Hello and welcome. Today we have one of my favorite projects that I recently worked on. A few months back I created this DIY Wallpaper that I designed and painted myself. I find with so many things to decorate the home are either 1) completely not my aesthetic preference or b) way to expensive. Hence why I resort to doing 99% of things myself. So today I’m going to show you how I designed, created a template and painted this DIY Wallpaper.
Of course, if you happen to enjoy videos a bit more than you can watch the quick YouTube video here:
Creating A Design
My vision for this project was a warm red room with a detailed victorian inspired wall paper. I chose two tones of red, Rookwood Red for the lighter base shade and Rookwood Dark Red for the detailing, both from Sherwin Williams. After I had applied two coats of the lighter red shade I got to work designing the exact pattern I wanted for this diy wallpaper.
Starting off by drawing different shapes by hand exploring different combinations I tried to get a feel for the overall composition. Once I got a very rough feel for the direction I wanted to go I switched over to Adobe Illustrator and behind drawing out these shapes. It was a simpler process than I imagined thanks to being able to mirror and reflect everything in Illustrator I only had to draw things out once.
Once I got a shape that I liked I had to begin the next steps to create the proper sizing so I could create a template.
Creating a Template
I started off by taking all the measurements I needed for the wall I was applying the pattern too. My wall also included a door and door frame that had to be accounted for. I took the measurements of the entire section to be painted and replicated it in blocks in Illustrator.
It was important to make sure that the pattern would look consistent and even across all the panels. Also taking into account the indents in the door which I decided to only paint the flat areas. Once I had the patter mapped out I was able to calculate the exact size I needed to make my template in order to transfer it.
Next, I took an old paper bag to create my template with. I measured out the size that the pattern would have to be and allowed myself a few inches on the edges (this did involve having to cut the bag and tape some new pieces to make it big enough). Then I used my iPad and started transferring the pattern I had downloaded from Illustrator. I ended up free handing most of it because the bag was so thick it was tricky to see.
Also, since the pattern repeated the same pattern in different directions I only ended up tracing part of it to save time and resorted to moving the template around and flipping it as needed while tracing it on the wall.
After drawing out the pattern, I used an x acto knife to trace my pencil lines and create the cutout template. Now I was ready to start tracing and painting my diy wallpaper.
Tracing and Painting DIY Wallpaper
The first thing I did before tracing was to measure the center point of each wall and made a pencil guideline. This would serve as my marker for where I should place my template so it will all be even. I used painting tape to avoid damaging the paint to hang my template. Then I used a pencil to trace the outlines.
This was pretty tricky to do in some of the bottom sections or whenever I had to trace close to trim. But after I while I got the hang of the pattern shape and didn’t need as detailed outlines.
I alternated between tracing and painting. I took some of the darker red color, thinned it with water some water and used a small paint brush. This whole process took me several weeks (with several breaks of course). My room was also very dark after sunset. So most of my work was confined to daylight hours, or while balancing my phone flashlight in hand.
I love the way it turned out and was just what I envisioned. Let me know, what is your dream wallpaper pattern?
be the first to comment