Imitating designer prints for the living room

When trawling through magazines, blogs and websites for inspiration of the interior variety, as I so often do, many of the same prints keep popping up on fabrics and wallpapers. Of course, these are not usually available at local fabric and wallpaper suppliers and when a stockist is found at a specialty shop, you quickly realise that there is a specialty price tag that has you scurrying back from whence you came.

L-R: Florence Broadhurst Aubrey and Florence Broadhurst Tropical Floral ($143 per metre)

Almost four years ago now, I took matters into my own hands and painted two Florence Broadhurst designs (Tropical Floral and Aubrey, the latter of which happens to be one of my brother's names) onto small canvases measuring 30 x 40cm. By painted, I mean copied. Painstakingly so, by hand. As part of my living room makeover, I'm currently copying another Florence design, a Kelly Wearstler design and one by Kravet onto canvases of the same size. It's all part of the plan to add bold, graphical prints to the room.

 

L-R: Kelly Wearstler Imperial Trellis and Florence Broadhurst Circles and Squares

Kravet Velvet Gate Tuxedo (you may remember me falling in love with this on Carrie and Big's headboard in SATC2)

After starting Circles and Squares freehand, and remembering how long that takes, I decided to try the others with a home-made stencil. For the Imperial Trellis, I printed a piece of the pattern on A3 paper, cut out all the black and painted over it. Later I touched up all the bleeding to give a nicer finish.  For the Kravet Velvet Gate, it was a little trickier because the stencil would have fallen apart if I cut all the black out. I also had to create a repeating pattern myself of the computer first as I could only find one repeat online (as above). In the photo below, you can see I cut some of the pattern out then used a pencil to trace it and now I'm filling in with paint.

My Kravet Velvet Gate Tuxedo stencil

Progress shots of my painted imitations of Imperial Trellis, Velvet Gate Tuxedo and Circles and Squares. Plus a sneak peek of new cushions from Etsy.

I'm quite pleased with the progress so far, although I'm starting to wonder if I should be learning to screenprint or, better yet, creating my own original designs. I do love the addition of designer prints in the room though, albeit with a home-made twist. To make six canvases in total, I need to find another iconic design to copy. As always, the hunt for things that make my heart sing continues!