How to Wall-Mount Your Hand Cast
We might be biased, but we think our beautiful hand casts make stunning, personal home accessories! Couple hand casts and family hand casts look amazing on shelves, alongside your favourite plants and books (pictured). Whereas pieces with a flat underside, especially large casts like our Family Star, look fantastic propped against, or mounted, on a wall. With 2019's trend for dramatically dark accent walls, the pure white plaster of a hand or foot cast makes a bold contrast.
Hang On!
Stop right there if you've grabbed a hammer to bang some picture hooks into your treasured Family Star! We're really sorry, but it's not something you can do retrospectively. A hanging solution needs to be added during the hand casting process. Here's our video demo to show you how it is done.
Hanging Hacks for Hand Casts
Any casted sculpture with a flat surface can be wall-mounted. For instance, a Baby Feet Cast where the ankle is flat; or a single hand cast, palm-up or palm-down. A wreath or star-shaped hand cast, made from the hands of your family or friendship group, is an ideal candidate for hanging - injecting WOW into your wall art collection.
For our demo, we made a single hand cast, adding a hook to the back of the hand. Because we wanted to lay the hand flat to create the mould, we used a shallow rectangular casting container, rather than the bucket included in our Couple, Family and Little Hand Hold casting kits.
To create a wall hanging solution:
Prepare a homemade hook by bending a piece of garden wire to create an inverted V-shape, with a length of straight wire either side of the V. Trim the length to fit the width of your mould.
Follow the casting process to create your mould. Step-by-step instructions are given in the detailed brochure inside each of our kits. When your mould is ready, mix and pour in the stone solution, rocking and rolling the casting container until it has filled every space within the mould.
While the stone mixture is still liquid, balance a length of garden wire from top to bottom of your casting container. Suspend the hook you created earlier, so that the point of the V faces outward and the feet (the lengths of wire either side of the V) are immersed about 5mm into the stone mixture. When the stone sets, it will secure your hook. All that's left to do is to peel away the alginate and reveal your cast, ready for hanging on the wall!
Top Tip:
Large casts need more than one hook, so consider placement before you fill your cast with stone mixture. You don't want to chop and change too much at that stage, as you only have 30 minutes until it is completely set.
Have You Wall-Mounted Your Cast?
We love to see photos of your hand casts and baby feet casts hanging in your home. If you've displayed yours on the wall, we'd be SO happy if you'd share a photo with us! Please email us with your pics!
Inspired to get casting? Find our home casting kits here.