DIY Easy and Cheap Wall Easel

What could be more Pinterest playroom than a wall easel? I knew I wanted to incorporate one in my daughter’s playroom but couldn’t justify the price when I knew I could make one myself. This DIY is super simple and I was able to make it with things I already had laying around the house!

This DIY allows for a lot of variation, so supplies will depend on the size you want your wall easel to be and the materials you want to use.

Things you’ll need:

-Packing paper or craft paper

-A paper towel tube or wrapping paper tube, wider than your sheets of paper

-A wooden dowel wider than your cardboard tube

-2 wall hooks or brackets that will fit your dowel

-A piece of foam board roughly the same size as your paper

-3 clothes pins or tape

Tip: You could also buy a roll of craft paper and use it, eliminating the need for separate tube and paper.

Step 1:

I used packing paper because I had it on hand. It comes in large sheets and worked great for this project. All you do is wrap your first sheet around the tube. Once you get to the end of the first sheet, lay the start of the second sheet on top of the first so that it’s situated between the tube and the first sheet. Repeat this process, adding as many sheets as you’d like.

Step 2:

Screw your hooks onto the wall, making sure they’re close enough together to be able to support the width of your wooden dowel.

Step 3.

Fix a piece of foam board to the wall where the easel will be located. This will act as a backing for the paper, protecting your walls and providing a smooth and sturdy surface for the paper to rest on.

Step 4.

Feed the wooden dowel through the cardboard tube and hang it on the hooks.

Step 5.

Because the sheets of paper are only wrapped around the tube, once you go to pull a sheet down for it to be used, it’ll slip off the roll. You could either tape the sheets together as you’re wrapping them around the roll, or use clothes pins to hold the sheet of paper that’s pulled down to the foam board. I also clipped a clothes pin on the bottom of the pulled down sheet of paper to give it some weight to hold it in place. Again, you could just tape it to the foam board.

And that’s it! Once my kiddo uses up all of the sheets of packing paper on the DIY wall easel, I think I’ll swap it out for a roll of craft paper that can be found at any big box store. Craft paper is studier than packing paper and I personally think it would look nice hanging on the wall in the playroom’s ‘art corner.’

If you try out this DIY I’d love to see it in your space! Share it with me on Instagram @hailsbellsblog. Or, if you have suggestions to make this DIY better, leave them in the comments of this post so we can all hear your ideas!

Thanks for reading, friends, and happy crafting!