It doesn’t take a whole lot of artistic talent to decorate the walls of your home. That’s what these 40 DIY wall art ideas prove. Forget all that expensive store-bought art. These simple and fun ideas will have your house looking amazing, without the trip to HomeGoods or whatever other home decor stores you typically frequent.
Some of these ideas list detailed how-to instructions, while others we included mainly to inspire you. However, the one thing that they have in common is that these projects are all possible to make on your own. It’s just so much more satisfying when you create something beautiful for your home using your own two hands.
1. Framed Wallpaper
Wallpaper isn’t just for covering entire walls. If you frame it, you can hang it up just like you would a painting. The same thing works for patterned fabric. Simply choose a cut that you like and attach it to the wall.
2. Hexagon Art
It’s a beautiful combination of geometrics and metallics. With the right lighting focused on it, this hexagon art piece will literally shimmer. It was created from gold glitter and foil cards attached to canvas. Learn how to make your own here.
3. Barn Wood Corner Gallery
The barn wood mounted to the corner of the wall makes for a neat way to display random country items. From old signs to deer antlers, it is a mix of everything great about farm life. The boards are actually old fence posts.
4. Masking Tape Abstract Painting
If you have some artistic talent, it wouldn’t be too hard to make one of these. Paint a bunch of random colors on the canvas. Lay down the masking tape on top of it in a herringbone pattern. Then paint over the whole thing in white.
5. Fired Alcohol Ink Art
It takes pretty much zero talent to make these. Just place a few drops of alcohol ink on the glass of the picture frames. Swirl it around. Add some rubbing alcohol and light it on fire. It isn’t as dangerous as it sounds. You can check the instructions here.
6. Wooden Arrows
All it takes to make these rustic-looking wooden arrows is a few pieces of wood and a miter saw. You simply cut the boards off at a 45-degree angle and then piece them together. Get more details about the project here.
7. Hanging Scarf
Scarfs work great as wall decorations. You don’t need to change anything either. Just hang it up and you’re good to go. Although, it does help to choose a scarf with an interesting pattern.
8. Floral Letter Art
They cut the shape of the letter out of a piece of cardboard. Then glued a variety of artificial flowers to it. You don’t have to just limit yourself to letters either. Really, you can make any design that you want.
9. Rustic Picture Frames
These picture frames would go great in any home — rustic or modern. The artist used cheap whitewood boards and then stained them to give them the old and weathered look. Find out how she did it here.
10. Rectangular Fabric Art
These cool rectangles look very stylish, but in reality, they are just pieces of fabric wrapped around sheets of styrofoam. It’s a pretty great idea, and according to the blogger, they cost next to nothing to make.
11. Cut Canvas Art
Although it resembles an intricate cut wood design, it’s really just painted canvas. It takes no special equipment to make one. Just stencil your design onto the canvas, cut it out with a razor blade, and then paint it.
12. Dollar Store Cotton Wreaths
This entire project was made from items found at the Dollar Store. She started with a grapevine wreath. Then attached a fall berry sprig, some cotton boll sprigs, and hung them up with burlap.
13. Window Picture Frame
Turning an old window into a picture frame is easy to do. Just cut your pictures to size and paste them into the panes. If you want, you can also add some other embellishments like flowers and text like this artist did.
14. String Yarn Sign
It looks much more complicated to make than it actually is. Just hammer in some screws or nails into a board in the desired pattern. Then work your way around them going back and forth with a spool of yarn. Find the instructions here.
15. Pallet Plaques
They are basically rustic clipboards made from pallets. You can attach notes to them, photos, or anything else you can think of. In our house, we would probably use them to hang up drawings that the kids made.
16. Fish Scale Art
The little circles were cut out of poster board. The artist made 687 circles in total. Afterward, the rest of the project was easy. She stapled the circles to the board in layers and sprayed them down with metallic paint.
17. Popsicle Stick Hexagon Shelf
We always thought popsicle sticks were just a craft item that kids used to build little houses. However, this crafter totally proved us wrong. They transformed a bunch of popsicle sticks into this beautiful shelf.
18. Window Frame On Floating Shelf
This image provides some great ideas for DIY decorating. Our favorite part is the reclaimed window frame set on the floating shelf. It serves as the centerpiece of the room and ties all of the other decorations together.
19. Gorgeously Simple Flower Display
This is so easy anyone could do it. Believe it or not, it’s created by using just paper doilies and orange thumbtacks. Yet it looks so elegant.
