Easy Wall Art!

Today is my daughter's birthday, my step-daughter that is. I don't think I've really broken down our family for you. I'll save that for tomorrow though. Today I have a great little project I whipped up as part of her birthday present. Since she gave us no help at all per wish list we decided to dress up her room a bit. She's a lot like me when it comes to decorating a place ... she doesn't do it. Our two bedrooms are the only rooms in the house that don't have anything on the walls to warm it up. I can actually hear a slight echo in mine every time I cough. Sad. Anyway, we found some quick fixes in the IKEA catalog and finished everything in less than 24 hours. My favorite part was the stretch frame.

They sell these at IKEA for $4.99, but they're very popular and hard to find in stock here. Luckily, they had one returned the same day I hit the store. I grabbed it and made a beeline for their fabric bolts. The one I wanted was black, white and green and out of stock. Grrr. So I took my second choice, black and white only, and had a great idea along the way.

The actual frame assembly was really simple, took less than 10 minutes and is about 20" square. After that I pinpointed the design area I wanted and cut my fabric to size, 26" square. Then I was the uber-nerd and colored in a photograph of the piece to plan where I wanted each color. (there just wasn't time/room for a flub up)Attaching the fabric was a breeze too. I just grabbed one of hubby's utility staplers and some 1/4" staples. First center the frame face down on the wrong side of the fabric. Now starting in the middle of each side, pull the fabric taught, pull up and around the frame and drive in one staple. Then, work your way down each side stapling every inch or so. Leave 2" at the end of each side so the corners are free as shown.For the corners, trim away a modest square to get rid of some bulk. Then tuck and fold to get a nice clean corner. This isn't an exact science; just keep it neat and clean and if you need to take out a staple to fix a mistake, by all means do it. It just takes a little patience, just a smidge. ;)OK. So far we've just followed IKEA directions. Now, for the fun part. I had to make this piece actually blend in with her bedding and wall colors, lots of lime green and different shades of blue, so I decided to treat it like a paint-by-numbers sort of project. I have gads of acrylic paint in my craft supplies, which can admittedly get a bit crispy on fabric unless you know a trick or two.

If you mix it with a Textile Medium, it will "transform the acrylics into a washable fabric paint". You can find this in most craft stores and it's reasonably priced. (I also had this on hand - scary how many supplies I possess, very scary) I chose a nice bright green, a turquoise and a darker shade of blue, all perfect for her bedroom. Just mix a dab of the textile medium into your paint and then choose a nice firm paintbrush of appropriate width for the area you're painting, mine were all very skinny. Then go to town. I tried to be careful about staying in the lines, but ... no one's going to go and study it up close where I hung it. ;)Here's the finished piece and another picture of it in its new home. More pictures of the bedroom facelift coming soon.