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The white walls in your place have begun to loom, haven’t they?

Glaring down at you, bare as the Gobi Desert when the camels are on holiday.

And hark! That box of photos in the closet that you’ve been meaning to organize is starting to whisper to you. “Put me up,” the photos mutter. “Show me off!”

Of course, hearing these things means you are probably insane. But before the funny farm comes to take you away, you might as well sort out your wall and photo problem.

Grab a handful of bulldog clips and a few nails and put up some pictures. That’ll show those imaginary voices who’s boss.

Poppytalk and amberminty gave us the idea.

Why’s It Cool?

Why would you cover your walls with bulldog clips and hang a bunch of photos? So many reasons. It’s super cheap, it’s ridiculously easy, and it requires practically no skill. Plus it means you can change the photos you have up at any time with practically zero effort.

Also, it looks really cool.

What You’ll Need

• A whole mess o’ photos
  
• Assorted bulldog clips and/or binder clips — one for each photo you want to put up
  
• A hammer
  
• Small nails — thumbtacks will also work if your photos are small
  
• Decorative paper (optional)
  
• An impeccable sense of style and design — we know, you’ve already got that

Survey Your Realm

Figure out where and how you want to hang your photos. Decide how much of the wall you want to cover and how much space you want between your photos. As a general rule, more space between pictures looks more sophisticated.

Personally, we like a random approach with lots of different sizes of clips and pictures. Having said that, it’s good to use smaller clips for small photos, and larger clips for large photos.

If your walls are painted, you may not want to hang photos whose color scheme clashes with your paint. If you have really bold colored walls, using all black-and-white pictures would look great.

Pound Some Nails

Grab a hammer and put a nail in the wall wherever you want to hang a photo.

Hang Your Photos

Attach a clip to each of your photos and hang the clip on a nail. Gosh, that was easy.

Crease Protection

If you’re worried about the clips creasing your photos (we admit, it can happen) cut a scrap of decorative paper the same width as the clip and fold it over your photo before attaching the clip. We used tiny pieces of origami paper.

If your prints have borders and you don’t want the paper to show, use white paper instead. Nobody will notice it.

More Ideas

• Make a bulletin board: Put a large piece of colored art paper on the wall and place the clips only within its boundaries.

  Use it for photos, or to-do lists, or awesome pictures you tore out of magazines…

• OCD-style: If you want to be orderly about it, use one kind of clip and one size of photo (i.e. 8×10). Use a level and a ruler to place your nails in an even grid pattern before hanging your photos exactly straight.

• Mix it up: Use lots of different sizes and styles of photos. Throw in some cool postcards. Put up that illustration you love but still haven’t gotten around to framing. Go crazy, kid!

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