I am currently embarking on a huge task of decorating my home. Every single room in the house was magnolia. Well, now I have my first room almost completed. All I need are some new lightshades.
I recently visited the Grand Designs Exhibition at the National Exhibition Centre. It was there that I fell in love with this collage from 1Wall.
I was really excited when I was one of twenty bloggers chosen to review something from 1Wall and of course I chose the collage.
It arrived in a box with a picture of all the pieces inside on the back. I found this useful when making up my design, it saved searching through the box.
I had already decided that I wanted to spell out something rather than just put them up alphabetically, so I knew which letters I was looking for.
My next decision was how to place them on the wall. I tried placing them on the floor but it didn’t give me an impression of what they would look like. So I put a tiny piece of blu-tack on the pieces I wanted and experimented by sticking them up. It took a while and a lot of shifting patterns before I decided to go with a neat block of letters. To be honest, I do have a problem with abstract and random things so it made sense to go neat and uniform. That’s just my style.
Once I was certain of my design my next step was to measure where they would go. I knew each line would be eight pieces long, so I blu-tacked eight pieces back on the wall to measure where I wanted them to start and finish.
My next job was to measure how far from the ceiling they would go and to lightly mark the wall so I knew where each piece on the top line was going. Because I wanted them uniform the preparation had to be done.
I sorted out each piece I was using and put them in order. Then I began pasting them. I was provided with the paste which just had to be mixed with water.
I found that working with four pieces at a time was best, it was just enough time, around two minutes, for each piece to soak up the paste and be ready for hanging.
The top line took longest as I had to make sure it was all straight and neat, after that the job was a lot easier and it took me just under an hour to complete.
I was really pleased with the result. Like wallpaper they bubbled up a little after application but once dried they are smooth and flat.
As the pack contains 64 pieces and I only used 24 I still have 40 pieces left (yay, I can do math too)
I’m thinking of putting these up in the alcove in my bedroom later on. The collage I created is 220 cm wide by 112.5 cm long
Overall, I found them really easy to put up and they look really effective. I painted my hallway a very light coffee colour a couple of weeks ago and they work really well. However, they are very neutral shades and would work with most colour schemes. They cost £49.99 for a pack of 64 including wallpaper paste. They can be cut to size or overlapped depending on your design. The pack comes with full instructions and decorating ideas. You can also find decorating ideas on the website along with a video.
Disclaimer: As stated I received this collage from 1 Wall for the purpose of this review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Great idea and looks great, you could decorate a whole wall and create a word search with the family name 😉
haha Andre, you are probably right 😉 We have a big family but a lot of shared letters!
That looks absolutely fantastic! What a lovely idea x
Thank you Kim, I'm really pleased with it x
That is so intersting! I always thought they come in just a piece but now yours are so unique!
It was a little scary sorting them out Eileen, but I like their uniqueness and now I have to find something unique for every room 🙂
Brilliant, I love it! You must be very patient though, not sure I'd cope with the stress of doing this….! x
To be honest Steph, it was actually easier than I expected, before it arrived I had nightmares about how I would arrange it, I'm far to OCD for anything random or not uniform, lol x
Wow – looks fantastic! What a great way to give a room a makeover. x
I know it's a little more permanent than hanging a picture, but it has really brightened up the wall x