Design Wall Tutorial

We're back from Great Wolf Lodge and I am so tired! We did have a really fun birthday party for my son  and we had a blast at the water park. His birthday is really the 20th and he will be 10 so more on that next week. 


Today I wanted to get out a little tutorial about making your own design wall. I think the materials are pretty well known, you need a fabric that material will grab onto without the use of pins, something to attach it to, and a way to get it on the wall. I found a nice toothy 60" flannel at Fabric Depot but you can use batting or a flannel sheet. Instead of using a rod to hang it on the wall I wanted there to be more substance so I purchased a 4 by 8 foot sheet of styrofoam insulation. Now my car is big but not that big luckily there is a cutting area at Home Depot and I sawed it down to 4 by 2 and 4 by 6 pieces.

To attach the fabric to the board I used the method I learned in college for stretching a canvas. First I centered the flannel on the board and tacked it to the back with quilting pins one on each side. Next starting at the center of one end I pulled the fabric pretty tight and secured it using a staple gun. You precede in this manner all the way around starting in the middle and working your way to the corners. The trick is if each side is a lettered clockwise A,B,C,D  to staple the center on A then C then B then D so always stapling on the opposite end to keep the tension the same. I left about 4 to 5" between each staple.

Treat the corners similarly to binding tape making a nice neat corner fold. Using a staple gun I could only get through so many layers so I tacked the last bit down with a pin but you could use fabric glue.

While at Home Depot I had to figure out a way to attach this to the wall. I came up with this.

I used the ring hangers on the right to create a picture hanging situation. To secure the screws into the styrofoam I made a little pilot hole with the screw and then filled it with hot glue and stuck the screw back in.

 I then strung picture hanging wire across. 

You can just put a nail in the wall but I found the damage free hanging plate from 3M. This allows the panel to hang really flush to the wall and if I ever want to change the location I can easily remove the adhesive strips and move it.

Here it is all done. This is the 4' by 6' and I am going to make the 2' by 4' for keeping track of ideas.  I love it!!


Pétra (Creative Mom)