A project that I was kind of dreading was sewing the crib skirt – it sounded hard!  I pinned a few tutorials but never really got up the nerve to read them, and then finally just decided to jump in head first and see what happened.  Luckily, it turned out to be one of the quickest and easiest projects I’ve done!

Without further adieu . . .

Assemble your supplies:

- 3 yards of fabric for the crib skirt, pre-washed and ironed (you could use less fabric if you wanted to piece the skirt together, but making it easy on yourself is part of the “no-fail” concept of this skirt!)

- measuring tape

- iron and ironing board

- scissors

- 10 feet of thin grosgrain ribbon

- pins

- 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper (optional – you could just use your measuring tape, but I’m lazy)

- pencil

- sewing machine and thread (optional – you could use fabric glue or fusible webbing if you prefer)

Step 1: Take all the measurements for your crib skirt. You’ll need to write down the following measurements:

To get the width of your crib skirt, add together all of the horizontal measurements (i.e., the 3 sides of the crib).  Then add 1-2 inches to that measurement to allow for hemming.  For me, those measurements looked like this:

27.5 inches + 51.5 inches + 27.5 inches = 106.5 inches

+ 1.5 inches for hemming = 108 inches total*

*I had 3 yards of fabric which equals 108 inches of length, so I decided to add 1.5 inches for hemming so that I could just cut a strip from the length of my 3 yards of fabric instead of piecing together 3 sections of fabric (make sense?).

To get the height of your crib skirt, start with the vertical measurements that you took of the space between the bottom crib rail and the crib mattress.  To make a more modern crib skirt that covers only that space, just add 2-3 inches to your measurement to allow for hemming.  My measurement was 9 inches + 2 inches = 11 inches.  If you’d like a longer crib skirt that touches the floor, you’ll need to measure the space between the crib mattress and the floor, then add 2-3 inches for hemming.

Step 2: Measure and cut your fabric to size. This was an easy part for me.  My final measurements came out to 108 inches (3 yards) x 11 inches, so I just used a sheet of 8.5 x 11 typing paper to make a pencil line exactly 11 inches from the finished edge of my fabric down the entire length of my 3 yards of fabric.

Next, just cut along your pencil line and you will have the fabric piece for your crib skirt!

Step 3: Iron in your hem. I chose to do pretty skinny hems to maximize my fabric, so I folded over each edge by about 1/4 inch and ironed in a crease, then folded each edge a second time by 1/4 inch and ironed in the crease.  (And since one of my edges was the finished edge of the fabric, I only had to hem 3 sides – score!)

Step 4: Add your ribbon ties. I came across Anything Pretty’s idea for using ribbon to tie the crib skirt to the crib mattress and I thought it was brilliant, so I decided to do the same thing (it works great!).  I cut 12 10-inch lengths of grosgrain ribbon in a color that coordinated with my fabric and then just spaced them out using my trusty sheet of typing paper, pinning them into the hem on one of the long sides of the crib skirt.

Here’s how it looked after all the ribbons were pinned in place (be sure your ribbons are folded in half, with the pin in the folded part of the ribbon).

Step 5: Sew in your hem and ribbons. If you don’t like to sew, you can use fabric glue or fusible webbing to secure your hem and ribbons instead of sewing them into place.  I opted to sew them because (a) it was easy, and (b) I knew I would be washing this crib skirt from time to time so I wanted to be confident that it wouldn’t fall apart.

Tip: Sew back and forth over each ribbon tie a few times to make sure it’s really secure.  On my machine, I just push this little button and the machine sews in reverse.

Step 6: Tie on the crib skirt! Just finagle the ribbons as necessary around the springs and supports until your crib skirt hangs evenly and fairly smoothly along the 3 sides of the crib.

No more naked space!  And you can readjust the ribbon ties as you lower the crib mattress when baby gets older.

Seeing little peeks of the animal fabric makes me happy.  :)

Easy, right?  Truly, this is a no-fail crib skirt – I don’t think there’s any way to screw it up!  Let me know if you try this project, I’d love to hear how it turns out.  :)

This Post Brought To You By Custom Homes Calgary.

