DIY: Framed Fabric Art

When I was looking to decorate two walls in my my townhouse apartment with wall art, I can honestly say that I looked through all of my normal go-to stores:  Hobby Lobby, Pier One and Home Goods without having any luck.  I knew that I wanted to break-up the rather large walls in both my kitchen and bedroom with multiple pieces of wall art of some sort.  To me multiple pieces create a unique negative space between the objects that can be as interesting as the wall art itself.

I happened to be thumbing through my Serena and Lily catalog and really fell in love with the array of patterned fabrics they had to offer.  It got me thinking - since I was having no luck finding pieces, why not make my own using fabrics.  Fabric is very affordable and the possibilities for patterns and textures are endless.  I started googling fabric almost immediately and found a great website, Fabric.com.

Now Fabric.com is both wonderful and daunting at the same time.  For someone who loves design, it is heaven.  I was able to search for colors, patterns and textures quickly and compare different fabrics side by side with ease.  The problem was ultimately narrowing down my choices.  In my mind the best method of sorting through the options is to start with your base color in the room - in this case I was looking for something similar in both the kitchen and bedroom - a teal or pool blue color.  Once I was looking through the teal options I was looking at patterns that appealed to me - patterns with lots of complimentary colors and movement.  Movement in a pattern is important when you're hanging something on a wall - you want to make sure your eye never stops moving over the piece: following undulating curves, circles, endless lines, etc.  This really brings those patterns, and in turn your wall, to life and keeps your eyes interested.  I ended up ordering a yard of each fabric, which would be more than enough for what I had envisioned for my walls.

While waiting for my fabrics to arrive, I immediately started searching for frames to house these pieces of fabric.  Since my patterned fabric had a lot of movement and color I didn't want to take away from it, so I decided to search for simple, monotone frames.

Fortunately, Amazon has a wide array of choices and sizes to pick from and they are mostly all affordable.  In my mind's eye I wanted to do a straight line of spaced smaller square frames on my bedroom wall and a gallery configuration on my kitchen wall.  Since I didn't want to outshine the fabric, I searched for black frames in the bedroom that would match the furniture finish I had on my headboard and nightstands.  This would provide a continuity between the pieces of furniture and frames as well as letting the fabric come to life against the dark wood in the room.  Now in the kitchen, I have white cabinets, natural colored counter top, white appliances and a silver shelving unit to house my appliances.  I decided to try and keep somewhat of a continuity again by looking for silver frames for the kitchen.

The black frames I decided on were square and simple.  And while I liked the frame by itself with a mat, I knew when I purchased it that the mat had to go.  I also kept in mind that I saved money by using fabric and could swing spending some extra money on the frames.
 

The silver frames I decided on were rectangular and I figured I could play with positioning them in different ways to make a unique shape and pattern on the wall.  Again, looked for simplicity to balance the pattern of the fabrics I chose.


Once I had all of my frames and fabric in hand, I went ahead and removed the matting, I wanted to fill the entire space up with fabric and just have the frame itself act as a simple border.

I did, however, use the mat as a template when positioning and cutting my fabric.  I placed the mat on top of the fabric and positioned it to frame a part of pattern that I really wanted to frame.  I didn't want to just choose a piece of pattern because it is on the border, I wanted to pick the portions that would look good by themselves and act as a piece of art - they should be visually balanced in and of themselves.  Then I traced the mat with a pen onto the fabric, adding an extra inch and a half to each side and cut it out.  That extra inch and a half is important as you'll read later.  Once I did this for each of the frames I went ahead and ironed the fabric pieces to ensure that most of the wrinkles would not show up in my frames.  I still had a few wrinkles after everything was said and done, but I do think little things like that add to the overall texture and appeal of the piece - so I let it happen.

Once I ironed my fabric, I went ahead and placed them in the frames.  I then layered the pieces of the frame behind the fabric, so the white paper that comes with all frames (white side out), the mat and the frame back itself.  Once they were all put in, I was able to pull the extra inch and half of fabric on each side to smooth out the fabric behind the glass.  This smoothing is crucial to making the finished project look presentable and ultimately hangable on your wall.  Once I had the fabric smoothed out where I wanted it, I taped the excess fabric down to the frame back with masking tape.  You can use whatever adhesive you like, I just find that masking tape is the easiest to remove without damaging any part of the project should I want to change it in the future.

Ultimately, I was very pleased with the results.  I think the patterns I chose bring movement and vibrancy to both spaces, they were affordable and I can change them easily should I want to without having to buy all new pieces.

As a side note, you can buy cheaper frames on Amazon in sets that would also be great and probably more affordable yet.  The set of 7 frames below would be perfect for the same project to add variety and a finished gallery look.


Here's my final project: