Easy wall hanging using scrapbook paper

So I just moved into this new home and the first thing I realized was that I didn't have nearly enough decore to cover all the walls of this house. So I did what any frugal crafter would do, I hit up Pinterest to see what I could come up with. I stumbled upon this idea and loved it but... no tutorial. Boo. So I and ran with it: It was 9 12X12 wood blocks, painted and using scrapbook paper.The blog tutorial it came with seemed fairly straight forward. It started out telling you to go to Lowe's and buy some shelving wood. Right away this intimidated me, but I put my best foot forward and braved the lumber department. I ended up deciding on a 1ft X 12ft shelving board. And I had them cut it into 9 12X12 squares. I had 9 pieces that looked like this:

Then came the tricky part, picking the scrapbooking paper. I wanted to center the colors around our favorite painting: Red Jazz. But I also wanted to update our livingroom by adding different color palletes, so choosing the patterns, and colors and then picking 9 pages that all went together was much more challenging than I thought it would be.

When I got home, I went to work. I had some leftover paint from when I painted Noah's nursery and it happened to be a nice shade of espresso. So I painted all the sides of each one of the blocks. Because it's January (why do I always choose January to paint?) it took 24 hours to really dry.

Next came the modge podge. I spread it evenly on the board with a paintbrush and secured the page to fit just right. It took some maneuvering and redos at first, but after a while I got into a rhythm.Next I bought those little saw teeth to hang picture frames on and had my hubby secure them to the back of each square. (I don't have that much hair on my arms).One of the most difficult parts of this project was securing all the boards evenly and placing them in a pattern I liked. It took me several times and lots of relevling and straightening for me to get it to where I liked it. But the end product turned out better than I could have imagined and it brought in a lot of rich and vibrant colors into my livingroom pallete.
Price breakdown:

9 12X12 scrapbook pages: $9

1 1ft X 12ft shelving board: $18

2 containers of picture hanging teeth: $3

mod podge: on hand

espresso paint: on hand

Total Cost:

$30

The best part is that it covers a good portion of a once barren wall. One of my favorite pinterest challenges so far. Have a pinterest project to share? Email me, or comment on this blog, I'd LOVE to see it!