While the rest of the room may still be a disaster, at least the upper right-hand corner of the nursery ceiling is looking spiffy.  :)

I knew I wanted to hang tissue paper poufs in the nursery ever since I fell in love with this image:

And I also knew that poufs had to be a part of the awesome baby shower thrown by my mom and two friends a few weekends ago:

So lucky me, I got to be the recipient of a jillion pink poufs once the shower was over!!

My mom actually made me two more poufs that I haven’t had a chance to hang yet – but I know they’re going to look awesome and fit right in with the rest of their friends.  :)

Hanging them was insanely easy – I just used a clear thumbtack and fishing line (which my mom had already attached to the poufs) and used my fingers to push the tacks into the ceiling.  See?

I also have lots of little poufs that look just like the ones used in the mobile (sold by Etsy seller Party Poms) below:

I’m thinking of using them to make my own mobile, probably for over the crib, but I’m worried that it might be pouf overload.  Or maybe you can never have too many poufs?  Deep thoughts.

This Post Brought To You By Basement Development Calgary.

Well, now that I am 26 weeks along and fully in the “I can only fit into maternity pants” phase of my pregnancy, I’ve been especially smitten with skinny jeans.  Their tailored silhouette makes me feel less shapeless, and that makes me happy.  :)

The problem is that almost all of the maternity pants that fit me well happen to have flared or bootcut legs – which doesn’t work with my whole goal of trying to balance a growing belly by throwing people off with my skinny ankles.  So I decided to turn my maternity jeans into skinny jeans!

I turned to Pinterest for inspiration (of course) and came up with two great tutorials – this one from Lucky Design, and this one from Holy Craft.  My favorite was the one from Lucky Design, so I used that tutorial as a jumping off point for my own sewing extravaganza.

Here’s how it all went down:

Supplies Needed:

- pair of jeans or pants that you want to skinny-fy

- pair of skinny jeans that you like the way they fit

- 2 colors of chalk (if your pants are dark), fabric pen, marker, whatever floats your boat

- ruler

- pins

- scissors

- sewing machine

- thread in a color that matches your pants

Step 1: Turn both pairs of jeans inside out, then lay the skinny pair on top of the regular pair. Line up the two pairs of pants at the inside seam like in the photo below (this assumes that the outside seam is thinner than the inside seam on your pair of jeans).  Make sure that all of your fabric is flat and that there aren’t any weird wrinkles.

Step 2: Take your chalk and mark a line at the edge of your skinny jeans – the chalk line should be made on your regular jeans. Do this with both legs.

Step 3:  Use a ruler to make sure that the chalk lines are in the same place on both legs. First measure the distance from the chalk line to the outside edge of your pants, then measure the length of the chalk line, then measure the distance from the bottom of the outside seam to where the chalk meets the outside seam.  (That sounds kind of confusing, so let me know in the Comments if you need clarification.)  These measurements should be the same on both legs, and this will ensure that one leg doesn’t turn out totally different from the other leg.

Step 4: Use a new color of chalk to make any necessary adjustments to your chalk line. Your ruler may come in handy as a straight edge.

Step 5: Use your pins to pin the two sides of the pant leg together along the new chalk line. Make sure that you don’t pull the fabric when you’re doing this!

Step 6: Use your sewing machine to sew a straight stitch along the new chalk line. You can reinforce the beginning and end of each new seam by either using the “reverse” button on your machine or by picking up your needle and sewing over the beginning/end of the seam again.

Step 7: Try on your jeans to make sure they’re fitting how you want them to! Make any adjustments now – this is a “do as I say, not as I do” moment because I had a little wonky wrinkle at each knee where the new seam met the old seam but I told myself that it was fine and moved on.  :)

Step 8:  Cut off the extra fabric on the outside of your new seam, leaving some excess. You will need enough excess fabric for a zigzag stitch to fit comfortably without sewing past your seam and onto the pant leg.  I cut it a bit too close on my first pair so I left more excess on the second pair and I was much happier.  I would err on the side of leaving on too much excess (but no more than 1/2 inch) – you won’t notice it when you’re wearing the jeans.

