Cath Kidston moment

I have a wall in what I'm going to call my living room (in our studio apartment) that's been bothering me for ages. When I moved in I quickly tacked up a long skinny print I had, off to one side (I can't remember why) and a mirror sort of stranded in the big space leftover. This was after painting the whole room green. A green that on the paint chip looked light and subtle, but when painted on looked like a scary yellowy/green highlighter. Luckily it softened up considerably once it was dry and I quite liked how it turned out. But for some reason it bothered me on the living room wall part. It just was too much green wall all at once.

I was in Indigo recently leafing through some crafts books, and came across a great book by Cath Kidston about decorating with fabric. It had so many great ideas. One of which was to use fabric as artwork, by mounting it on a frame.

Then I was in Fabricland on the weekend and found a gorgeous tropical print. I love tropical prints, not all of them, but they have my favourite imagery, of leaves, flowers and sometimes birds or monkeys. My favourite ones usually have a bit of a limited palette, which this one did in blues, greens, and brown that I knew would work with my wall colour. There was also some brighter yellows in it, so it wouldn't make my wall colour look too bright in contrast.Then I found the perfect affordable frame by buying canvas stretchers at Curry's art store. You can pick any length for the sides that you want, and then combine them, so you can create any proportions you want. I had already measured out a portion of the fabric that I thought would look nice framed so I knew the exact size I wanted - 26" x 38". Large enough to fill the wall but not so large that it would make the space seem too small.

If you want to try it yourself, once you have the frame and fabric all you do is join the sides (they slot together, no need to glue/nail) and attach the fabric. I didn't have a staple gun, but if you do that's probably easiest, but I found that hammering in upholstery tacks worked perfectly. And ta da! Now I love the wall. I just have to decide what to make with the leftover fabric...