DIY: Art Dislay Clothesline

I made a fast, cheap & easy way to display art.

I love it when Max brings home artwork for me to display, but my fridge was becoming over burdened with all the paper. I wanted to buy him an art display wire like this,

from Pottery Barn, but they want $40 for it, plus shipping, since there isn't a kids Pottern Barn near me. I decided I needed to do my own thing. First things first I did some googling to see what was out there and this is what I found... This blog post on Positively Splendid which will show you how to make a rather complicated wire art display. I wanted something a little simpler, so I kept looking and came across, this... Just a bunch of photos on Pinterest and from there I began to draw inspiration. At first I thought I would buy the Ikea wire curtain rods and clips from Ikea, but they are $12 each and I wanted to do two displays on either side of my doorway. Buying two would bring my project total to $24 and that wasn't low enough for me. I also thought about just doing a magnetic strip across the wall and using cute magnets to display his work, but that would require me to paint and change the surface of the wall. I didn't want to do that. I didn't even want to put a single hole in the wall. So I started thinking and this morning while my husband lay sick in bed with a head cold, Max and I trotted out to AC Moore and Joann's Fabric and Crafts to get the materials we would need and here is how we did it.

-From Joann's Fabric and Crafts I purchased one 12 foot roll of round cording for approximately $2.00.
-From AC Moore I purchased 4 large clothespins for $1.19 each.
-Also from AC Moore I bought 3 bottles of acrylic craft paint on sale 3/$1.00,
-Two packages of Command Strips, $4.00 per package. (The command strips were used in the first blog post project that I came across. They can be found in the framing section of the store. I got the medium strips that can hold 9 pounds of weight each and will not leave any marks on your walls).
-And I already had the super crazy glue and the wooden clothespins that are holding the artwork, but if you needed to buy them you can get a whole package for $1.00 at any dollar store.

The grand total for my project is $15.76!!! Well, actually less if you consider that I didn't use all the command strips or all the paint.

1. Take apart all the clothes pins so you don't get paint on the metal part and paint them as you like.
2. Attach Command Strips to the back of all the large clothespins.
3. Measure and mark your walls.
4. Press firmly to adhere your large clothespins with the Command Strips on them to the wall.
5. Figure out how much cording you need to go from one clothespin to the other and cut.
6. Using the super crazy glue, glue the cording in between the "teeth" of the clothespin. The pressure from the pin will help the glue to set and stay strong.

7. Wait a few minutes for the glue to dry.
8. Hang your artwork and enjoy.

Wow... Not even 10 steps!

There are many ways to vary this idea, but I really think that finding out about the Command Strips made this project a million times easier. I was really stuck on the issue of how I was going to attach the large clothespins to the wall and the Command Strips solved my problem better than I could of on my own.