pokes Aimee

Okay, so. Vaguely crafty Bitches, I need your help. I have a vast expanse of wall space in my living room/bedroom/office that needs something there. Preferably in the longish horizontal style. I was thinking of buying the pre-stretched canvases from the art store, and then covering them with fabric (thank you, Design On A Dime). Fabric would probably be a Chinese silk brocade, for lo, I am a hoor for such things. 1 ) is this going to be more of a pain than it'll be worth and 2) any tips?

Aimee, insent.

Not crafty Juliana, but I'm thiking staples, and a friend. You'll want the fabric to be taut, so 4 hands better than 2?

You can just buy the wood frames that you stretch canvases on at an artist supply store and staple the fabric to them. The frames are easy to put together. My only tip is that you must own a staple gun. Don't staple yourself. (What?) You can also use some thin batting and staple it to thin plywood or masonite.

Extra wall space. It's hard to imagine. I'm thinking of taking the pictures up to the ceiling, salon style.

Staples will work. If you don't have 4 hands, one way to do it is to lay the canvas face down on the back of the fabric. Pull the fabric taut to the middle of one side of the frame and staple. Pull the fabric taut to the other side (opposite) and staple in the middle.

Work your way out to the edges, keep int the fabric as taut as possible.

Repeat for the other two sides.

That make any sense??

The canvas, fabric and staple thing reminds me of the time when I helped my friend Liz cover this thing that was essentially a cedar chest on legs. Anyhow, the fabric going around the chest part had spaces for the legs, and would go underneath the chest. The edges were to be stapled on the inside edge of the chest. Liz, who is one of the most meticulous people I know, had measured very, very carefully. When we pulled the fabric up, however, it came short of the edge by a few inches.

Liz started flipping out like a mammal. Some instinct caused me to look under the bench. We had almost upholstered the cat - when we weren't looking, he crawled between the fabric and bench, figuring it would be a keen place to take a nap.

Things that have happened since going off for dinner.

Dinner. Tuna on spinach / potato pancakes, with avocado & tomato. It's surprisingly tasty, FYI.

Accidentally kicking the kitties' water dish causing a tsunami of kitty water over the kitchen floor.

The clothes dryer malfunctioning, causing the brief end-of-cycle buzzer to continue it's shrill noise until I went and dealt with it. It's never done that before.

Gave the kitties some playtime. Cos.

Thanks for the tips, y'all. The nice thing about dating a contractor is east access to tools (looks at rug steamer that she's been studiously avoiding using today). The bad thing is he'll laugh at me when I inevitably staple myself using his staple gun.

But wouldn't I want to use glue? Or would that create ripples?

Here's the area I'm working on: Long shot. Closer. (Please to ignore this mismatched candles. I'm burning them as fast as possible.)

I am also tempted by black-and-white photography, much like this: [link] but... mergh. I am unsure. Grump.

Glue really doesn't work, because you can't pull it tight. If you staple in the middle of a side and stretch to the other side and then do that on the other two sides, then continue to fill in with lots of staples, it ends up flat. Really.