Art In Progress: Hanging Tiny Planets

A couple of weeks ago when I started drawing little planets on torn out book pages, I had no idea what I was going to actually do with them. I considered building dozens of little frames (using a method similar to this) but hanging them individually seemed like a lot of unnecessary nail holes in the walls.

Originally I was going to stretch some chicken wire in a picture frame and pin them to it, but then I took some inspiration from this frame on Pinterest. I love the rustic feel of it, but I’ve gone a little crazy with the old wood lately and I had a perfectly good frame laying around…

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And since I was already high from the spray paint fumes from this project I decided a coat of satin black couldn’t hurt.

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Then I marked my intervals for four wires. The wire was a little shiny, so I dulled it down with a little Oil Rubbed Bronze spraypaint. Originally I thought attaching the wires using the pneumatic stapler would be easiest, but I couldn’t hold the tension on the wire and staple at the same time.

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So, Plan B was to use these little eye-hooks. I screwed them into the sides of the frame and wrapped the wire around them.

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(If you can’t tell by the wildly varying light in these pictures, this project took place over several mornings and evenings.)

For the planets themselves, they needed a little more substance than just torn-out book pages, so I cut down some matboard to use as a frame. The final dimensions are 5×5 with a 3.5×3.5 opening.

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And a few tiny clothespins latter…

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Clearly I need a few more little planets to finish this out.

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The pictures aren’t actually attached to the mats right now, and I think I’ll be adding another solid piece of matboard to the back to write the stories on.

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I might spray my pins with a silver or light gray for the final piece.

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I love this idea for framing or hanging things, and I think it would work great as an inspiration board or a place to hang pictures.

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Obviously it’s super easy to change the pictures out, or change the number of pictures on each line. And the best part is, since I reused an old picture frame the entire project cost under $10.

13 Responses

  1. Great idea! Since you mentioned using photos and that they could be switched out, I might try this project for the never-ending, but much-cherished, grandchildren photos. I think it would be a great way to display and update their photos as they grow! 🙂

  2. Another thought…wouldn’t it be a great way to display casual photos from a wedding!? My daughter just got married in May and I have been trying to come up with a way to present her with several of her photos. Hummmm….

  3. Yes yes yes! I pinned that exact photo as an idea to use one of our empty frames (got free via CL) and want to do something similar to put in our nursery. This is a great, more modern version of the original idea! Will share when we finally do ours 🙂

  4. I actually like the contrast of the wood clothespins (or you could leave some outside for a week or two to turn the wood gray and the springs rusty). Very cool project.

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