D-I-Y Picture Chain

The other day I was looking at one of our blank walls in our apartment and wondering what I could do to make it looks not so "blank?"  I love black and white photography so I began looking online for ideas on how to display your black and white photos.  Nothing seemed exactly right, so I took some ideas from a bunch of different websites and made my own way to display black and white photos as well as not make my wall appear so blank.  I call this project my picture chains.

Here is what the finished picture chain looks like

Here is a list of supplies that I used to make this project for under $40.00

• 48 4x6 black and white photos printed at Costco
• Black Photo Corners
• 3 sheets of black foam board
• 3 rolls of 3/8" black ribbon (18 feet each roll)
• Glue Gun
• 5 Glue sticks
• Yard Stick
• Quilting Cutting Board
• Small Ruler
• Sewing pins
• Scissors
• Foam Board Cutter
• Exacto Knife
• Hooks for hanging on wall
• A piece of card stock (This will be used to make a template)

Here is a picture of most of the supplies used for this project

The first step is to cut your foam board down to size.  I chose to cut my foam board into 48 5x7" rectangles.  You can choose whatever size rectangles you want in order to fit your pictures.  Just remember to cut the foam board larger than your photographs.  I used the yard stick to measure out the rectangles on the foam board.  I also used the yardstick as a guide for the foam cutter.  Also, don't forget to place your quilting mat underneath your foam board as you're cutting, so that you don't cut into your table.  (I purchased a special foam board cutter at JoAnns and it was definitely worth the price.  It was located right next to the foam board, and it makes your cutting time go by so much easier and quicker.)

Matt's muscles were great in cutting out all of these foam rectangles. :)

Once you have finished cutting out your foam board rectangles, you should have a stack of rectangles that looks like this: 

The next thing that you want to do is to make a template for marking where to place the photo corners on your foam boards.  I did this by taking a piece of card stock and tracing one of the foam rectangles on to it.  Next, I measured in a 1/2" from all the sides of the rectangle piece of card stock.  This gave me a 4x6" traced rectangle in the center of my card stock rectangle.  Next I took an Exacto knife and cut out little strips at each of the 4 corners along the traced 4x6" rectangle.  When I was finished, this is what my template looked like: 

Template for tracing corners onto the foam board rectangles

Next I took a pencil, and a foam board rectangle and placed the card stock template on top of the foam board rectangle and traced the four corners cut into the template on to the foam board rectangle with my pencil.  

After tracing all of the corner markings on to the foam board rectangles, I began placing the photo corners on the pictures and placing the pictures on to the foam boards.  I learned that it is best to put the photo corners on to the picture first like this:

Then you can carefully line the picture up with the corner markings that you placed on the foam board rectangles.  Once you have the picture lined up properly, you can press down on each of the photo corners to help the picture stick to the foam board rectangle.  

You will continue repeating this process until you have attached all of the photos to the foam board rectangles.  When you are done, your pictures should look like this:

I chose to use photo corners to attach my pictures to the foam board rectangles because this will allow me to change the pictures out if I want to.  For a more permanent mount, you can use modge podge to glue the pictures to the foam board.  You can even brush modge podge over the top of your photos and the foam board to make it really permanent.  

After all your photos have been attached to their foam boards, it is time to "chain" them together.  For my photo chains I decided to place 6 photos in one chain.  Each photo would be 2" apart, and the ribbon for hanging the chain would be 4" from the top of the first photo.  So, I cut out a piece of ribbon that was 80" long, and set it up like this: 

You can see that I am using my yardstick as a straightedge now.  I have taped both ends of the yardstick to the table so that I can line my pictures up with them and keep them all straight as I am attaching the ribbon to the backs of my pictures.

Now, I will begin attaching my ribbon to the backs of my pictures first with sewing pins.  I am doing this to hold the ribbon in place until I am ready to use the hot glue gun to permanently attach the ribbon to the back of each photo.

When you are finished pinning your ribbon to the back of all six photos, it should look something like this.  Notice, for my picture chain, there is 2" of ribbon between each photo.

After you ribbon has been pinned to the back of your photos, you can now use the hot glue gun to permanently attach the ribbon to the back of your photos.

I glued the pictures at the top and bottom on each side where the ribbon has been pinned.  In other words, I glue the ribbon down wherever I have placed a pin.

When you have finished gluing down the ribbon, your picture chain should look something like this:

I chose to make 8 picture chains in order to completely cover my blank wall.  You can make however many your wall needs. You can also put as many pictures as you want on your picture chain.  This craft is really flexible and you can make it to your own tastes.  

Matt bought me all of these supplies for our anniversary.  It was so nice to be able to have exactly what I needed to make these picture chains.  I'm able to be so crafty this summer because I have so much time on my hands as I wait for my new preschool job to start in August.  I hope you all enjoy this craft and are able to fill in some of your empty walls at home for an affordable price.  Happy crafting. :)