3d177 – Ruler Wall Decor!

Welcome to another 3d challenge!  Since back to school is right around the corner, altering a ruler fits in nicely with a school theme!  This is an ordinary inexpensive ruler with four clothespins evenly affixed to the back side to use for attaching quick notes, inspirations, lists, and photos.

Here’s a photo of the ruler project without any decoration:

You will want to use a strong adhesive to really set the clothespins onto the wood ruler.  E6000 will work as well as a hot glue gun and probably even wood glue!  Notice the holes in the ruler?  I purposely found rulers that were pre-drilled so it would be easy to add the jute to hang it.  I’m sure you can also drill your own holes if you can’t find the pre-drilled style.

Once the clothespins were affixed, I stained the ruler with Ranger Distress Vintage Photo Stain.  I chose to cover the clothespins with pattern paper from the Graphic 45 ABC Primer collection.  You can also paint them or color with Copics.

All that’s left is to decorate the piece!  Just think of lots of dimension, layers and depth to give the project visual interest.  Using a distressing tool and Ranger Vintage Photo Distress ink helps to create a vintage appeal.  Not only did I glue items to the back of the ruler along with a few pieces to the back of the clothespins, I built up from the front as well.  Lots of pop dots and foam tape helped to create all the 3d effects.

Here are close ups of the dimensional elements:

Finally, here’s a photo as it looks with items clipped to the clothespins.

I sure hope you enjoyed today’s challenge and are inspired to try your own altered ruler project!  I also see this project as a fun seasonal wall decor piece during the holidays.

If you’d like to play along, upload a photo of your altered ruler to the Paper Craft Planet gallery using the keyword 3d177.  

hugs, Lyn