Macramé is Back Baby! And I’m not talking about hemp plant hangers or string vests, puhlease! Today’s macramé means sophisticated materials, bright colors and fab patterns woven into amazing textiles! This weekend Sophie and I experimented with it a bit and created this cheerful headboard.
I have been obsessing over these artistic textiles for awhile, and have been itching to give it a try. Here are some inspiration pics that I have been collecting on Pinterest. I love it!
Sources: 1. Casasugar 2. Blueberrymodern 3. Asgoodasknitgets 4. Redbubble
Meanwhile, poor Sophie has been living with a very unfinished bedroom. It seems that as soon as I get one project to the “livable” stage, the basement floods, or some other emergency drags me away before I can actually finish anything, GRRRRRRR! So until I have time to build her a custom headboard and the Kristy storage platform bed, this $3 DIYed macramé headboard will have to do. That’s right 3 bucks, am I the queen of cheap or what?!!!
Despite the frugal price tag, she love’s it so much, I only feel half as guilty about not having finished her room yet.
We used three 8 foot furring strips, you could use 1 x 2’s for a higher quality frame, especially if you want to leave the wood natural. However, I had these on hand, and you really can’t beat the price at less than a buck each. I cut two pieces 5 feet, and two pieces at 44 inches (adjust per your space). Then drilled holes every 3 inches using a 5/16 inch drill bit (In retrospect I would drill the holes 4 -5 inches apart). Next we sanded till smooth, then glued and nailed the strips together to create a rectangle, filled the holes and painted.
TIP: Try to place the worst looking side of the boards to the outside as they will get covered with a ribbon.
Next we played around with the layout. We learned that we liked using one ribbon in several places to create continuity, and we liked our weave on the spare side, so we left a lot of the holes blank (which is why I would make fewer holes if doing it over). We used ribbons that we recycled from another project, but I think yarn or colored string would work great as well.
Using a wood skewer we threaded the ribbons through the holes and then secured with hot glue on the outside paying attention to keeping the ribbons centered, taught, and neat. We repeated with the ribbons, weaving and experimenting till we got to the point where we were happy. Then we took another ribbon and secured it around the outside of the whole frame to cover the ribbon bits and glue and create a finished outside edge.
It is not quite the custom tufted upholstered headboard that I have in my head, but it is bright and cheerful and gives her bed a more finished look. YAY Macramé!!!
It looks gorgeous! What a great idea!
Love it! How was it hung on the wall?
It’s really light, so I just put 2 small picture nails in the wall and it rests on them. Then I put a bit of museum putty on all four corners so it doesn’t get crooked or knocked off the wall.
What a great project! So pretty too!
I really like this headboard! It’s so fun and colorful, and it looks like your daughter is really enjoying it. I think it’d be a really fun art project to do with the kids as well! Thanks for the really cool idea!
The only thing though, is that the title is misleading. Macrame is making textiles using knots instead of weaving or knitting. So while all those pieces are really cool, they aren’t macrame, except for the lamp shade. It just made me kind of bummed to click over expecting to see something cool using macrame and not getting to see it. 🙁 Though I am still happy that I got to see something cool!
It wasn’t just you Naomi! I thought the same thing, these aren’t macrame. Cool, but not macrame. Kind of the same thing I felt when I searched for knitted snoods…nope, those were not snoods!
Now, if I could just find the pattern for the amazing macrame hammock that my dad made when I was little…