Metal Hand Photo Garland DIY

As fun as it’s been picking out new prints and wall decor as we decorate our house, I’ve started to realize that there is one big difference from our last house to this one—personal photo displays! I had pictures of special people and memories pretty much scattered throughout whole previous house, and well, I’ve come to see how much I miss them! Especially since my husband travels so much for his job, I really like to keep photos of us around the house so I can see his cutie face on the regular. Sometimes I tape photos or handwritten notes from him up on my bathroom mirror so I can study them as I brush my teeth and get ready for bed. Since that’s apparently a good place to stop and stare for a minute, I thought I’d make a photo garland to hang right above my hanging cup makeup organizer (I switched out the cord and cups to match the new bathroom scheme). I love this metal hand garland, and I thought it would be a pretty easy DIY to tweak a bit to create a two strand display with a metal chain instead. And just to make sure I encourage sweet dreams, I chose all photos from our Paris trip last year—it’s totally the dreamiest place as far as we are concerned.

We’re working with our longtime supporters and favorite printer brand Canon USA for this project. All the photos were printed on our gold PIXMA MG7720, which is super easy to use and always comes out in the best quality. I actually printed my photos on 8.5×11″ photo paper and bundled photos of 4 to save on printing time.

Supplies:
–aluminum roof flashing
– marker and scissors
– gold spray paint
– gold chain (either jewelry chain or small chain from home improvement store)
– chain cutters (if you bought thick chain)
– large jump rings
– X-Acto knife and metal ruler
– photo paper
– crop-a-dile or other metal hole punch
– Canon PIXMA MG7720 Photo Printer

Print and cut out the photos that you chose for your hanging garland (I resized them all to 4″x 4″ squares first).

Draw a mitten shape with defined fingertips (about 3″ tall) on a piece of the aluminum flashing. The flashing is really thin so you should be able to cut it out very easily with a pair of household scissors. Once you cut out the general shape, go back and cut out very thin and long “V” shapes between each finger to separate the digits. Once you have your first hand done, you can use that hand as a template for the rest so they all look the same.

Use a crop-a-dile or other metal hole punch to punch a hole at the top of each hand so you can later secure your hand to the hanging chain.

Spray paint the metal hands (both sides) with the gold spray paint, and once completely dry, attach the hands to a strip of chain with a gold jump ring (if you are using a large enough jump ring, you may not need pliers to open and close the ring). I used the same length of chain for both garlands (cut with either scissors or wire cutters to desired length) but attached 3 hands on the bottom and 2 on the top so they would have a staggered look. Once the hands were attached, I hung each end of the chain on a small brass nail, and I was ready to stick my photos in between the fingers!

So fun! I like the kitschy vibe of the gold hand shapes with the clean looking simple chain. The metal is so thin that you can cut it easily with scissors, but it’s sturdy enough to hold the photo securely once attached. I dare you to try making this without humming or singing the theme from “Goldfinger” at least once. It’s just asking for it, right? Anyway, you can totally change the scale of how big you want the hands, how many you make, or if you do one long single garland instead of two stacked garlands. Either way, I think you’ll love having more special photos within view—I know I do! xo. Laura

Credits // Author and Photography: Laura Gummerman. Photos edited with A Beautiful Mess actions.