How To Make Outdoor Wall Art
Now that summer has officially begun – I have been spending a lot of time outside and have another outdoor decorating idea for you. It is easy and if you can use a staple gun then that is the only DIY skill you will need to make these fast and easy color pops for a wall.
Over the Memorial Day weekend, I went to my sister’s house. She asked for my help in giving her patio a little love. She recently bought a new table, chairs, and a green pattern outdoor rug. She has a long exterior wall that needed some interest to tie in with her new setup. That is where I came in – doing something with the wall.
The wall has siding on it that makes hanging anything on it a bit hard. I thought about canvas wall art, but this wall is exposed to the elements. We also thought about mounting metal art on the wall, but with the black metal patio set it was too much metal.
*To see how I have used fabric in other ways to decorate outdoors click here.
So I went back to my original outdoor wall art plan, but instead of buying large canvas wall art, I opted to make outdoor friendly DIY art using vinyl tablecloths I found at HomeGoods for $4.99 each. The vinyl tablecloths come in many different patterns and can handle the outdoor elements. I also picked up a few wood frames at the thrift store along with some foam from the craft store to use as bases to make fun outdoor blocks of color and pattern for the long patio wall.
When I arrived we were not sure if it was going to start raining or not. It was hot, hot, hot and I was dripping sweat by the time I was finished. I worked quickly and had them made and hanging in about an hour.
I first removed the two round ceramic pieces from the wall, which left two permanent nails to use. I used one to hang the largest frame on. The wall mounted light is smack in the middle of the wall. The right side of the wall is used for grilling, so I decided to separate that section of the wall and concentrate on the table area and left side of the wall only to create a focal point.
supplies needed:
- Wood Frames – I also experimented with large pieces of foam. You can find foam at the crafts store and very inexpensive foam insulation at home improvement stores.
- Vinyl Tablecloths
- Staple gun and staples
- Scissors
- Duct Tape – if using foam
- Wall hanging hooks/nails or 3M Command Damage Free Hanging Strips
I experimented with foam to see how it would work. It did, but if you have wood frames the staples stay in the wood until you take them out with a pair of pliers. Not so much in the foam – duct tape is needed to secure it. If using foam insulation that is thin – double it up by cutting two identical pieces and glue them together to make one thicker frame to wrap the vinyl tablecloth around.
In my haste to get this done before it started raining, I didn’t get a photo showing how to staple the tablecloth around the wood frames. It is basically the same as wrapping it around the foam, but you do not need duct tape – just staples. *You can see a similar method in this post.
Figure out how many frames you want to hang and the sizes. I used 3 different tablecloths and 5 frames. Odd numbers always look better when grouping objects together. The wall mounted light is going to be replaced with a new one, so I made sure it worked in the placement of the frames.
1. Cut fabric large enough to wrap around the edge and to the back of the frame or foam. Make sure the pattern is lined up on the front and then staple the fabric onto the back edge of the frame or foam. Pull the tablecloth taut as you work. At the corners, pretend you are wrapping a gift to get neat corners and staple excess fabric to the back. After it is secure -if there is any excess fabric overlapped on the back from the corner fitting – cut it off so when the frame is hung on the wall it will lay flat.
2. If using foam, duct tape is needed to make sure the tablecloth is secure. As I said above – it was hot and humid. I wasn’t sure if the tape would stick, but it did.
Using the foam was an experiment and I am showing you the possibilities of what can be done. I think the wood thrift store frames work much better for this. It doesn’t matter what they look like as long as they are plain and have a smooth front edge. You can pick them up very inexpensively at yard sales, too.
How to Hang the Frames on Outdoor Siding
I hung the large floral print frame on an existing nail, but I didn’t want to make nail holes in the siding to hang the rest of the covered frames, so I used 3M Command Damage Free Hanging Strips.
Hold your frame up on the wall where you want it to go and mark the back of it where it hits the bottom edge of the siding. This is where you want to attach the hanging strips. The directions for the hanging strips are on the back of the package, but basically two strips attach together like Velcro. Two are needed for each side. There is adhesive on each. Remove the paper backing and attach one side to the back of the frame – the other to the wall.
It is best to prepare the area on the wall where the strip is going to stick on first. Go over the surface with rubbing alcohol to clean it. Once dry, you can attach the frame to the wall. Press the frame firmly onto the wall. If you have a super large frame – use 2 on the top and 2 on the bottom.
When it is time to remove the frames – simply pull them off the wall. The mounting strip has a tab on the bottom that you simply pull and the hanging strip should, in most cases come cleanly off the wall.
My sister is going to replace the light. I told her I thought something that mounted on the wall, but swept upwards would work well. There are also white accents on the patio and the Bulkhead light would give a different feel and blend in with the wall.
I have one more outdoor decorating idea that I will be sharing with you soon. Psst… it was a project from my book, Instant Decorating that I am tweaking.
If you liked this post, check out how I made a wall hanging trellis with a chalkboard for my patio.
