It's a...

Well I got one guess - a head board.  Which is pretty awesome, I'd never thought of making a headboard like this.  That would be really cool, actually.  Sorry though Becca, it's not a headboard.  And the rest of you guys are party poopers!  Lol.

Several weeks ago, as some of you may remember we got flooded.   Our master bedroom took the biggest hit.  Everything had to be moved out for several days while it dried, and while the pads and carpets were replaced, the foorboards cut out and put back in, and repainted... kind of an ordeal.  As the hubby and I began putting things back, we thought it might be fun to do things a little differently.

Here is how the bedroom was arranged before:

It  was a tight fit.  But we felt we only had one option for furniture placement, based on where the cable outlet was (and it wasn't where we'd orginally requested it be placed when we built the house). 

The idea now, as we've begun to revamp things, is to purge and rearrange - creating a more open and serene space.  The furniture has been moved around, and some of it is gone forever.  I also have one new piece in there. 

The rearrangment of things left me with this one blank wall, the biggest in the room.  I knew it needed something big.  I knew it needed to make a statement.  At first, I envisioned writing on the wall.  Even considered painting something scripty on there.  Too hard, though.  I've seen lots of fabrics with script on them, so that got my wheels turning.  And one day I stumbled across this print at IKEA and I snatched it up so fast!  Then my goal became to turn that fabric into this mural using a couple canvases.

Here's how I did it!  First I tried hot gluing two 24x48 canvases together.  (I bought mine at Hobby Lobby suring one of their 50% off sales.)  The hot glue didn't work so well, because the canvases didn't meet up perfectly at the edges.  So I ended up taping them tightly with packing tape instead.  Really I should have screwed or nailed them together.  I'm just too impatient and with the quantity of projects I do, I didn't want to get stuck on this one... ya'll know what I am talking about!  Since the canvases are hanging by a row of nails though, it's turned out to be stable enough (on the wall, at least).  When I take it down it is a bit flimsy, but it is there to stay, for a while, so I don't really have to worry about that.

Next I measured my fabric to the size of the now assembled canvas, trimming down to where there was about a 2 in. edge all around.  And I began hot gluing the fabric around all the sides.  Just a little at a time.  After the first side is done, I had to tug the fabric as I went for a snug fit - vertically as I glued along the length of the mural, and horizontally as I glued along the width of the canvas.  The reason?  As the hot glue dries your fabric will give a little and you don't want puckering.  

Last step -  I hot glued the extra edge of fabric to the back of the canvas as well, giving it a neatly wrapped edge.

This was fairly easy. I needed a lot of space to do it in, so I was halfway in my design room and halfway in the fawyer working on this thing!  And desperately trying to convince my youngest children that it wasn't a plank.  Or a slip and slide.  Grrrr...

The bedroom reveal will continue with some other fresh ideas throughout the week!  So stay tuned. :)

ETA: For my fellow craftaholic Linda, who is hosting a glue gun free linky party (see button below), this project can be done with a staple gun instead of a glue gun!!! 

 

Also linking up here: