tinkering project: love is (wallpapered) blinds

Left: Savannah by Pottery Barn Kids; right: Antique Rose Bouquet, Cath Kidston

In a recent post (exterior illumination) I detailed my excitement over finally having ideas come together for the exterior of my Cape Cod style house. I still haven't painted either side of the back door but I had been thinking about replacing the existing and broken mini blinds inside with something else, something with pattern. And then inspiration hit and I was out the door to the home improvement store.

Fabric: Spray Flowers by Cath Kidston

Perusing the aisle of blinds I was drawn to the 2" faux wooden ones rather than the narrow 1" sort. The wider slats seemed right for a decoupage experiment. My next stop was the office supply store for color copies of fabric which I intended to adhere on each blind and then coat with a light finish.

I decided to keep the blinds in-tact and simply work around the cords. I started with the decorative valance which I covered with paper trimmed-to-fit and finished with a coat of Mod Podge. The paper began to bubble a bit, which happens, and so I smoothed it out using light pressure from my fingers along with the directed heat of a blog dryer. Blah. This was going to take forever. Was there a better way?

Wallpaper! Of course! No sealer-coat required! And I had a roll that I bought years ago knowing I would find a use for it someday. Now if I had a matte board and rotary cutter I suppose this could've been even easier but instead I tinkered and improvised: I cut sections of wallpaper small enough to fit my guillotine-style paper cutter and then trimmed to fit the two sizes of the three sections required for each slat.

Since I plan to shorten the length of the blinds (after I muster-up the courage), I extended them to determine just how many slats would need to be covered: twenty-three. Unroll, cut, chop. Unroll, cut, chop. Unroll ... you get the picture.

For the final step, I grabbed my trusty glue stick (Elmer's gel) and affixed each piece to a slat, gently smoothing to adhere well. Was each piece the perfect fit? Of course not. Did I even attempt to match-up the patterns slat by slat? No way! This is tinkering, after all.

This weekend's plan now includes prepping, priming and painting the back door so that I can take nice final photos and write this up as a tidy tutorial for Romantic Homes!

To paint shiny white

Hmm. Now I'm thinking the exterior of the back door will be the blue of the wallpapered blinds ...

Fickle-osity continues ...

xo

elyse