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Embroidery thread is not just for your grandma’s needlepoint projects anymore! The classic craft of embroidery can be completed on cotton fabrics, denim, and even a painter’s canvas to create mixed media art. See us upgrade the basic white basic canvas into something full of texture and color using this thread type and a little acrylic paint that can be hung in your home.  

• Frame: Murphy 
• 10x10” Canvas
• Acrylic Paint and paintbrush
• Embroidery floss and embroidery needle
• Printed seashell template (grab our seashell design here for free!) 
• Painter’s tape

Add some color into your embroidered canvas piece by first painting a few areas of the canvas with solid color blocks. Choose colors in your room or ones that relate to your theme.

Once dry, lay your paper template on your canvas. Tip: use painter’s tape to hold in place for the next step.

Use an embroidery needle to create holes in the template in strategic areas. Start with any corners or edge of your design and add additional holes in set increments of space. Flip the template up to double check which areas you’re missing as you lay these plans out.

Remove the template and thread your needle with your desired embroidery floss color. Tip: you may need to separate your embroidery floss threads so it’s not too thick and won’t rip your canvas. We separated this 6 strand set into two groups of 3 when workings on our seashell design.

Follow the seashell outline using a basic backstitch.

Once complete insert your canvas in a shadow box, such as the Murphy style using canvas clips. This 1.5-inch deep molding allows your new artwork display to stand out from the wall. Its sophisticated design will coordinate flawlessly within any space and with any embroidered canvas theme.

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.

Hanging picture frames can be a frustrating experience. Instead of putting a bunch of holes in your wall, we'll help you hang your frames like a pro. We've collected some picture frame hanging hacks that will help you put your new art on display!

Fork Hanging Hack For Picture Frame Wire

Trying to snag the wire on your nail can sometimes make you feel like a cheesy infomercial actor. But you don't have to guess or scrape up your wall to hang your frame from picture frame wire anymore.

Start by grabbing a fork from your kitchen. Place the fork on the nail with the bottom curve facing the wall. 

Then, carefully slide the frame over the fork's handle. This will help guide the wire right to the nail.  

After you've snagged the wire on the nail, pull out the fork and you're done!

Easy DIY Tool for Sawtooth Hangers

Creating a DIY hanging tool is easy with a few supplies you might even have around your house. You might've seen this hack in our How To Create An Eclectic Gallery Wall post by Shelley at Crazy Wonderful. All it takes is a piece of scrap wood (or some cardboard depending on the weight of your frame) and a screw or nail.

Place the screw through the piece of wood. Depending on the width of the wood and the weight of the frame, you'll have to find the best spot for this so that you can hold the wood up to the wall.

Hanging your art on that screw and position it on your wall. You can also lean a level on the tool to help you position your frame perfectly. If you've got templates already hung as Shelley did in these pictures, you can just find the center of the template. 

Once the frame is in place, push the screw against the wall. It will make an indent or small hole so you'll know where to place your nail. Then you can hang your art on that nail and your frame will be on display in no time.  

Painter's Tape Hanging Hack

For picture frames or wall art with two hangers, using painter's tape helps you get the job done like Shelley from Crazy Wonderful did in our How to Create and Hang a Gallery Wall blog post. 

Place a piece of tape sticky side up across the back of the frame right on top of the hanging hardware. Use a pen or pencil to mark where the hardware is on the tape. 

With the tape pulled tightly, position the frame on the wall. Use a level to line up the frame perfectly. Once the frame is in the right place, press the tape against the wall. 

Take away the frame and now you know exactly where to place your nail or screw! There's no guessing or measuring to help you find where or how far apart the hanging hardware is!

Hammer your nails in at the marks and you'll be ready to hang your frames with ease! There's no need to put any extra holes in your wall to get your frame hung. 

Here at Custom Picture Frames, our goal is to make custom framing more affordable and accessible to all! But we don't just stop helping after you receive your frames. We hope these hanging hacks help you hang your new picture frames or any wall art in general quickly and easily! If you have any questions about hanging hardware, you can find information about installing the different kinds in this blog post. And if you'd like to speak to a customer service rep, you can call, chat or email the team to get in touch with a framing expert. 

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.

Just recently finish a room remodel and have tons of leftover paint chip swatches? Don’t let those solid pieces of paper go to waste and instead, turn them into art for your home.  Fill a beautiful light wood Ceruse frame with a collage made of these paint store staples and refresh your walls with more than just a matte finish. Use our inspiration as a jumping board to create a collage look for your home state, favorite vacation destination, or any shape that fits your style.  

Supplies:

• 8” x10” Ceruse Frame 
• Patterned paper
• Paint Chip Swatches
• Stencil
• Adhesive glue
• Dimensional foam adhesive
• Stamp Pad
• Scissors

Cut out all the text portion of the paint swatches and arrange the solid pieces on your background sheet. Tip: consider different patterns, like ombre, planned mosaic, or a random pattern collage.

Next, cut out your state or shape of choice from a piece of patterned paper or cardstock. Tip: use a cutting machine like a Cricut, if you have an intricate shape.

Brush your stamp pad around the edge of this state shape. This will help reinforce the shape so it will stand out over your collage.

Adhere the shape on your collaged background.

Tip: use dimensional foam adhesive if you want it to be slightly higher on the background.

If desired, add other details, like tags showing “where we met” or “our first home.”  

The white-washed look of the Ceruse frame has a minimalist design that fits in any room in your home.  Add your paint chip art to a shelf or insert hangers on the back and hang it on your wall. 

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.

A shadow box frame doesn’t always have to hold personal treasured and 3-dimensional keepsakes. It can also hold art created with a 3D look. See how to personalize your space with a sleek frame that features a name, shape or beloved icon. Use three-dimensional foam adhesive squares to add height to your layered paper pieces for a complete piece of art. The bronze finish of our Humbert frame compliments many paint colors and themes making it the perfect accessory to style your home.

Supplies:

• 12” x 8” Humbert Shadow Box Frame
• Cardstock in multiple colors. Tip: We used gold glitter cardstock for the name in the middle!
• Floral SVG cut file
• Adhesive
• Foam Adhesive squares

You can create a layered paper design using cardstock pieces cut with a die-cut machine or cut by hand using a stencil. If you want to recreate our design, upload the SVG cut file to your die cut machine program and get cutting.

Once cut, arrange your pieces on your background to figure out your desired layout. Use a mix of liquid adhesive and foam adhesive squares to adhere them down in place. Tip: you can stack foam adhesive squares on top of one another to create more than one height.

Replace the backing on the shadow box and add the D ring hangers on the back to hang.

Display this special frame in a bedroom to make the space more personalized. This layered wall art piece makes a great baby shower or baby welcome gift.

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.

Just as in life, not everything has to be smooth and relaxed. Add some variety and texture in your life and your home when creating textured canvas abstract art using supplies from your local home improvement store. Yes, you heard us right, joint compound, originally designed to repair plaster and drywall can be used on a basic canvas to fill the blank walls in your space. Check out our tutorial for tips to finish it off with a dry brush technique and how to fit these abstract pieces in a Lennon Shadowbox using the canvas clips provided. 

Supplies:

• 10” x 10” Lennon Shadowbox Frame
• 10” x 10” canvas
• Joint Compound
• Putty Knives
• Acrylic Paint
• Paintbrush

Start by protecting your surface with large scraps of cardboard. Note: There can be a long dry time for the first step of this project so you might want to work on it in an out-of-the-way place, like the garage.

Joint compound is easy to work with as it can be really smooth if you pay attention to your smoothing technique, but it can also hold the textured pattern you apply to it. Use a putty knife to apply some joint compound onto the canvas.

Consider holding the knife at different positions to create different patterns. Pull down. Push left or right. Lift the material to make peaks. Drag to make long marks or use the flattest side to make a subtle pattern.

Try different tools that might evoke a pattern just by the way you drag it across your canvas.

You can use one or any of these techniques on different canvases.

Once fully dry consider adding some color with acrylic paint and a dry brush technique.

Adding paint to the peeks will have a different look than adding paint to the valleys of your texture surface. Play around and see what type of unique abstract art you can create in this step.  

Now that your paint is dry, let’s prep to hang! Your canvas frame order will include offset canvas clips that secure the canvas safe within your frame. The number of clips sent is determined by your canvas size.

Follow our tutorial and learn how to add the offset clips to the back of your canvas first, then onto the frame itself.

Repeat for all canvases and frames.

Add our D-ring hanging materials using our step-by-step tutorial.

Add your canvas frames to your wall and admire the texture and interest you added to your living room, bedroom or office. The 1 ½” depth of the Lennon shadowbox frame allows your texture canvas art to stand out with a sleek, professional finish.

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.