Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Cheater Rugs

I have a couple of ideas for cheater rugs.
The first one uses wallpaper. I bought a roll of textured wallpaper at one of the big box home repair stores, Menard's. I like them, I have one in Springfield, IL, takes me about an hour to drive there, but it's worth it. This textured wallpaper is what we miniaturists buy from Hobby Builders as ceiling paper. I cut it 8 1/2" x 11" and using my printer I printed rugs off a Internet site selling full size rugs. If the rug has fringe glue a piece of muslin to the underside of the wallpaper, be sure you have straight grain at each end. Trim the sides even and leave at least a 1/4" at each end and ravel the muslin to look like fringe. I've used this for the big room size rugs and lots of little throw rugs.
The next one isn't mine but it's good nonetheless. Have scrapes of carpeting left over? Make them into something special by cross stitching or needle pointing a border around them. I measure my piece of carpeting and make the inside border the same size. I needlepoint using 22 canvas, the size of canvas is your choice. You can use Aida cloth, too. After I am done I finish the edge of the border, everybody has their favorite way, and glue the carpeting into the middle of the canvas or Aida cloth. Another way is to cut the blank part of the fabric out and glue it with the carpet in that blank space onto muslin.
I have another idea but I am waiting for www.dragonflyintl.com to send some suede paper to me. I tried flocked card stock from the scrap booking store, it caused a paper jam in the printer, several times, I'm hardheaded, I tried more than once to make it work. Going to try the suede paper to print rugs. Think it could be great!
Kris  P.S.S. on this blog, I am recommending buying suede paper from www.franticstamper.com, it works in your printer.