Simple Pillow Sham Wall Art

This summer we painted my older daughter's room in this house and she chose new bedding.  She didn't want to use the pillow shams on the bed and had the idea of putting one of them up on the wall as a decoration.  So, I figured out how to do it. 

You'll need:

• a pillow sham
• 4 canvas stretchers from the hobby or craft store
• a handful of safety pins

Here's what you do:

1. Measure the length and width of the pillow sham.  Be sure to measure from seam to seam -- often shams will have a border or ruffle, you don't want to include this in your measurement.
2. Purchase the canvas stretchers -- they are less than $2 each and come in various sizes.  I bought 24" and 18".  Buy stretchers that are as close to your sham measurement as possible but not longer than your measurements.

3. Put the stretchers together.  They are notched in the corners and slide together if you push hard enough (but not too hard!)  Don't push them all the way together yet unless you are certain your sham and stretchers are the exact same size.

Notice that I didn't push my stretchers all the way together because I needed a bit more length -- about 1/2" total so I left about 1/4" in each corner.

4.  Insert the put-together stretchers into your sham.

5.  If you need to adjust your stretchers (to make them bigger or smaller) do so now.  When you are happy with how snugly the stretchers are fitting inside the sham, go ahead and safety pin the open end together -- pull the ends together so that the whole sham is nice and tight over the stretchers.  This way if you decide you want to use the sham on the bed all you have to do is un-safety pin it! 

6.  That's it!  You're done. 

7.  I hung my sham on the wall by placing two nails (or screws) in the wall at the inside top corners of stretchers and positioning the sham over the nails (or screws).  Easy!