I was looking for marikmekko fabric online today and came across
this auction for a wall hanging. $350 bucks?!! They're dreamin'!
Do not buy this eBay auction cause I'll tell you how to do this cheaper. (And you'll feel a primary school art class sense of accomplishment in the process.)
1. Buy marimekko fabric. I'd suggest popping in to
Chee Soon & Fitzgerald who has a room full of marimekko stacked to the ceiling. (It's $77 a metre, which gets you a lot of fabric.) eBay is good too but you don't always find the exact pattern you want or the right size.
2. Then go around the corner to
Oxford Art Supply (or
Opus if you're in Vancouver) and get stretcher bars. Any decent art supply shop will have these. The guys at Oxford were particulary helpful. (The stretcher bars I bought for 2 frames came to about $70 bucks)
3. Go home and stretch the fabric over the bars. You'll need some small finishing nails to secure the corners of the stretcher bars (or that's what I did anyway) and then either a staple gun to secure the fabric or a pack of small tacks will work too.
Seriously, that's it. The hardest part of the project is figuring out what size you want (making sure the fabric fits the frame size you buy) and what pattern or fabric to use. Easy! You can use wallpaper on the frames or any vintage fabric you come across - I'm just a little marimekko obsessed. And you can tell people that you made it. And they will be duly impressed. And you didn't spend $370 on an overpriced eBay auction. Nice.