Step 9: Practice your zigzag stitch on a scrap piece of fabric. Most of you can probably skip this step but I had never used a zigzag stitch so I wanted to practice a little bit before I started sewing away on my pants.  I chose a triple zigzag stitch instead of a regular zigzag stitch because I thought it would be better for the thread to pass through the fabric three times per stitch instead of just one (I don’t know if that’s really true, it just seemed to make sense).

I drew a chalk line on my scrap fabric so that I could see exactly where the zigzag stitches would fall in relation to my seam.

By the way, I haven’t washed and dried my new skinny jeans yet so I can’t swear that this zigzag stitch trick is 100% foolproof.  You could also serge the seam or use a fray check on the raw edge instead.

Step 9: Sew a zigzag stitch along the entire length of your new seam.

Step 10: Try on your new skinny jeans!!! I’m just warning you – you will probably want to wear them for the next 6 days straight.  Not that I’m doing that or anything.  :)

I did this with a pair of black maternity jeans as well as a pair of dark gray corduroy maternity jeans – I didn’t have any problems with the corduroy, and the fact that they were maternity pants didn’t seem to make any difference either.

I have plans to do this with at least 3 other pairs of pants (once I fit back into my regular clothes) – I’m so excited!!  And I have to know – are any of you other preggos finding that skinny jeans make you feel a little more at ease with your growing belly?

Now go forth and skinny-fy!!

It seems like everywhere I look people have made fun and funky backgrounds for their blogs, art prints, stationary, and all sorts of other cool things – so I decided to figure out how they do it.  And I did!

Here’s a foldover thank you note that I made . . .

and this one is an address label (without our address, of course!).

And now I’m going to share my new-found wisdom with you fine people.  :)

I’m going to walk through every.tiny.step, which will be boring for some of you but hopefully helpful for others!  As a result, welcome to the longest post ever.  It looks daunting because the post is so long but it’s really easy, I promise!

1.  Open a blank document in PowerPoint. ‘Nuff said.

( FYI – click on any of the images for the option to see them in a larger size through the “Actions” menu. )

2.  Set your document dimensions to something huge, like 20×20 inches. To do this, go to File -> Page Setup and then change both the width and height to 20, and then click OK.

You will get an error message, but just ignore it and click OK (we’re not printing this document so we don’t care if it’s too big to print).

3.  Get rid of the extra gunk on the page. I like to just have my blank document, without all the extra sidebars and whatnot, so I always drag and hide the panes on the right and bottom . . .

and then change the slide layout to a blank page without pre-set areas for text and photos.

Just click the tab for slide layout a second time to hide the slide layout options and give you a bigger view of your document.

4.  Start making your first stripe. Here’s where it starts to get fun.  Go to Shapes -> Rectangles and select a rectangle.  The shape will appear somewhere on your document.

Use your cursor to drag the shape to the bottom left-hand corner of your document . . .

then hover over the right-hand side of the shape until your cursor looks like this:

Then click and hold on the right-hand side of the shape and drag the right-hand side of the shape to the right side of the document, making a long rectangle. Repeat with the left side of the rectangle.

Then repeat this step by clicking and holding the top side of the shape and dragging it down until the shape is the thickness that you want – this long rectangle will be your stripe.

Alternate Method: You could also make your stripes out of “Lines” instead of “Rectangles” to achieve similar results.  Just play with the “Weights and Arrows” of the line to achieve the desired thickness for the stripe.

5.  Choose the color of your first stripe. Double click on the rectangle and this screen will pop up:

With this step you will choose the color of the “fill” of your stripe.  Click on the arrow next to “Color” on the right-hand side – at this point you can choose a standard color or, if you want a ton more options, scroll down to the option that says “More Colors.”

A little color wheel will pop up and you can drag your cursor around until you find the color that you want.  Just click “OK” and your rectangle should change to that color.

