The $6 Amazon Frame That Lets Me Hang Art on My Walls in 60 Seconds
When I was little, my parents encouraged my sisters and I to hang whatever we wanted on our walls: AllPosters.com posters, Tiger Beat magazine pages, postcards collected during road trips — you name it, it was adhered to my wall with sticky tack. As I’ve gotten older and grown into a less page-torn-out-of-a-magazine centric decorating style, hanging things up has gotten harder.
I still collect eclectic pieces that I want to live on my apartment walls, but I’ve discovered the secret ingredient that makes my home look less like a preteen with a roll of Scotch tape, and more like an adult who does her own grocery shopping: frames. The problem is, buying the perfectly-sized picture frame, positioning the print behind the glass just-so, and actually affixing the whole thing to the wall is such a hassle. It may only take 10 minutes in reality, but that’s enough to deter me from taking care of it for months on end.
That’s why I was thrilled to discover an inexpensive kind of frame that lets me display art in mere seconds. This magnetic poster frame hanger from Amazon is just two strips of teak wood with magnets — one to clasp the top of the print and one to weigh down the bottom — with a cord attached to the top so you can easily hang it on a hook or nail. Simple, elegant! The magnets are strong, so you don’t have to worry about your art slipping loose, and the lack of side panels means the only measurement you have to take is the width of the print you’re trying to frame.
The widths range from 8 inches (for $5.99) to 40 inches (for $39.99) and come in a variety of colors, from teak, to walnut, black, gold, or turquoise. I go for the teak for a natural look that goes in any room, in case I decide to move things around, and I love how it lets the art shine. Best of all, clasping the print into the frame and tacking it onto the wall takes all of a minute and I don’t have to get my level out to make sure it’s not crooked. I still thrift typical photo frames for some things, but these magnetic options are such a glorious alternative — they let me keep curating the adult apartment of my teenage dreams, without accumulating a stack of art to “one day” hang up on my walls.