Picture Hanging Made Easy

For several years I've had this painting hanging in the upstairs hallway (bridge).  It's a nice enough painting, but always looked a tad lonely to me.  Unsure what else to put up there, I let it stay and just kind of ignored it.

Over the weekend I was in one of my favorite little shops in Winston-Salem, NC and I was drawn to a grouping they had displayed on the wall.  It had a lot of my favorite things in it.  Like ...

Bird's Nests and Butterflies

Antique elements and ...

lots of gardeny goodness.

The only problem was that in their display there were a lot of items.  Way more than I would be able to use, but yet the overall appearance was a look I thought might work well to replace my lonely painting.

So, I asked if I could talk to the lady who assembled the display in the store and she shared several helpful hints with me.  Her ideas worked so well for me that I thought I'd share them with you too.  For instance, she suggested that I look for different shapes and textures to include in my grouping.  She said that she often goes around her house looking for things.  Once the items have been collected, she suggested laying them all out on the floor to find a pleasing arrangement.

I came home and did just that, moving things around until I got them just the way I wanted them.

Her next suggestion was to trace around the items onto paper and then tape the papers onto the wall (I used painter's tape).  After I did this I went downstairs to see how it looked.  A few things needed to be shifted left or right, up or down.  This was so much easier than multiple nail holes.  Once Brett and I agreed that the placement was good, we measured where the hooks on the back of the items were and drew a little mark on the paper in that location.  We then hammered the nail through the paper, removed the paper from the wall and hung the item.

I have to say this was the smoothest hanging job we've ever done and there were no mistakes to correct afterward.  Hooray for that :).

I'm liking this look much better than my lonely little painting.  It's hard to tell in the photos, but the walls are painted a buttery yellow.

If you find yourself needing to hang a grouping of pictures, you may want to give this method a try.