If you want to keep track of the colors that you’re selecting you can check out the ROYGBIV sliders which will give you more information like this:

While the small screen is still up, click on “Line” on the left-hand side and go through the same process as above to make the line around your shape the same color as your rectangle.  Your chosen shade should still be visible on the drop-down screen as a “Recent Color.”

While the small screen is still up, click on “Shadow” on the left-hand side and decide whether or not you want your stripe to have a shadow.  Click and unclick the box to see how it looks – I’ve opted to skip the shadow.

Now click “OK” at the bottom of the pop-up screen and the screen should disappear and all of your changes should be applied.

6.  Duplicate your stripes. Right-click your stripe and select “Copy.” Then right click on the document and select “Paste.”

Your new stripe will appear almost on top of your original stripe.

Drag the stripe with your cursor so that it is above the original stripe, stretching from one side of the document to the other.  This is when you will determine the spacing of your stripes.

Repeat Step 6 over and over again until you have filled the document with stripes, keeping the spacing between the stripes the same.

It will be easier to make the stripes an equal distance from one another if you have enabled the “Snap to Grid” feature by going to View -> Guides -> Snap to Grid:

If you want all of your stripes to be the same color then skip to Step 8 – if not, continue on to Step 7.

7.  Change the color of your stripes. Here is your chance to get crazy with your stripes!  Want rainbow stripes like this?

Just repeat Step 5 on alternating stripes – PowerPoint will remember which colors you’ve used under “Recent Colors.”  (My stripes look skinnier here because they are – this is a screenshot of another project I was working on.)

Or maybe you want some of your stripes to fade like this?

To get this look double-click on alternating stripes and select the following options on the pop-up screen – Fill -> Gradient -> Style -> Linear.  That will create the fade effect.  Now get rid of the line around your stripe by selecting Line -> Color -> No Line.

Or maybe you want the background behind your stripes to be a different color?

Just right-click on the white space between your stripes and select “Format Background.”  Then just choose a color like you did in Step 5.

Alternate Method: If you know from the beginning that you want a colored background just do this step before you start creating your stripes.

This is your chance to go crazy and really customize your stripes.  Have fun with it!

Step 8. Save your document as a JPEG. Go to File -> Save As, then select JPEG as the format.

The slide will be saved in a folder in whatever destination you chose.

Step 9.  Rotate and stretch your JPEG. You now have a JPEG with straight lines across it but what we really want are diagonal lines, right?  Repeat Steps 1-3 and insert your JPEG.

Click on your JPEG after it has been inserted into the document and a green dot should appear above your JPEG.  This is what you will use to rotate the JPEG.

Click your cursor on the green dot and hold it down as you rotate the image.

Release your cursor once you have the stripes at an angle that you like.  You can adjust it as much as you need to.

Now that you have diagonal stripes, stretch them lengthwise and diagonally so that they cover the document and there is no white space showing.  You can stretch the JPEG by clicking and pulling on the little gray dots at the top, bottom, corners and middle of your JPEG.

Keep your stripes intact by taking care to keep the ratio of the stripes to white space the same.

Step 10.  Repeat Step 8 to save your document as a JPEG. Now you have your diagonal stripes!!

Step 11.  Go crazy and create cool things with your diagonal striped background. Now you have an awesome striped image that you can use to gussy up your blog background, stationary, address labels, art prints . . . the only limit is your imagination!

And now, since you’ve hung in there through the longest post in the history of the universe, you will be rewarded for your perseverance and loyalty with some free printables!!  Can I get a heck yeah?

To download the backgrounds/printables, just click on the image above and a new window will open in 4Shared.  Click on each link and then select “Download Now” under the image.  That’s it!

Please Note: All It’s Great To Be Home free backgrounds/printables are available for your PERSONAL use only, and are not to be used for commercial gain. Thanks for playing nicely!

Whew!!  I hope that was helpful – let me know if you guys liked this or if you think you can make something cool out of the printables – if so I’ll be sure to do more of these posts in the future!

Y’all, I did it!!  I made a pouf!

