I have been working on the entryway in our home for over a week now, and I’m happy to say that it is finally complete. This was a space that I have neglected since we moved in last June, simply because I really didn’t know what I wanted to do with the space.
I have shown you the Wooden Tray I made over to hold my husband’s wallet and things like that. The other day I shared the Week-At-A-Glance Board I made for this space as well. Today, I’m excited to show you the final project for our entryway – Instagram Key Holders!
Who doesn’t love Instagram, right? I wanted some clever key holders in our entryway, and after a bit of research and brainstorming, I decided to incorporate a few of our favorite Instagram photos into this project. Let me show you how you can make some, too:
First, I selected a few of our favorite photos and printed them on regular paper. These are 4″ x 4″ in size.
Using a 1×6 board, I had my husband cut 4 – 4×4 blocks of wood.
*Note: I learned through this project that a 1×4 is not 1″ by 4″, more like 1/2″ x 3 1/2″. Go figure. So for this project, you will definitely need the 1×6 in order to cut 4″ squares.
After trimming the printed photos, I laid them out on wax paper and grabbed my Mod Podge Photo Transfer Medium and a sponge brush.
Now, to make this work, you have to completely and thoroughly cover the entire photo until you can no longer see the image through the medium. Smooth it out as much as you can, but just make sure it’s thick.
Flip the covered images upside down onto the blocks of wood, then lightly press them down. A little bit of the medium will probably squeeze out, but that’s OK. Just don’t press too hard. Your goal here is to smooth out the paper onto the blocks of wood.
According to package directions, you must wait 24 hours before removing the paper, which I did. After that time had passed, I filled a small bowl with water, grabbed an old rag, and started lightly rubbing the paper with the damp rag until I could see the images on the wood.
*Note: You will have to repeat the rubbing process several times. After the paper dries each time, there will be white paper residue on the image, so you’ll need to lightly rub a little more of the paper until you achieve the look you are going for.
Once I finished rubbing all of the paper off and was left with just the images, I had to clean up my blocks a bit. I lightly sanded the edges to remove the excess medium that had dried on the wood, then painted the edges navy blue. I also coated each photo with a layer of Matte Varnish to make it more durable.
I grabbed a few screw hooks and twisted them into the bottom of each block of wood.
To hang them, I used sawtooth hangers.
Here’s a handy tip: The nails to attach the sawtooth hangers are teeny tiny. To save your fingers, use needlenose pliers to hold the nail in place as you hammer.
Ta-Da! There they are hanging in my entryway! I made four but only needed to use three of them, so rather than putting a screw hook on the fourth one, I’ll just hang it somewhere else in the house. Maybe I’ll make several more and create a collage! (Lightbulb moment! Love when that happens!)
And here’s the Week-At-A-Glance Board hanging directly opposite the key holders. (See that lovely mirror? Well here’s a secret. It sat on the floor in this entryway since Christmas! Seriously! Not until last week when I decided to create our entryway did it finally get hung. Geez…)
I really love having our entryway set up, finally. It only took us 14 months since we moved in to get it done! But now we have a home for keys, a pretty little weekly reminder board, a place for mail and wallets, and everything. It’s lovely!
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4 Responses
I so love this idea! I can’t wait to figure out how to incorporate it in our new house.
This so did not work! I followed every step and it did not come out the way yours did.
Hi Ashley, I just responded to your email. Please let me know if I can help further. Thanks!