DIY Photo Board

A few months ago I redecorated my daughter's room. She is almost 9 and so we are in the stage of keeping everything she has ever owned and hoarding it under her bed or in her closet. She also has a habit of taping pictures to the walls. So once the new paint went up, I made the decree that the taping had to stop. I spent two day painting these walls....they are MY walls now.

So I came up with this. It's the same concept as the Fabric Covered Bulletin Board. But instead of having cork board under the fabric to pin things to I wanted to make a way to hang the pictures on the board without putting holes in them.

Of course when I did her room I had all kinds of grand plans of DIY projects that I could do to decorate....but five months later this is the only one to have actually happened. Such is life!

Here are the supplies I used to make the photo board: plywood, poly foam, hot glue gun and glue sticks, staple gun, fabric, decorative buttons, mini clothespins, and yarn.

Obviously, you can let your creative juices flow with this: make it any size, use whatever fabric or buttons you want, hang the pictures in any direction. You could get a more muted fabric and use your buttons for the decoration, you could paint the clothespins different colors, there are endless options.

For Olivia's room....being the awesome mom that I am....I relinquished creative control and let her pick out the fabric. Hence the hot pink-lime green-zebra print fabric. Did I try to persuade her to pick out something a little less....bold? Of course.

"That one is great honey, really, it is.... but what about this one?"
"NO! I want THIS one Mom! I love this one."

So pink/green/zebra print it is.

First thing's first, you want to make sure to drill your holes in the plywood so you can hang it. I forgot to do that so in all honesty, this thing sat finished on the floor for weeks until I finally had my husband drill some holes so I could hang it.

I decided to use some poly foam to pad the board. You don't have to do this, I just want it to have a softer, cushier feel to it instead of being a big hard piece of wood.

If you choose to use the foam, cut it to fit your wood.

Use a hot glue gun to glue the foam to the board. First I tried to squeeze the glue all over the board and then place the foam on top, but the glue dried too quickly so the foam wasn't sticking. So I ended up gluing a little bit at a time and that worked out quite nicely.

Once the foam is glued on and dried, place the board (foam side down) on the back side of your fabric. Make sure if your fabric has a pattern on it, that you check the direction of your pattern. For mine, I wanted the lines going vertical instead of horizontal. Cut your fabric leaving several inches extra around all sides.

 

Now grab the staple gun and let's have some fun.

Fold your corners in first and staple right on the fold. I stapled the short sides first and then did the long sides. Make sure you pull the fabric tight while stapling.

 

Stagger the staples all around the fabric to ensure that it doesn't pull in all the same places.

 

Flip your board over and get the glue gun, yarn, and buttons.

This is another place where you can get creative. I decided to do a zig-zag pattern for this board. I tried to space the zig-zags far enough apart so she could hang different sized pictures. You could do horizontal lines or vertical lines or even diagonal lines. However you want to hang your pictures!

Once you have decided where you want to place your yarn, hot glue the buttons on the ends of the yarn to hold it in place. This keeps the yarn attached and adds some fun decoration at the same time!

 

 

Make sure to test the tension of the yarn as you are gluing. Yarn stretches so if you don't want the pictures to sag then pull your yarn tighter. If you want some slack then leave the yarn a little looser. 

Now clip the clothespins where ever you want them. I thought about gluing them in place, as well, but decided against it. There is more flexibility if they aren't glued.

And that's it! Grab some pictures and start hanging! 

I'm really happy with how this turned out. Despite the loud fabric, it fits Olivia's room perfectly. We are very into animal prints these days so this fits right in. 

She has a lot of fun switching the pictures around and putting up different things. And most of the time it keeps the papers off of the floor and the wall! Most of the time.....