It’s far from perfect but I love it – and I can’t believe that it’s possible to make something like this by just following a simple pattern!

I followed the BHG tutorial pretty closely, and I thought that it was easy to follow for the most part.  I was surprised that actually sewing the pouf with the sewing machine was the easiest part!  The only steps that I thought were hard were stuffing the pouf (mine was lumpy no matter how hard I tried) and basting the octagon fabric pieces onto the top and bottom of the pour (I could definitely have benefited from one of those curved needles).

I stuffed my pouf with 3 old throw pillows, 2 cut up towels, 2 pillow cases, a fitted sheet and some fiberfill that I already had.  The only supplies that I had to buy were the fabric, the upholstery thread and some StitchWitchery – so the whole shebang cost less than 30 buckeroos!  Not too shabby for a DIY pouf when poufs retail for over $100.  Yay!

Did you decide to jump on the bandwagon with me, Kim and Meredith and sew up a snazzy pouf?  If so, we want to see it!

Here’s how to show us your pouf:
1. Include the Pouf-A-Long button above on your blog with a link to one of our pages.
2. Post about your own pouf on your blog. (You can also link up to a past post for your DIY pouf.)
3. Link up below! You can link up here or at Welcome to Heardmont or NewlyWoodwards. Include the permanent link to your post (not just your url) and your link will show up on all of our blogs.
4. Check out the other poufs and comment! Make some new friends and congratulate your peeps on their awesome poufs.

Thanks for playing along with us!  :)  (UPDATE:  I got word that there seems to be a problem with my Comments, so if you have trouble leaving one feel free to send me your comment in an email and I’ll post it for you.  Thanks!)

I have to admit, I’ve been a little nervous about having this pouf sewed and presentable in time for the Pouf-A-Long next week (if you don’t know what I’m talking about scroll down a bit).  But once I started assembling the pattern and cutting out the fabric it started to feel like a project that I can definitely tackle.  It’s not as hard as I thought!  So far, at least.  :)

I’ve only gotten as far as cutting out all of the pieces for the pouf – the next step is busting out the sewing machine!  This will definitely be the most ambitious sewing project I’ve ever tackled – until now I’ve only sewed pillows and curtains.  I’m kind of excited for the challenge!

I hope you’ll jump in on the fun with me, Kim and Meredith and join the Pouf-A-Long!  You still have a week to get’er done, which is plenty of time.  And if you need the pattern, click here for the full pouf tutorial from BHG.

Can’t wait to see your poufs next week!  And by the way, who’s shocked that I picked turquoise for my fabric?  :)

So now to the million dollar question – how the heck did I spiff up these slipcovers?

To be honest, I’m a little hesitant to tell you guys.  I think some of you will be jumping for joy that it’s so darn easy, and others will be a little disappointed that it didn’t involve any sewing or new fabric.

Here’s all you need to try out this project for yourself:

- fabric that you want to make more awesome (in this case, I used the plain white slipcovers that came with my Ikea chairs)

- fabric paint in the color(s) of your choice (I mixed together 2 colors, and wound up using a total of 22 ounces of paint)

- 1 small artist brush

- 1 slightly larger brush

- a bowl for mixing/holding the paint

- a digital image of a pattern that appeals to you

- a few small pieces of cardboard (like the size of a matchbox)

- a washable fabric pen

Step 1:  Create a paper stencil of your pattern. You may remember this fabric that I blogged about back in February when I was considering recovering the Ikea chairs:

Well, I’m kind of in love with it.  And while I didn’t like that the pattern on the fabric ran horizontally, that was no problemo since I was making my own stencil.  I just printed out a full-page photo of the fabric on typing paper and then cut out the pointed oval shapes with an exacto knife.

Now I had a stencil that I could use to create the pattern vertically on my chairs!  (I made a few of these stencils since the process of tracing the stencil onto the fabric caused the edges of the stencil to get a little wonky over time.)

Step 2: Trace the stencil onto your fabric. Pick a starting point for your stencil that will act as a guide to keep the repeating pattern level – I chose the seam along the top of the chairs and it worked really well.

