I decided to challenge myself the other weekend. I thought the front door of W's new apartment looked rather bare, so I took it upon myself to make a door hanger that was manly (his stipulation). And... let's just say the front door is still bare, but the Texas pride shelf in the apartment has a new addition! Eh, I tried. :P
I'm pretty proud of myself for thinking this one up all on my own (aka I didn't find it on Pinterest, although I'm sure it's on there somewhere!). First off, I gathered a slew of belts in Texan colors - red, white, and blue - and a sturdy wooden frame (which was 99 cents!).
The belts were a steal - the gray tags were even discounted at half off!
Total cost for belts: $10.81 (the pink tag was 15% off)
I tested out my idea in the thrift store, so I knew I was coming home with the right amount of belts for what I wanted. After snipping off all the tags, I settled down to work.
I began by wrapping my first belt around the frame and securing it tightly on the back. I played around with the idea of having the belt buckles show but opted for a cleaner look by hiding them.
After wrapping and spacing both of my white belts, I moved to the reds.
To keep the extra lengths from flapping, I slipped a rubber band on each belt and fed the extra bit through until it was smooth and taut. Did this require me to unbuckle/rebuckle each belt? Yes, yes it did. Hindsight is 20/20. I could have trimmed and/or glued the leftover pieces, but I wasn't convinced that these belts' journeys would end as part of a door display, so I left them fully intact, just in case.
I purposefully aligned the buckles on the side opposite the blue in order to balance out the extra weight that came with wrapping two additional belts (three, if you count the star) around one end of the frame.
I linked the two blue belts together to form a single long one, then wrapped it around the left side three times, buckling and banding it in the back. The star was a bit trickier, and I ended up just knotting my final white belt into a rough star-like shape. I think it hints enough at the real thing. :P
I tied a length of suede cord to each top corner, and voilà! There you have it! A manly Texan