater-style canvas frame allows the canvas piece to be secured but does not overwhelm the piece with thick moulding.
The natural finish matches virtually any room making it a beautiful staple to your home décor.
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.
Wood Block Mosaic Wall Art
March 23, 2022
YOU can create art. Yes, YOU, dear reader are an artist! Even if picking up a paintbrush isn’t for you, there are many ways to express yourself to create art for your home. Look around and you might be surprised where inspiration strikes! We found inspiration in the craft aisle of our local dollar store where we picked up a few packs of mini wood blocks and created a unique wooden block mosaic wall art! Get inspired to embrace the imperfections of wood blocks that look strong in a chunky Artic Flat frame.
Pour out your wood blocks. You might notice some inconsistencies in texture, color, wood grain or might even find some knots or holes. All these imperfections will make your piece even more unique so embrace them in your piece!
Arrange your wood blocks on the frame. Then apply glue and place them down. We did this one row at a time since hot glue isn’t always very forgiving.
Add the hanging hardware and add to your wall space.
We took advantage of this tall, skinny spot in a bedroom and create a mosaic of wood blocks that seem to dissolve at the top. Not bad for only $8 of wood blocks!
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.
Faux Watercolor Art
March 09, 2022
Creating watercolor art is such a unique experience in trying to tame an element that naturally spreads. Watercolor artists spend lots of time trying to perfect their technique to create beautiful florals, landscapes or abstract pieces. But we’re here to share a way to capture the same beautiful watercolor effect in a much shorter time frame. Learn how to create faux watercolor art using basic washable markers and a plastic food storage bag. Frame these water-based pieces of art in minimalist style frames, like our Bianca frame, to allow the art to stand out, while still providing a contemporary look in your home.
First, cover your work surface. Lay your food storage bag down flat and color on it with your washable markers to lay the color down. Experiment with different color palettes, like rainbows, cool colors or warm colors.
Fill your water bottle up and spray some water on the bag covered in marker. This will add droplets to the plastic and possibly plenty some colors.
Place a piece of watercolor paper over the bag and press or rub down to capture all the marker material. Lift straight up and if any colors are starting to pool, dab with a paper towel to slow that pooling effect.
Once dry, you can frame it as is, or take a step further and put it in your printer and print a phrase of your choice onto the paper. If you want to create this exact project, you can download our Look for Stars PDF listing in our supplies.
The thin molding of our Bianca frame is perfect for these colorful faux watercolor pieces as the minimalist style allows your art to stand out in your home.
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.
Gallery Wall Planning Tips
February 23, 2022
Gallery walls are a great way to fill an empty space in a fun and dynamic way. Since gallery walls come in all shapes and sizes, there’s a layout that’s perfect for your decor scheme. But getting started on your gallery wall project can be a challenge.
As your go-to custom framing experts, we’re here to help you get started. Here are our tips for planning a gallery wall. And instead of just telling you the steps, I’m going to walk you through how I helped Cari from @lovinglittlehalls plan her gorgeous bedroom gallery wall.
Find Inspiration
Knowing what you like and especially what you don’t like is an important step in the gallery wall planning process. With so many different styles and layouts, it helps to narrow down things like your photos and art and your ideal layout style.
The best places to find inspiration are Pinterest and Instagram. Look for things like layout, frame styles and print ideas. These inspiration examples will help guide you throughout the process.
For Cari’s gallery wall, she liked the layout presented by the Etsy shop she purchased her prints from. Seeing how North Prints showcased the set of vintage art printables together helped us plan the layout and pair the prints with frames.
Create a Moodboard
Once you have an idea for the overall configuration and style, start pulling in the images, colors, mouldings and mats you’d like to incorporate into your gallery wall. Seeing all the details together on one page will help you finalize your vision.
Your moodboard doesn’t have to be pretty or fancy. It just helps to see the prints, the frames and the colors all together visually.
Here’s a look at the moodboard for Cari’s gallery wall. I took the gallery sets she had from North Prints and sandwiched them together to get a loose first pass at the layout. I pulled images from our product pages to show the details of the moudlings. Lastly, I photoshopped some mouldings onto the prints to get an idea of how the styles coordinated together and with the prints.
