It’s easy! And super cheap.
You’ll need:
2 pieces of wood – Use what you’ve got or buy some rods like this from your local hobby store. These cost me $2.49 each. Cheaper, I’m sure, from a hardware store … or you could cut your own. You could. Yes, you could. Also, some clothespin hangers.
And paint. I chose spray paint because I like it. You can use left over paint – in any color you’d like. I have a small store of paint in my basement.
Then I just laid out my wood on some cardboard in a well ventelated area (my garage) and went to town with the spray paint.
I put a couple coats of paint on it – over a day or so … and then brought them inside and powered up the glue gun.
This is me planning ahead. I measured out and marked where I was going to put the clothespins so I didn’t have two very different looking Art Hangers on my daughters wall. Originally I was going to put them both in her bedroom. (Those plans changed though.)
Glue on your clothespins … I did every other one facing up and then down.
Repeat a bunch, until both rods are full of clothespins and wait for them to dry.
This next step is elective depending on your hanging method – I wanted to nail the Art Hanger into the wall so my daughter couldn’t potentially take it down and use it as a princess sword. You think I’m kidding.
I got out my drill. I own one. I bought it for myself all by myself. The folks at Lowes kept saying things like “What does your husband want in a drill?” and I kept on saying … A vagina. It’s for ME.
I digress.
So I got that bad cord-powered baby out of it’s little case, it’s adorable. All tools are adorable. Like little muffin clouds with rainbows and bows. THEY DON’T SCARE ME … any more. How many men did I just assault? Like naming your member Princess Sophia. We all learned that lesson from How To Lose A Guy In 10 Tens, no?
I continue to digress. Any way … I pre-drilled the holes for the nails and then hung it on the wall without breaking anything or ruining the plaster beneath.
And Viola!
I would use super glue instead of a hot glue gun if you have it – one of the clothespins fell off right away and I’ve re-hot-glued it on more than once. And then I decided to only hang one in my daughters bedroom because it was pretty busy with her art on the wall, so the other one proudly hangs above the shelves I built in our basement … ready for all the art projects and proudly displaying a few already.
Oddly, am in the process of creating two of these suckers, myself!
Not all hotmelts are the same. If you use it often, Titebond (a big glue manufacturer) sells a hot-melt urethane glue gun called Hi Purformer http://www.titebond.com/IntroPageTB.ASP?UserType=1&ProdSel=ProductCategoryTB.asp?prodcat=3 that is exceptional. The problem is, once you open up a cartridge, you really need to use it up within the month, or it will turn itself into a blob of unusable plastic. The bond strength is phenominal, and you’d break the wood before the joint failed. I glued granite tile piece to another and afer it cured, I was able to break it, but part of the crystals of the stone pulled out!
The hotmelt would probably held better if you glued them on before you painted the rod – same with any glue you use – the paint will act like a bond breaker.
I love to use clothespins for hanging up art. I am a teacher and I hot glued them on my concrete walls and they are wonderful to display work. I have the clothespin openings face the same way. Some have come off but I just re-glue them and they are great. i even blogged about them and my favorite…..rain gutter book holders, check out my U is for useful post.