PATCHWORK WALL

This is a little different from my regular posts but I have had a number of questions asked about how I went about doing the patchwork wall in Ava's room so I thought I would answer everything right here. If you are not interested in doing this ever, stay tuned for my next post where I will share my Purolator  story (it's a good one).

So back to the wall... this is what it looked like before I started.

Before I did anything, I measured the wall to figure out how many 12 inch squares of paper I would need then I went to Michaels and found a 180 page ( I only needed 88) pad of coordinating scrapbook paper on sale for $15.00.  This was not card stock, just regular weight paper.  Then it was a trip to Home Depot to purchase a container of wallpaper paste and a paintbrush (to apply the paste).

Once home, Brittany and I went through the pad of paper and picked out the paper we liked best and laid them out on the floor in a design that we were happy with (no two of the same colour or pattern adjacent to another).

I marked a plumb line 12 inches out from the corner of  the wall so that I would be sure to apply the squares straight. I pasted each piece of paper and applied one square at a time. I was sure to brush out any air bubbles as I went along. In total it took less than three hours to complete an eight by ten and a half foot wall.  

Things I learned as I went along.

• 12x12 paper is not completely square.  Use the rough edge (where it's torn out of the pad) of the top of the paper to know which way is up. (some patterns were hard to tell otherwise)
• once pasted the paper is prone to tear so be gentle with it.
• wait until the paper is dry before trimming (refer to the the above comment)

Here's a picture of the wall at almost the halfway mark.  

And here it is completed.

It looks better in real life but even in a photograph, it's still pretty cute.  

I chose not to seal it for two reasons. 1. I wasn't sure how the paper would react to the sealer. 2. It is on a wall that has no light switch etc. on it and it is behind the bed so it won't get touched much.  I think it would be easy enough to just paste another piece over any dirty patch.  I have enough paper left over for any such damage.