8 Handy Hacks That Make Hanging Photos A Breeze

Few things bring more color and personality to your home than hanging photos and other framed items on the walls. Whether it's memories with loved ones or scenes of some of your favorite places, looking at those special images every day is any easy way to boost your mood, design a more intentional home, and share what matters most to you with visitors to your humble abode. But hanging those photos and images can be a major source of stress that does anything but lift your spirits. From getting the frame perfectly straight to getting the nails into the wall, this seemingly straightforward home project can turn into a real headache.

Fortunately, there are a few simple tricks of the trade that can make hanging photos a breeze, and we've collected eight of our favorites here. The wildest part is most of these methods involve using everyday household items you're sure to already have stashed away in your bathroom medicine cabinet or kitchen cupboard. Whether it's using toothpaste to get the hold for your hanging hardware just right or a bit of string to hang things up with ease, you may be left wondering how you haven't been utilizing these hacks all along.

Making sure the hole for your hanging hardware is exactly where it needs to be is a tricky thing to accomplish on the first try. It can even result in a bunch of botched holes in your wall, which nobody wants. Instead of guesswork, try this handy toothpaste trick. Simply put a dab of toothpaste on your photo or painting's hardware and press it to the wall exactly where you need it to be. The toothpaste transfers to the right spot. After hammering your nail where the toothpaste indicates, you can easily wipe your hardware and wall clean.

If you don't want to drill or hammer nails in the wall (let's be honest, who does), and if you want a perfectly level hanging picture every time that can easily be tweaked when you need it, try using adhesive magnets. With this clever hack for hanging frames, simply stick one adhesive magnet to the wall and another on the back of your picture. Just don't attempt to hang anything super-heavy using this method. Make sure the magnets are strong enough to support your art first!

Instead of blindly bumping your photo or picture up against the wall over and over again, hoping the hardware and nail eventually meet, try this trick to hang frames involving just a piece of string. Simply cut a long piece of string, loop it around the nail in the wall, then slip it through the hanging hardware. Slide the frame up the wall until hardware and nail meet, and slip into place. Then, let go of one end of the string and pull it up and out. You have a perfectly hanging frame without bumps and scratches on your wall.

For frames with multiple hanging hooks on the back, meticulously measuring the distance between the hooks and nailing perfectly distanced holes in the wall can be a big challenge. That's where this genius painter's tape hack comes in handy. Apply a row of painter's tape to the back of the frame, and puncture a few holes with a pencil where they're needed. Strip off the tape and re-stick it to the wall where you need to hammer holes. You can easily see exactly where to hammer without creating unnecessary dents in your wall.

Gallery walls are an excellent and popular way to bring some personality to your home decor, and to display a bunch of your favorite pieces at once. However, figuring out how to translate your vision onto the wall with correct spacing before you start hammering holes can be a challenge. Try making a paper template first. Lay your frames on some large pieces of paper (wrapping paper or large paper grocery bags work great for this), then trace and cut them out. Tape the paper to the walls and play with layout before committing to holes in the wall.

One of the most annoying parts of hanging picture frames is a bunch of dust usually sprinkles about as you're drilling a hole in the wall, creating a mess in the process. That's a lot of dust everywhere — especially if you're creating a gallery wall. An easy way to avoid this is to simply tape an envelope, or small piece of folded paper, underneath the drill site so it can catch any loose dust before it rains down on your floor.

If you have a framed photo or picture with a hanging wire on the back, an easy way to hang it right the first time without blindly hunting around for the nail on the wall is to make use of a utensil you already have in your kitchen drawer. Simply hang a fork on the nail with the handle facing up and outward, then slide the framed photo over the fork and down until it rests on the nail, then pull the fork out over the frame. You save your wall from scratches and yourself from too much hassle.

If you have a standing picture frame you'd like to display on the wall, but it doesn't have a hanger, you can easily make a discreet little hanging device with a zip tie. Loop and attach the zip tie over the picture frame's stand, cut off the extra zip tie material, then tape down the stand so it's not sticking out. You can then hang your photo on a hook or nail using your little DIY zip tie hanging contraption.