I guess I've been watching too many home improvement television shows. Yesterday I bought supplies and materials for four fairly major projects. Today I am working on the hall bathroom. I made a fabric shower over-curtain. The top valance is a large Jacobean type floral print and the curtains are small stripes to match the colors in the print. I want to cut out some of the flowers and apply them to the wall, but not a permanent application. Some years ago I saw a program where they used liquid starch or liquid fabric softener or something similar to soak fabric and stick it to the walls. Later, it could be peeled off without damaging the paint. Does anybody know of such a technique???
Leslie- I've seen this technique done several times on the HGTV show 'Room by Room'. It looks very messy but doable. I think you have to be careful about the type of fabric you choose. (no stripes or overly heavy fabric). Go to
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and see what you can find. Maybe they have some tips on how to go about it.
Pam > I guess I've been watching too many home improvement television shows.
Yes!! .......get a jug of liquid starch, I used Vano (NAYY), soak, paint, dip or however you want to apply it liberally (undiluted) to the fabric and smooth your flowers on the wall. I used one of those flat plastic wallpaper smother thingys. CAUTION: a metal smoother thingy can rip/tear the fabric,
*sigh* don't ask. Smooth from center out, be gentle so you don't stretch wet fabric. Use a clean damp sponge (rinse often in bucket of plain warm water) to clean up drips before they dry. I'm not sure how this will stay in a bathroom with lots of steam but it worked great on kitchen cupboards and bedroom walls. I covered one entire bedroom wall with a king sized sheet in this manner. I made the bed ensemble and covered a vanity bench out of matching sheets and it looked really great! When I moved I spritzed the sheeted wall with warm water from a spray bottle, waited a few minutes and it peeled right off, a quick wash with dilute TSP solution and the wall looked just fine. One word of caution........the wall needs to have a gloss, satin or semi gloss paint finish. That cheap, flat finish paint that goes chalky when you wash it peels off with the fabric, my gf found this out the hard way. :( Do a test, wash a part of the wall and see if you get paint residue on the sponge. If you see that forget about sticking up fabric with starch unless you want to spend a day scrubbing a wall and another day repainting after removing the fabric.
I have fears that the starch-----which works like a charm everywhere else.....might soften and fail with steam exposure. How about some already prepared wallpaper glue?? It is tougher, but can be washed off.
Don't some of the posh set use fabric as wallpaper? I recollect one of my myriad cousins telling my aunt that the "dayroom" in her new home was papered in watered silk. Maybe Kathy knows something about this.
NightMist yeah coz married a creature from another income tax bracket
My sister's former employer -- not just a different income tax bracket but a different financial galaxy -- covered their bathroom walls with silk. It didn't last long. Seems it soaked up all sorts of steam and mists and *odors*. It was very bad. They didn't mind the expense, of course, of having yards and yards of very expensive silk ripped off and the walls redone. But the rest of us, the ones who live in this galaxy, probably wouldn't want to go that way.
Yup...... years ago I put fabric on a storage unit using liquid starch. Because the unit was where our kiddos had books and games, it was used daily. Every few weeks I would have to brush on more starch on the edges but they used it for about 5 years. Saturate your fabric in liquid starch, squeeze out the excess and put it in place. Wipe with a damp sponge and let dry.
There might be another option. When I used to work in a fabric/craft store, we sold a glue called "Aleene's Tack-It over & over". You applied it to the back of whatever you wanted to glue, let it dry 24 hours, then applied it to the wall, clothing, etc. etc. It can be peeled right off...no residue...and applied again over and over. One use for it was to attach sequined appliques to sweaters, purses, etc. Another was to apply it to paper which then can be used like a Post-it note. The bottle I have says you can use it on fabric, wool, paper, metal, glass and plastic. The toll free number for info is 805-686-2932. Just might work!!
Thank you, everybody, for the advice and opinions. After the steam issue was brought up, I chickened out. What I ended up doing is buying three inexpensive 8X10 in. picture frames. I fused Heat and Bond Ultra to the back of the floral fabric to give it some body and to keep fraying to a minimum, cut out the shapes and used white craft glue to glue the cutouts to the back side of the glass in the frames. When I hung the frames the painted wall shows thru the glass behind the cut-outs. Photo is the first one in this album- (the glue wasn't completely dry and shows up as smears in the pic)
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Leslie & The Furbabies > There might be another option. When I used to work in a fabric/craft store,
The fabric is stunning! I missed the beginning of this thread. Did you post the name/source?
I still seem to be missing a significant number of posts. I thought the problem had finished when I lost most of the posts from 01Nov, but I think some are still not getting through. ((sigh))
I think those look awesome!! I would have been worried about using the starch in the bathroom as well, not only the smells and the steam, but if you have a moist bathroom, mold. I really like them framed.... hmm... just what I didn't need, more ideas to add to my "someday" list? LOL ~KK in BC~
Incredibly clever. 100 points and a gold star awarded. Atta girl, Leslie. Plus . . . when you move one day, it just might be possible to move your creations with you. If you want to, of course, and if the colors play nice and other stuff. Polly
The fabric is from Joann's in Springfield, MO. (It's an upholstery weight and rather stiff.) The 40% off coupons for the fabric made the entire project less than $100- fabric, towels, rug, paint and all. I'm sooooooo cheap! LOL
Leslie & The Furbabies > Clever you! They are lovely.
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