Tuesday, January 08, 2013

DIY Art - Stretched Fabric

Happy New Year!!!! I hope you all had a relaxed and enjoyable holiday. I took some time away from blogging over the holidays so that when I returned I could start 2013 off with some great new ideas for you.  

A new year means resolutions for many people. I however don't believe in resolutions because I feel like I am just setting myself up for failure.  What I do believe though is that a new year means a fresh start and time to try new things and if some of those things don't work out, that's ok.

Some of the things that I want to try this year is spending more time blogging, completing some projects that are on my "list" and trying to get my home and my life more organized.

I am going to be doing an ongoing series of posts for you throughout the month of January called "DIY Art".  I love getting inspired by pieces I see in shops and thinking of ways that I could make it myself.  It is a fun and inexpensive way to get creative.  There is tons of inspiration and many tutorials out there in Blogland as well and I'll share some of my favorites with you.

Today is going to be my first post on DIY Art and I am going to start with a piece that I made myself last summer.  It started out in the eating area of my kitchen in my old house and now resides proudly on the wall of my dining room in my new house.

Here's what I did.  I started by wandering the fabric stores which is one of my favourite activities, although I wouldn't recommend it with kids in tow (mine kept hiding under the racks like a big game of hide and seek, not really how I wanted to spend my time).  If any of you follow me on pinterest you will see that I love finding beautiful fabrics and sometimes I will find the fabric and buy a yard or two not even knowing what I will do with it, but it is just too pretty to not have it.

On one of my many trips I found this beautiful fabric and totally fell in love with it.  



Most of the fabrics I buy are on sale but this one wasn't and I think I paid $28 per yard for it, still not a bad price.  Since I knew that I wanted to use this at the time in my kitchen to fill a big blank wall, I wasn't sure how much I would need so I believe I bought a yard and a half.  Once I got it home I thought about ways that I could hang it, some of which you will see in other posts during this series.  For this piece though, I decided that buying a ready made canvas from an art supply/craft store would be the best option.  So, I waited until Michaels had a sale on canvases and purchased one that I felt would be the best fit for my fabric.  It is 36"x48" and I laid my fabric horizontally so that the two birds would be centered on it. 

Once I had the placement figured out, I started in the center of the first side and pulled the fabric around the frame of the canvas and using my trusty staple gun, I stapled it to the frame.



I continued by attaching the fabric in the center of the opposite side, pulling it taut as I went around the frame and then just continued stapling down the length of each side.  Once the sides were complete I did the same thing on the ends.



For the corners, I just did a gift wrap kind of fold and then stapled in place so it would look neat.  Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of that for you.  Sometimes it's hard to remember to stop and take pics when I get in a groove on a project, my bad!

Ready for the big reveal?!  Here it is hanging in my new dining room (please overlook the wall colour, or lack there of!)



Check out more on the DIY Art series next Tuesday when I show you how to make art from crafting obsessions.  What kind of DIY art have you made?  Leave a comment and share your stories.

Until next time...Lisa

I`m linking up at the following blogs:


Home Stories A2Z

1 comment:

I always love to hear your comments on a post so please keep them coming. However, due to spam issues, I will be approving comments before they are posted so I apologize for the inconvenience and delay in seeing your comments on the post. Thank you for your understanding.

~Lisa