Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers (No Power Tools Needed!)

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These Magnetic Poster Hangers are a simple DIY that will allow you to hang and swap your posters and printables with ease for under $3. No power tools required!

Let’s face it, swapping framed pictures and posters is a royal pain in the rump.

By the time you take the frame down, disassemble it, swap the picture, reassemble the frame and then try to hang it straight again, you’ve sprouted 12 new gray hairs, missed dinner, and you’ve already grown tired of the new picture.

Take it from me, ladies. I know what I’m talking about here.

Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers (for under $3 and no power tools needed!) - TheNavagePatch.com

My wife is a remorseless and tireless printable printing machine.

She has no mercy for my picture-swapping blues.

She has no time for my sorry excuses.

There’s a new printable waiting in the printer tray, and she wants it hung with the utmost speed and efficiency.

“But, my babes!” I say, in the throes of valiant protest. “Our frames are jerks!”

It is a well-reasoned and impeccably-voiced argument. Surely she can see that I am correct and that the frames are indeed jerks!

Instead of agreeing with my brilliant rebuttal, she unfurls her index finger and points at the wall.

“Awwww, man!” I say. “Nuts to this!”

Perhaps it is my wounded expression, or maybe it’s my slumped shoulders, but a change comes over my babes.

“Wait.” She says. “I’ll show you an easier way.”

And then she whispers in my ear and my eyes light up.

Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers

  • Miter box
  • Paint stir sticks and/or decorative trim – you can get the paint stir sticks from Lowe’s or Home Depot for a dollar.
  • Magnetic tape – we bought ours at Michaels with a 40% off coupon. If you don’t have Michaels near by, you can get a magnetic tape from Amazon.
  • Super glue
  • Twine
  • Small eye bolts (optional)
  • Stain of your choice
miter box, wood and other supplies for diy magnetic poster hangers

Video Tutorial

Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers Tutorial

These magnetic poster hangers are cinch to make, and anyone can do it, since they’re made without power tools.

We know that many of you don’t have a powered miter saw, so we picked up a very inexpensive one to keep in the new craft room for small crafts like this one. It saves me having to run to the dungeon every time I need to make a simple cut.

We made magnetic poster hangers from 4 types of decorative trim that we bought from Home Depot. We also bought some extra large paint sticks from Lowe’s for a dollar – they’re ruled on one side, so cutting them is a breeze!

Step 1 – Cut the pieces for the magnetic poster hanger

To cut the frame pieces to length, I first measured 13 inches. That’s long enough to hold anything we can print at home.

marking a piece of wood to be cut

These were already ruled, so I really didn’t need to do that first step.

I did it all for you, madam.

All for you. đŸ˜‰

Kinda hard to see the ruler, but it’s there!

preparing to cut wood in a miter box

I secured the paint stick in the miter box with the locks.

locking wood in a miter box

And then I cut at my mark. This miter box is pretty awesome for its size and price! It’s much easier to use this upstairs for small cuts than to run back and forth between the basement and the craft room!

cutting a piece of wood for a magnetic poster hanger on a miter box
cutting a piece of wood for a magnetic poster hanger on a miter box

After cutting the paint sticks, I worked my way through the trim, cutting everything to 13 inches.

Step 2 – Stain the pieces

Then I had to go to the dungeon to stain them.

I used Minwax Special Walnut on all but the rounded hardwood trim. It already had a beautiful red color, so I just sprayed that one with polyurethane to deepen the wood’s natural color (not shown below).

staining wood for diy magnetic poster hangers
staining wood for diy magnetic poster hangers

I stained some dark and some very light. By lightly rubbing a rag with just a touch of stain, I could keep the stain out of the grooves on some pieces, giving a nice contrast.

staining wood for diy magnetic poster hangers

Step 3 – Attach the magnetic tape

When the sticks had dried, I took them back to the craft room for the next phase: attaching the magnetic tape.

holding a roll of magnetic tape

I measured about 12 inches of tape and cut it.

cutting magnetic tape for magnetic poster hangers

Then I used the cut piece to measure and cut 3 more strips.

cutting magnetic tape for magnetic poster hangers

I peeled the backing from the sticky side….

attaching magnetic strips to wood

and prepared to press it on the wood.

attaching magnetic strips to wood

But here’s where you will do things a little differently!

Fast forward to the next day after we built all these frames and hung a whole bunch of posters. We woke up and emerged from our bedroom to find the floor entirely littered with everything we had hung the day before.

It turns out that the adhesive on the back of the magnetic strips lack the gripping power for wood.

No worries!

I went back and added a line of super glue on the wood and reattached the magnetic strips.

Problem solved!

So now imagine a bead of super glue underneath that magnetic strip.

attaching magnetic strips to wood

I attached another magnetic strip to the other piece (don’t forget the super glue!)

attaching magnetic strips to wood

After gluing the magnetic strips, I placed the remaining two strips (with the backing still on the tape) onto the glued strips. Those strips will be removed later to insert a poster and then put back to secure the poster.

attaching magnetic strips to wood

Step 4 – Attach eye bolts and twine

At this point, I screwed in two small eye bolts. You don’t need to do this step. You could just wrap the twine around the ends of the wood to hang.

adding eye bolts to a magnetic poster hanger
diy magnetic poster hanger with twine

Okay, that completed one magnetic poster hanger. Let’s put it to use!

Step 5 – Hang a poster!

poster
putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger

Remove the two magnetic strips.

putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger

Flip the poster.

putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger
putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger

Place it on the top piece.

putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger

Secure it with one of the magnetic strip.

putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger
putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger

Align the bottom.

putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger
putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger

And secure with the remaining magnetic strip.

putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger

Ta-Da! You’re simple DIY magnetic poster hanger is finished!

putting a poster in a diy magnetic poster hanger

If you like the prints you see in these frames, you can check out our free Vintage Botanical Prints post.

Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers (for under $3 and no power tools needed!) - TheNavagePatch.com
Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers (for under $3 and no power tools needed!) - TheNavagePatch.com
Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers (for under $3 and no power tools needed!) - TheNavagePatch.com
Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers (for under $3 and no power tools needed!) - TheNavagePatch.com
Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers (for under $3 and no power tools needed!) - TheNavagePatch.com
Simple DIY Magnetic Poster Hangers (for under $3 and no power tools needed!) - TheNavagePatch.com

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50 Comments

    1. Those came from an incredibly ornate (and incredibly broken) piece of furniture we got from Put and Take years ago. We never got around to rescuing the piece (a buffet and hutch i think?), so we harvested it for usable ornate bits. đŸ™‚

  1. Ooh i kike those ,another great idea from, The Navage Patch ‘ brain boxes, what clever little d i y/ crafters you are!Entertaining too, who needs T V with you two around?

  2. Genius! I have 6 of these wood hangers on my wall (and I add more at Christmas time) that I swap out but I’ve been using staples. This is so much easier and less destructive! Thank you!!

  3. Beautiful ! I hate changing out frames. LOVE this idea. Was wondering where the other wood pieces are from ?

    1. Thank you, Shelly! Those other decorative bits came from an ornate antique hutch we found at Put and Take a few years back. There was a buffet and a hutch. The buffet was trashed, so we just took the hutch. It turned out to be beyond rescue, so we harvested it for ornate parts! đŸ™‚

  4. Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! Perfect for all the vintage recipes I want to hang in my breakfast room! Just enlarge them and go! I love the art printables! They’re unbelievable!

    Thanks!

  5. Another great idea! Wish I had it when the children were little, but definitely will put to a good use. Thanks for sharing!

  6. Thanks so much for this tutorial! I only have so much wall space so it will be great to be able to easily change a display.
    There is a company that makes great vintage type posters (Cavallini) that also makes a kit that let’s you hang them like this. But the poster can’t be changed out, it’s mounted with adhesive, and they are about $15. I’ve wanted to hang one of their posters, but didn’t like the idea of adhesive. Now I can make my own!

    1. Hi Sandy,
      I know Cavallini and their poster kits. In fact I really love their posters, hence I was trying to find the vintage images they are using in their kits for about a month now. Finally I found the books / encyclopedias they got those images from and started putting them in a decent printable format. Greg will be sharing the first lot of posters (vegetables, flowers and trees) next week! đŸ˜‰

  7. For Christie who asked what miter box was used:
    Greg provided clickable links in red to the products he used. Unfortunately the link for the saw and miter box is for one from the UK so shipping is more than the item! A quick search showed that near me, Home Depot sells the same Stanley set for about $16. I bet you can find it near you too.

    1. You’re right! I corrected my links to Home Depot. I thought I had found the same thing on Amazon for the same price, but I didn’t notice it was coming from the UK with $15 shipping! Ooops! I’m surprised that Amazon doesn’t carry it for a cheap price – it’s nearly double what Home Depot sells it for!

  8. Hey Greg (-: I love this helpful DIY! But what happened to the paint sticks? Did you just end up using only decorative molding strips?

    1. Hi Constance, since I showed how to make these hangers only with the paint sticks, we wanted to show how they looked with the different types of decorative trim. We made 14 hangers that day, so we still have a lot left to fill with printables! đŸ™‚

  9. I’ve always seen these used with another piece of wood to clasp the poster between them but I like this much better as it cuts down on the bulk that’s really not needed. These would be excellent for both hanging kids art but also for teenagers who have a never ending cycle of posters or pages torn from magazines of their favorite hottie of the month. This way you don’t ruin the poster OR the wall, which is just amazing. I’ll never forget trying to hide all that ripped paint on a wall with another poster.

    1. That’s what Handan thought, too! We’re not inventing the wheel here – just refining it a bit! You’re so right about teen room walls. Mine were riddled with push-pin holes!

  10. Do you think this would work on a larger scale ? Like 24×36 posters ? Just tweak with longer wood and double up on magnet strips side by side ?

  11. These look like a perfect solution for hanging some of our odd-sized prints. I noticed on the description for the magnetic tape on Amazon that it says that the tape won’t stick to itself or other magnets, but it doesn’t seem like you had that problem! Do you know if you used a special brand? Thank you for sharing!

    1. Hi Julie, the tape isn’t very sticky. If you check the post, you’ll see that we had to reinforce the tape with a bead of super glue. It’s a simple solution, and the frames work great!

  12. Wow! Great work here. So informative and helpful. We will recommend for many of our clients to check out this webpage. We sell the prints and posters and our clients at KURIOSIS are always looking how to hang their photos.

  13. These look great! I understand the adhesive part of the tape has trouble sticking to the wood and super glue was needed. But what about the magnetic tape sticking to itself, as mentioned in Julie’s comment? I also read two strips are not magnetic to each other, but it seemed to work for you, yes?

  14. These look great! Love the idea of using pretty bits of wood for it too. I’m looking to hang a really pretty but quite delicate piece of fabric on my wall without putting holes in it. It’s quite large, do you think this would do the job for that too? or will it work best with just paper? the fabric isn’t very thick but it’s obviously quite a bit bigger than a poster and possibly heavier. Thanks for the lovely idea and tutorial! ?

  15. Hi. How thick is the wood your using? I have a choice to buy wither 4mm or 8mm or try and scavenge something probably thicker. I didn’t quite click that it is only one piece of wood on each end so can be relatively thick?