Tip: If your pattern will be wrapping around a corner, think about where you want the pattern to stop.  As you can see in the photo below, I let the pattern wrap around the top of the chairs from the front to the back, and from the bottom seat cushion onto the lower sides of the chair – but I stopped the pattern at the vertical seam between the front and back of the chair (if that makes sense).  Deciding where to break the pattern will help prevent the pattern from meeting up in an unattractive or weird way.

You don’t have to use a fabric pen to trace your pattern, but I highly recommend it – I’d never used a fabric pen before but now I’m a believer!  All of the marks left behind on my slipcover from the great chevron incident came right out with a wet cloth, so it’s great for those “oops” moments.

By the way, this is also a good opportunity to entertain your cat.

Step 3:  Mix your paints. Don’t fret if Michael’s doesn’t sell the exact color of fabric paint that you want – you can just mix it up yourself to create a custom color. I mixed 1 part Marine Blue with 2 parts Turquoise to create the deep teal color for my chairs.  Tip: When storing my bowl full of paint between painting sessions, I like to cover the bowl with plastic wrap and press down the plastic wrap so that it is touching the paint and the sides of the bowl, and then stick it in the fridge.  This helps keep the paint from hardening.

Step 4: Fill in the stencil with paint. This is the part that takes f.o.r.e.v.e.r. Like for reals.  Tip: Here’s what worked best for me – I used the small artists brush to do the outline of 2-3 ovals, then filled them in with the larger brush.  Do only a few of them at a time or else the outline will get kind of thick and crusty and you’ll be able to see it even after the paint dries (I learned this trick after I took the photo below).  Using a small brush was great for the outline because it lets you get really crisp lines.  Also, when you reach creases in the fabric (like where the back rest meets the seat cushion) those small pieces of cardboard come in handy – just stick them in the crease to keep the paint from smudging.

And that’s it!  Easy, right?  And since all of this was done using fabric paint the slipcovers are 100% washable.  I’m incredibly happy with the results – most people assume that the slipcovers were made out of new fabric, so it’s really fun when you get to say that you just painted it on there!!

All in all, this was a super gratifying project – it would be perfect for sprucing up pillow covers, blankets, curtains or even duvets (I’m kind of itching to try that one).  Let me know if you give this project a try, I’d love to see it!

Psst!  Check out this other project I did with slipcovers and fabric paint.

Yes, the very same ones that I started talking about back in February – but they were totally worth the wait.  (Progress reports here, here, here, here and here.)

I started with four plain Ikea chairs and gave them a little more personality.

It was an incredibly easy project, but it did take f.o.r.e.v.e.r.

And yes, I did take a ridiculous amount of photos of them – if I devoted 9 zillion hours to them, then by golly I am going to photograph the heck out of’em!

I love the way our breakfast nook looks now – it’s a lot more “us” than our former table and chairs.

And the best part is that these slipcovers are totally washable!  A definite bonus for a klutz like me.

And while I had my doubts about Ikea chairs, these are super comfy.

So, what do you think – did you think this saga was ever going to come to an end?  How do you think the chairs worked out?  And stay tuned for a how-to post coming up soon . . .

Page 64 of the magazine is dominated by this glorious guest room in Jamie Meares‘ home.  I could go on and on about all of the elements that I love in this space, but what really does it for me is that bold, striking artwork.  I’m kind of obsessed with it!

So, when I had an empty spot in my gallery wall I knew that I wanted to try to recreate that awesome painting.  My attempt doesn’t quite live up to the original but it was lots of fun to paint something again and I think the result is funky and lively, and I can’t wait to break out the paint brushes again!

