How to Make Gorgeous Wooden DIY Wall Clocks
What happens when functionality meets wall art? These fresh-faced wall clocks, of course! We loved these so much we turned them into our Modern Wall Clock Kit, available for $30 in the B+C Shop. Grab one in your choice of teal or white and get painting!
This DIY project is one of many that are illustrated in our book, Homemakers, due to release this March! Pre-order one for yourself to unlock over 50 of our favorite projects for the modern home, complete with step by step instructions.
Materials:
– 14-inch Wood Clock Face
– Acrylic Paint
– Painter’s Tape
– Paintbrush
– Tape Measure
– Clock Movement
– Brass Clock Hands
Additional Tools (not included):
– Scissors
– Pencil
Instructions:
1. Using your tape measure, make 12 marks around the circle’s edge at every 3 and 5/8 inches.
2. Tightly wrap your tape measure around your clock face and trace straight lines across to form 12 equal segments.
3. Tape off sections that you would like to paint with painter’s tape.
4. Optional: Add a polka dot pattern to some sections by dipping the end of your paintbrush into paint.
5. Let dry for 30 minutes.
6. Peel away your tape.
7. Remove any visible pencil lines with an eraser.
8. Attach your clock movement and clock hands.
9. Pop in a battery and hang up your new clock!
Just a few easy steps to this fresh and functional decor piece! Lets do this.
We like to begin our clock DIYs by dividing the face into 12 equal parts. Tightly wrap your tape measure around the middle and use it to trace a center line in pencil. Make sure to draw these lines lightly so you can erase them later.
Next, wrap your tape measure around the edge of your clock face and make small markings at every 3 and 5/8 inches with your pencil.
Connect your marks by lightly tracing along the tape measure to make 12 equal segments. This just gives us a guideline to work from so our designs can accurately tell time.
Next, lightly mark the sections you want to fill with solid paint or patterns.
Mask off your chosen sections with painter’s tape, making sure to wrap the tape around the edge of the clock face as well.
To stay within sharp boundaries, use scissors to trim the ends of your tape to fit the pie section.
For thin dividing lines, we cut a thin 5mm strip of painter’s tape using a pair of scissors.
We used this thin strip to separate two adjacent solid sections.
For a pie chart design similar to ours, your tape should look like this. Note that we marked some sections with an “X” for solid painting, and others with an “O” for adding polka dots later.
Squeeze out some acrylic paint onto a plate and get ready to start painting!
While painting, make sure to overlap the tape edges to get clean, straight lines later.
Continue the paint around to the edges of your clock so that it looks sharp from every angle.
Paint on one more coat of paint and let dry approximately 20 minutes.
Peel away whichever tape lines interfere with your “O” polka dot sections and make small polka dots using the opposite end of your paintbrush handle. We dipped our paintbrush handle into paint for every polka dot so that they all came out roughly the same size.
To give your dotted sections a clean dividing line, overlap your dots over the edge of the tape.
Let these sections dry for another 20 minutes or so and then peel away the remaining tape.
Once completely dry, remove your pencil lines with a good eraser.
Take a look at that fresh face! We tried out a couple more designs to show you how you can make almost anything with painter’s tape!
This quarter-dipped, quarter-striped design is a cinch for how classy it looks. Once you paint the thin stripes, peel away the tape and re-tape your vertical center line to paint the solid section.
Make good use of that painter’s tape by cutting out pieces to be left unpainted with scissors and incorporating them into your painted sections.
Now it’s time to disassemble the clock movement and all its parts. Twist off the small top nut, larger bottom nut, brass washer, and black rubber spacer and set everything aside. This clock movement comes with small brass hands but we preferred these large ones and included them in our kit as well!
Pop that rubber spacer back onto your clock movement, and insert it into the back of your clock.
Flip your clock over and place your washer on top.
Screw on the larger nut until it fits snugly against the washer and clock face.
Now peel the protective green plastic off of your large brass hands. Firmly press down the shorter hour hand so that it snaps into place on the white plastic bit. Then lay the longer minute hand on top and screw on the small nut to secure the whole setup.
Take a good look. Your pieces should look like this when you’re done!
Pop a AA battery into the back of the clock movement and twist the gear just above the battery to spin your clock hands and set the time. See that triangle indent at the top? That’s where you can hang your clock on a straight nail that has been hammered into the wall.
What a beaut! This design is our favorite because it really helps out in the whole functional time-telling department. But feel free to try some of our other designs or create your own!
The gang’s all here! Hang up your wall clock using a nail or simply rest on a mantle or shelf!
What other clock designs can you come up with? Be sure to snap a pic of your finished designs and share with us on social media using the hashtags #britkits and #iamcreative. We look forward to checking them out!