The easiest way to plan your layout is to take a picture of the wall and add the images and frames digitally. Again, it doesn’t have to be pretty or realistic but the closer you can get to the right scale of frame sizes on your wall the better.
Once you have the image uploaded, you can take screenshots of your images and frames and start moving them around until you find a gallery wall layout that you like. The more time you spend on planning here, the easier it will be to both order and hang your gallery wall.
Cari and I went back and forth several times to figure out the layout of her gallery wall. We swapped frame styles and images sizes. We moved the prints around to find the right balance. With so much room on her bedroom wall to play with, we used it to our full advantage. We sized and spaced the frames to essentially cover the area from bed level to curtain rod height.
After we decided on the frame sizes and configurations, Cari cut out paper templates for each frame. She used our mockups to confirm that the sizing and spacing were perfect before we placed the order.
Once Cari received her frames, we ended up making some last-minute changes. Seeing the frames together in the configuration we planned out, we were able to spot some areas of improvement.
Hang Your Frames
Creating a mockup of your gallery wall layout on your wall is great for more than just planning reasons. It acts as a blueprint or map to help you hang your frames. Having your mockup printed out or on a screen nearby will help make hanging your frames a breeze.
If you have the space, layout the frames on the floor or a surface so you can easily transfer them to the wall. Start with the center of your gallery wall and work from there. You can check out our gallery wall hanging tips for more information on hanging your frames.
Since she didn’t have to worry about perfect spacing or straight lines, Cari was able to use our updated mockup to eyeball the placement of her eclectic gallery wall. With sawtooth hangers, she was able to translate the gallery wall from her screen to reality. Check out our picture frame hanging tips to make your picture hanging experience easier!
And voila! The gallery wall is complete.
Let’s recap
We found inspiration for the frames and layout from the Etsy print shop she found her prints from.
We created a moodboard compiling all the prints and frames that we thought would look great in her space.
We used her real wall to mockup different layouts and configurations to make sure our vision would look right at home in her bedroom.
We cut out templates for the frames to make sure the sizing was correct before ordering.
We made last-minute adjustments after seeing the frames together.
We used the mockup as a blueprint to hang the frames on the wall.
The process of planning a gallery wall can be a long one, but in the end, it’s time well spent. If you’re in need of some gallery wall advice, contact us.
Thank you @lovinglittlehalls for your trust, assistance and patience in this planning process!
About The Author
Brittany DeMauro is the Creative Director here at CustomPictureFrames.com. With a background in creative writing and a passion for all things DIY, you'll find her in the shop crafting content. She can always find space for a fun gallery wall and loves discovering new artists to display around her home (in custom frames, of course!) When she's not creating content for our brand, she can most likely be found binging shows on Netflix with her two cats.
Textured Canvas Wall Art
February 09, 2022
We’re about to share a little secret to create a DIY texture frame your home worth of the best home décor Pinterest feed. Are you ready? Joint compound. Yes, this container filled with a material used to smooth seams and smooth drywall in your home can also be used to add texture and layers to a canvas frame filled with peaks and valleys. Take it a step further and create a mixed media piece with an ombre assortment of acrylic paints and chunky glitter for a little sparkle. The thin molding of our Ryder frame adds a beautiful finishing touch to your textured piece that looks great in a dining room or any living space in your home.
Apply a generous amount of joint compound to your canvas. Use a putty knife, plastic fork or whatever tool you have handy and push around the material. Try different techniques to achieve different results. Squish it in and lift to create peaks. Smooth it over to create flat areas. Drag a string through to give a fabric texture. Use a plastic fork to poke holes to create a pattern.
Allow to dry overnight.
Apply acrylic paint onto the canvas. We tried an ombre technique with different blues starting with a deeper blue at the bottom.
For a little extra sparkle, sprinkle some fine glitter onto the piece while the paint is still wet.
Once the paint and glitter are dry, screw the canvas onto the frame. Tip: Try to do this while the frame is standing and don’t flip it over to apply. This will help stop the raised peaks from getting cracked and breaking off.
With the help of the 1/4 inch lip, the Ryder frame will make your canvas look like they're floating within like you commonly see in art galleries.
Hang this DIY Texture Frame in a dominant place in your home and enjoy your inexpensive piece of art.
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.