If you’d like to have a little fun this weekend and try your hand at knocking off this abstract painting, here’s how to do it:

(1) Assemble your supplies:

• artist canvas (I got a 2 pack of 16 x 20 canvases from Michael’s for about $6)
• acrylic paints in your choice of colors
• medium-sized artist paint brush (may want to include one that comes to a point for those fine detail areas)
• 1 piece of chalk
• spray paint (this will be your base color)

(2) Spray paint your canvas. I know true artists will cringe if they read this, but I just spray painted my canvas with flat black paint as the base for my painting because it was quick and easy.  I chose black so that the “frame” (the sides of the canvas) would be black like the majority of the frames in my gallery wall.  (Also, if I’m being totally honest, I originally had another plan for this canvas where I wanted the background of the artwork to be black, but that project didn’t work out.)

(3) Sketch your design using chalk. I thought it was easier to sketch out the design using chalk (and using the original painting as a loose guide) than it would have been to free-hand with paint.  After I drew the lines, I wiped off the excess chalk (going in the same direction as the chalk line) with a thin towel.  (Ha, if you look closely you can see remnants of my original plans for the canvas!  It was terrible!)

(4) Blend your paints and start painting! This is the fun part.  There’s something relaxing about just coloring between the lines, don’t you think?  Be sure to experiment with blending colors and shades!

(5) Go in for a second coat. Chances are that you’ll need at least 2 coats of each color paint to fully cover the canvas.  This is your chance to tweak the paint colors if they aren’t really looking how you want them to.

(6)  Pat yourself on the back. Isn’t it fun to create something?  Even if it isn’t perfect (mine certainly wasn’t!) it’s still a piece of art that is so cool to hang in your home.  There’s nothing better than getting to say “I made that” when someone asks about your painting.

(7) Get that sucker on the wall! Enjoy your artwork and start planning your next piece!

What types of artwork have you created for your home?  Feeling the urge to break out the paints this weekend?

First image via High Gloss.

Here’s a little follow up to yesterday’s post to fill you in on how I hung all the artwork for the gallery wall.  Even though I love our paneled walls, they’re pretty challenging when it comes to hanging artwork due to both the paneling (I don’t want to stick nails in it) and the box molding (which kinda dictates where the artwork can go).

Since I know lots of you guys are in the same boat (what was it with wood paneling in the 70s?) I thought I’d share some of the things I’ve learned about hanging artwork on these tricky walls.

I used this technique to hang the rest of the art in the den (including these), but I decided to go for 3M Command picture hanging strips and sawtooth picture hangers from Office Depot for this project – the “no nails needed” promise was super appealing to me.  Here’s what they look like:

It turns out that hanging pictures on wood paneling is actually pretty easy!  Here’s what I learned about hanging artwork on paneled walls:

(1) The Command strips are the way to go for wood paneling – no holes in the wall, and you don’t have the pressure of having to hang the picture perfectly on the first try.

(2) Even though you don’t have to worry about nail holes with the Command strips, I definitely recommend tracing around your frames and taping the cut outs to the wall so that you know exactly where you want each piece to go.  That way you won’t waste any of your little sticky strips (they’re kind of expensive).

(3) If you’re doing a gallery wall, feel free to let the artwork span over the boxes created by the molding – that way your gallery wall will feel cohesive instead of choppy, and the molding will kind of fade to the background.

(4) If your artwork is heavy, opt for the picture hanging strips instead of the sawtooth hanger or wire hanger (they have a 5 lb weight limit) – that way you can go crazy with the number of strips that you use and you won’t be (too) worried that your artwork is going to fall off the wall.  That’s what I did here:

(5) If you’re hanging a picture on top of molding, here are a few tips:

• (a) If your picture has a wire hanger – make sure the wire has some slack since the artwork will actually be resting on the molding about 1/4 of an inch off the wall.
• (b) If your picture has no hanging device (like a canvas with just a wood frame) – position your picture hanging strips on the back of the frame in such a way that the strips will grab the thickest part of the molding (see photo below).
• (c) If your picture has a sawtooth hanger – it won’t have enough slack to go over the molding, so choose option a or b above.

The bottom line is to just go for it – you really have nothing to lose and it’s a lot of fun!  Have you had any luck with Command strips?  What tips have you used for hanging your gallery wall?

P.S.  I wasn’t compensated for this post, the Command strips were just so perfect for wood paneling that I had to share.