DIY Hanging Wall Chart Tutorial - No Saw!

Hey guys, you might have noticed I've had a cheeky week off blogging this week. I've been trying to put together the finishing touches on our wedding album using Blurb, and it seems to be taking up a huge amount of time! Nevertheless, it shall be perfect when it is finished!

Anyway, I have had time to complete a project for the lounge which I have been meaning to do for some time, hurrah!  In this post I talked about how I planned to make a wall hanging out of a beautiful piece of wrapping paper I bought. I wasn't looking forward to it to be honest, mainly because the DIY I had planned to follow involved sawing, staining and screwing, none of which I have the equipment for!

But thanks to a trip to the Hobbycraft shop, I figured out a way to do it without any of that stuff at all! Namely, the discovery of balsa wood! And so, with this revelation, I thought I would share the 'no saw' (get it!?) process with you!

If you want to give it a go here is what you will need;

• Poster/Wrapping Paper - I got mine here
• Double sided sticky tape (good quality)
• 4 strips of Balsa Wood. ( I used a thinner piece for the back so that it would hang more flush against the wall - 0.4 x 2.5cm balsa wood, and a thicker piece for the front - 0.6 x 2.5cm balsa wood)
• String
• Brown watercolour paint
• Craft Knife and ruler

Ok, so the great thing about balsa wood is that it is so lightweight, and can therefor be cut using a regular craft knife! I started by measuring all of my pieces carefully, marking them all slightly longer than the poster edges, then cutting them all to size.

The other great thing is that the wood is so soft, you can sand the rough edges once this is done using a nail file! Or if you are more prepared you can just use sand paper ;)

I wanted to make the wood look more expensive, but I didnt have any wood stain, so I simply mixed some dark brown watercolour paint with water, and painted it that way. I think it came out really well!

Once the wood is completely dry (I used a hair dryer to hurry this process along) you need to put your double sided sticky tape along both pieces of the wood that will go on the bottom. Make sure you put the sticky on the side you don't want facing out.

Then you will need to pull the top coat off of the sticky on your thinnest piece of wood, and line it up under the back of the bottom of the page. You do have to be quite careful here and it is a bit tricky.  I marked on my piece of wood where is should come to so that it wouldn't end up wonky. Then peel the top coat of sticky off the other piece of wood, and again, line this up really carefully on top of the other piece, with the poster sandwiched in between.

The top of the hanging is a little more tricky because you need to include your string in it.  I wanted to use yellow string, but I didn't have any, so again I used my trusty watercolours to dye the string!

I took a length of string and made sure that it would be the right length to hang at the height I wanted it.  Then I tied a knot at each end so that when it was sandwiched in between both pieces of wood it would make it a bit more sturdy.  

I then repeated the process of putting sticky tape on the wood for the top, and I worked out how my string would sit on the thinner piece of wood (because you want the knot to come out of the back), when I was happy with it I added another layer of double sided sticky tape on top.

Then I just stuck the wood to the poster as I had done on the bottom!

And Tadaa, it was finished!

This cost me less than £20 in total, which I think is pretty decent.  Unfortunately the Balsa wood is quite expensive, but its still cheaper and much easier than using proper wood, so I think it is a winner! I'm chuffed that I have now hung the first picture in my lounge, I can't wait to get the rest up and show you them!

Laura xXx