20. Clothesline Photo Display
This is such a cool way of displaying old Polaroid photos. It’s not hard to make either. Just screw a few eyelets into the sides of the wooden frame, run wires through them, and attach your clothespins and photos.
21. Floral Twig Basket
We never imagined a basket could be used for decorating a wall. However, this image proves otherwise. They mounted it above the cabinet and filled it up with artificial flowers and wiry looking twigs.
22. Fabric Wallpaper
The artist pasted the fabric to the wall using liquid starch. The hardest part about the process is making sure that the fabric is lined up properly and that there are no bubbles. Once it’s pasted down, it’s not going to be easy to rearrange.
23. Cut Out Wood Star
We would love to hang up one of these on the wall in our home or build a giant one and use it as a headboard for a bed. It’s both rustic-looking and beautiful. Check out the instructions for this project here.
24. Rope Letters
They started with a package of jute rope. Then molded it into the shape of letters held in place by a mixture of glue, cornstarch, and water. The instructions make it sound a little messy, but the end result is really cool.
25. Pixel Painting
They started with a photo of Iceland, then resized the image down in a photo editor until it was just 10 by 20 pixels. That became their inspiration for this amazing pixel watercolor painting. It’s quite simple to make one. After all, it’s just painting little squares.
26. Branch Art Headboard
This natural headboard looks surprisingly modern. It would work anywhere in the home too, not just above a bed. The bulk of the project involves collecting branches and gluing them into the frame.
27. Industrial Jewelry Organizer
Chicken wire is such a versatile craft item. This blogger used a sheet of it coupled with an old wooden photo frame to make this neat industrial jewelry organizer. It’s not only functional but looks great also.
28. Hinged Canvas
Attach a couple of hinges to the edge of a painting and use it to cover up unsightly alarm panels or thermostats. It’s such a creative home decorating hack. It keeps the panels hidden, but still easily accessible for when you need to adjust the settings.
29. Floating Leaves & Flowers
The leaves and flowers are suspended in between the glass panes, giving them the appearance that they are floating. It’s a fantastic way to bring some natural beauty into your home.
30. Laurel Wreath
This DIY laurel wreath is super simple to make. All you need are wire, faux floral branches, and tape. Wreaths are a great way to bring some life to otherwise boring areas of your home without spending a fortune.
31. Letter Art
The letters were created with papier-mâché. They then applied two types of metallic paint to them to give them their zinc appearance. The letters were then used to make an “XOXO” sign in her bedroom and one that says “EAT” above her stove.
32. Pallet Wood Sign
The boards were taken from dismantled pallets. Then reattached together. They even left some of the broken nails in to give the sign a more rustic look. The letters were created with stencils and paint. Learn how to make your own here.
33. Wood Picture Hangers
The boards are pieces of reclaimed barn wood. The crafter did a sea glass wash over them to give them their washed-out appearance. The porcelain knobs were something they found at a thrift store for cheap.
34. Wipe Off Menu Board
It would be so fun to hang one of these up in the kitchen to keep track of your weekly meal plans. They can be made by placing a piece of patterned scrapbook paper behind a glass picture frame.
35. Chalkboard Calendar
They found this giant window frame in the trash and decided to convert it into a chalkboard calendar. It’s perfect for the busy family that loves planning out activities ahead of time.
36. Sequin Photo Booth
Here we have a really festive way to decorate a wall for parties or events. Turn a section of your home into a sequin photo booth. To make it, they attached 600 large sequins to a piece of foam board covered in gold foil.
37. Watercolor Collage
The artist took a bunch of simple watercolor paintings she had and cut them into a variety of small triangles. Then simply pasted them to the canvas using Modge Podge. Check the instructions here.
38. Ladder Shelf
Hang a wooden ladder up on the wall and you have an instant rustic shelf. It’s a great way to decorate a large space with very little effort. The hardest part is probably finding the wooden ladder.
39. Shoebox Shelves
With a little bit of paper and paint, you can transform shoeboxes into awesome colored wall shelves. You might be surprised by just how much weight the boxes can support. They are easily strong enough to hold up vases, statues, and all sorts of other items.
40. Arrow Wall Decor
The colors on these DIY arrows are so amazing. They really stand out against the rustic wood background boards. Use this basic arrow template to cut out the necessary shapes.
41. Magnetic Scrabble Board
This is such a fun idea. There is nothing we love more than a game of Scrabble. Once you’ve completed the project, you can organize the letters to spell out any words you would like.
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
Article Sources:
To learn more read our Editorial Standards.