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I’ve mulled over the idea of actually doing a project for my bare wall in my bedroom for months on end now. Finally I decided to get it done this past week. I started off by collecting a series of unique fabrics, 8 of them to be exact. Some that would be similar in someways but wouldn’t normally be paired together. Fabric Panels have been used for a long time, and many Do It Yourself type people have probably at least heard about them before.

After I collected my 8 fabrics, I bought 8 canvas, and stretched the fabrics over the canvas. After figuring out what hardware I wanted to use to hang these art fabric panels, I had to double check the length and hang-point of each cable, and graph out and measure the screws to that all 8 panels hang evenly in the center, and all evenly spaced.

How To Make Your Own Fabric Wall Panels

To get the ball rolling and make some of these yourself you need to find some common colors for the wall in question (for decoration). I have tan walls with white ceilings. I wanted some dramatic colors that would be unique and really stand out. I chose gold and maroon for 4, and blue/greens for the other 4.

Expect to pay near 15-22$ a yard. With my 16″ by 20″ panels I easily over-bought by getting a yard + 1/4 - but I have the benefit of making two more sets of the same 8 panels. Fine fabric stores like the ones I got my fabric at will sell any 1/8th yard increment of rolls that are easily between 1.5 to 2 yards in width. The canvas’s were 2 for 5$ the day I went to Michaels and they aren’t the highest quality (for painting) but perfect for what I am doing.

I bought a staple gun using 3/8 inch staples, and measured my cloth to be bout 1.5″ extra on all sides of the canvases. It’s probably best to just pick to opposites sides (top and bottom, or left and right) of a panel to start stapling it on. usually after stapling any given side of the fabric panel, I always flip it over and double check how it’s looking on the side that everyone will actually end up seeing.

Now that you have your two opposite sides done and the front still l looks good, just remember to staple the corner so that from the view of a regular human being, the corner doesn’t have a lip or end up looking too bulky with the creases. This can be achieved in a variety of ways of folding the fabric but you’re smart, and can figure it out.

I just do it somewhat close to the same as wrapping a birthday gift, others pull the corner in, then fold the sides over it. The truth is, some fabrics are just rough to work with because of how thick or unforgiving they are.

If you are working with stripes, a word to the wise: don’t stretch different random parts of the fabric, or you’ll end up with a retarded looking unperfect stripes. This goes for any fabric or material that you use. If you try to make it straight up and down or straight left an right, but you pull to hard in random places when you are stapling the whole canvas can look awkward.

After you’ve got all your panels figure out and ready to go- it just comes down to mounting them accurately, and choosing what panels should go where. I off-set each of the 4 similar ones I have. Naming all the blue/green’s 1’s and the gold/maroons 2’s I chose to start off with the following pattern. Top Row: 1-2-1-2 Bottom Row: 2-1-2-1.

Don’t be afraid to step out side the box and take a risk. I spent $20 or $30 on fabrics I thought I wanted to use, but ended up making better choices after more thinking. One thing I did, was take a shiny two tone maroon silk, and covered it with a two tone brown/gold sheer. To add to the unique effect of that panel, I wadded the veneer into a small ball and stuck it in my back pocket for a few hours. After getting lots of good random wrinkles and covering my gold/maroon silk panel THEN (here’s an important part) sprayed the whole thing with lots of hairspray to hold the wrinkle more permanently the result was a fabric panel I wouldn’t have made if I was bound to just picking out fabrics off the shelf.

Here’s a couple of the unique fabrics I found for my panels.

Update: My Sister’s Variation

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