Redecorate with Fabric and Paper

When my kids were younger, I use to craft a lot. Then, they grew older, our lives became busier, and my crafting fell to the wayside. My large totes of fabric, containers of ribbon, and boxes of beads just sat gathering dust. I'm not sure why I never got rid of it all, but I'm glad didn't. I hung onto everything and was able to redecorate our kitchen office wall for only the cost of some spray adhesive.

This whole redecorating started because we lost our home office when we turned it into a bedroom. Thus, we were forced to turn a space in our kitchen into a presentable office. It originally looked like this...

 

This picture shows the transformation halfway through. I had already covered the clear plastic desk mats,  mouse pad, and chairs with fabric.

 

Close-up of desk with mix of black and white fabric. The chairs have been reupholstered and fabric has been Mod Podged onto the desk mats/mouse pad. Mouse pad and desk mats were sealed with clear acrylic spray.

 

 

After the desk was done, I moved onto the wall. I made templates from printer paper that were taped together and traced around each item. I then cut them out and marked the position of  the hanging elements onto the templates.  

 

 

 

The brown pictures came down and a template of the office bulletin board and some shelves that I never hung went up onto the wall. I was able to rearrange the templates until I found an arrangement I liked.

 

 

Now that I had my wall arrangement sorted out, I was able to move onto making over the wall accessories. My bulletin board had a large tear in it :-( Since it was going to be in a visible area, it needed to be covered with some fabric. Unfortunately, I could not remove the bulletin board from the frame and had to tape it off. Once the entire frame was taped off,  I sprayed adhesive on the cork and secured my fabric onto it.

 

Tip: Cut your fabric only slightly larger than your cork board. If your bulletin board is like mine and cannot be removed, you'll have to tuck the fabric under the frame. To prevent making a hole in the fabric, make sure you place your flat screwdriver on top of the fabric and push under (left picture). DO NOT just try to push it under in the middle of the fabric (right picture).

 

Close-up of fabric covered bulletin board.

Tip: If you are using a graphic pattern, make sure your pattern is positioned evenly. Mine was just slightly off.

 

 

 

Next, I took a frame I already had and spruced it up with some scrapbooking paper. Just trace the insert onto the scrapbooking paper and cut out.

 

Close-up of shelves and picture frame makeovers. There are mini buntings and fabric flowers added to the frames.

 

BEFORE

 

AFTER

And there you go...it's a transformation using what I already had in my craft stash. What do you think?

 

Future to do list:
Hang hooks with tin pails under the large picture on the right.
Make decorative clothespin tacks for the bulletin board.


This post will be linked to Thrifty Thursday Link Party +Living Well Spending Less