Building a better display

I'm sure everyone has problems with finding a space to take decent pictures for their Etsy items. I'm sure everyone also has problems figuring out what the heck to do with that one blank spot of their house. With my wonderful dad priming the house for a fresh coat of paint I got inspired to do something about the void in my living room.

So here's the blank canvas in my living room. It's a tiny little wall with the kitchen on one side, and a small hallway on another. Last year the living room was repainted to a fun sky blue. While a welcome change from the hospital white I've known all my life it still needed something, yaddaimean?

So let's fix that. First we need a statement piece. Something big, bold, yet cleanly designed, goes with the colors of the room, and has its own story to tell...




...that oughta do it. It's a huge frame that I found in my dad's garage/man zone from his old lithography job. I gave it a good cleaning and fixed the joints where I could. Years of staying in a humid space took its toll though. The wood warped to the point that my leveler couldn't find a straight edge and no corner is can be completely flush. But no matter. When you have an old house in the San Francisco Bay Area you know that nothing in the house is completely level.

With the design I had in mind I couldn't just put a couple of screws and wire the back of the frame. I needed something that can take the weight of a relatively heavy frame. Thank you 3M for your glorious Command Strips.


I got to work with my fancy ribbon and some good ol' fashioned Aleene's Tacky glue. Partway through my crosshatching I realized that the ribbon I used was really translucent. So much so even my camera struggled to take a decent picture of the stuff.

But it's going to take more than stupid gauze to discourage me from getting this project completed. The next day I returned to my craft store and purchased more ribbon, this time in semi-transparent and opaque shades of cream. Rather than just a plain basket weave I'm going to make a gradient basket weave! Genius~~ I returned home and quickly got back to work.

Did I use a ruler or some sort of measuring device to do a proper grid or layout? Nope. When did I remember to do something smart like that? Oh, only after the glue dried. No matter! We shall continue on to the bitter end and see this project completed, warts and all.

I put some reinforcements on the top rows and all the columns.

We're almost done at this point. Gotta wait for that glue to dry up and set the ribbons onto the frame.

We let it rest overnight. Through the power of Internet magic voila! A fantastic piece of art that also doubles as a way to display artwork.

...now to actually, y'know, put pictures on it and list new items in my Etsy shop and such... >_>