Ever since I’ve been working from home, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the spare room, now known as ‘my office’ and feeling increasingly frustrated and bored at staring at this blank wall all day.

As a creative, it’s really important to me to have an inspiring and zen work setup that I can feel in the right mindset in. And this? Was not it!

The problem is, that pre-lockdown, the spare room was somewhere that I just didn’t spend too much time, at least not day in, day out like I’m currently having to do. So, I just really didn’t spend too much time thinking about it.

But everything has changed now. I’m likely going to be working from home through till 2021 and so I need to start making some changes.

So, a plan was concocted! I’ll walk you through what we did and where we ended up (spoiler alert: I love it!)

Getting inspired and making a plan

After seeing a bunch of TikTok videos, where people used masking tape and different coloured paints to make a geometric triangular pattern on their walls, we asked ourselves, could we do that?

A bit of googling later, and a quick socially-distanced trip to B&Q, we had purchased what we needed:

• Frog tape, like this
• 3 different coloured paints. We chose light pink, light grey and gold
• Sheets to stand on and protect our floor
• Some paint brushes ( we didn’t use rollers because we thought brushes would be more delicate tools for the pointy bits of the triangles!)

Prepping the wall

After moving all the furniture out of the way, the first step was to get the frog tape on. After ensuring all the edges of the wall had been masked, as well as the plug points and light switches, so that no paint would get in unwanted places, the main job began – creating the triangles!

This was the most challenging part of this DIY project, as we wanted to make sure that:

• We had a good spread of triangle sizes, ranging from large to medium to small – the small triangles would be what we would use the gold paint for which would serve as an accent colour, whilst the medium + large triangles would alternate between pink and grey
• The triangle sizes were evenly spread across the wall
• The triangles were placed in interesting ways that would look random and unregimented

This required being able to both look at the specifics of the part of the wall we were working on and then also being able to zoom out to think about the wall holistically.

Painting!

Once the triangles had been created, it was time to get the paint done!

But there was a crucial step before reaching for the paintbrushes and diving in head first.

I wanted to make sure we pre-planned which triangles would be which colour before we started painting, so that we wouldn’t end up with weird colour combos cropping up unexpectedly.

So, using a light pencil, we wrote in each triangle segment what colour it was going to be first so we had the entire thing mapped out.

Once we felt happy with the colours, it was time for the scary part: the painting!

We did two coats of paint – one coat one day, left it to dry overnight, and then a second coat of paint the next day.

And I’m not going to lie – it was scary to do it! The problem is, as you’ll see from the above pictures, is that because the masking tape is still there and showing, you sort of get this fuzzy effect that doesn’t look particularly good. This can make you worried about how its all going to turn out!

The other thing you start to worry about is, will the lines come out okay? I started to panic at some point that some paint could have gone under the masking tape and ruin the effect I was hoping for. But, it’s impossible to know at this point and you’re really taking a blind leap of faith.

Taking the tape off

This was the most nerve-wracking part. I so badly wanted it to look amazing, and when you start peeling the tape off, it’s such a relief to see the clean, white lines come through as you peel them off.

One thing that did happen, when we began to pull the frog tape off at the beginning with less care, was that some of our wall came off with it

From that point on, we took much more care with how we were taking the masking tape off and did it much more slowly (and also not filming it at the same time!)

Oh- there is a particularly type of ‘delicate’ frog tape that you can buy that is meant to help with this if you are worried about your walls.

The other thing about taking the tape off was that my worst fear was realised at certain points where the paint had smudged out of the lines. But don’t fear! This is easily fixed! All you need to make sure is that you have a small tin (or a leftover tin) of some wall paint that is as close as possible to the original wall colour. Then, once you’re sure that the triangle paint is dry, use the masking tape to mask over the triangle, and then paint over the smudge to cover it up!

The end result

Here’s what the wall looked like at the end, before the furniture was all put back into place:

Before putting all the furniture back, we wanted to leave it to dry just for a bit longer. At this point, I think I spent at least 15 mins just standing there and marvelling at what we had managed to accomplish, over just two days

But the real test would be, how does it all look when the furniture is back in place? Here’s some photos of what the room looks like now!

I’m so pleased with how the room turned out. Like, beyond my wildest dreams.

If you’re interested in making a bold and impactful change to a drab wall, that will look impressive af, this was a really fun and relatively easy way to do it!

If you have any questions about the process we followed here, just ask in the comments – more than happy to help!

I’ve never made a wreath before, and I was really excited to understand how they worked and to build my own!

Clemmie + Ruth from the Theatre of Flowers had set up a big room full of everything we needed to make badass wreaths, including the glasses of champagne, and let me tell you, walking in felt like I was walking into Christmas! It smelled like a Christmas Tree

They had set up a personal workstation for everyone, which included the basics to make the wreathes: clippers, wire and the metallic base. In the middle of the table, a plethora of greenery including fresh moss, pine and other plants that I won’t even pretend I know the name of

Also dotted round the room were stations for all the wreath extras: things like ribbons, pine cones, and cinnamon sticks. We all spent some time wandering round the stations to have a good look, and I don’t know about anyone else, but I was definitely thinking ‘how the fuck does this all come together to make a wreath!?’

With Christmas tunes playing in the background, Clemmie and Ruth called us to our workstations – it was time to find out!

1⃣ Build the base

The first step was to stuff the metallic base with the fresh moss in the middle of the table, and use the wire to bind it together, so that it stays in place! Simple enough!

The moss goes in first so you can use it to anchor all the other stuff you’re going to put into it to make your wreath perfect.

2⃣ Gather green stuff to fill it in

Once the base was filled with moss, you’re ready to add more greenery into it! The table had so many green options, and it was down to each of us to pick what we wanted to have in it, and how we wanted to arrange it.

Clemmie and Ruth did take us through some of the more traditional options of arranging, but also encouraged us to do whatever we felt was right for us!

We used the wire to continue to bind the greenery into the moss and into the base. After this step, my wreath now looked like this!

3⃣ Add more interest

With the greenery built up more, it was really time to think about how to make it look more exciting!

Adding more greenery, as well as some of the more exciting options dotted around the room, helped to build up the wreath even further.

My favourite things to play around with were the cinnamon sticks, berries and the pine cones! Clemmie and Ruth showed us how, with wire and pins, we could add these more bulky components to our wreathes in a stable way. Like magic!

4⃣ Critique with friends

This was a very important part! Getting fresh eyes on your wreath so you can adjust the bits that aren’t working, or add stuff that is needed.

It is also worth making sure you look at your wreath from different angles, particularly, as Clemmie and Ruth advised, from further away, so you can see its full effect and adjust as needed!

5⃣ Add the ribbon

The final touch to any Christmas wreath, apparently, is a festive ribbon! I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to add one or not but after seeing other people play around with ribbons, I got jealous and decided to add one after all!

6⃣ Admire your handiwork!

I have to say, after all of that work, I was really proud of my wreath! Here’s the finished product:

A massive thank you to Theatre of Flowers for putting on this workshop for us! Clemmie and Ruth were amazing at guiding us through the wreath-making process, and we were all really happy with the end results!

If you’re looking for a Christmas activity, I fully recommend checking them out!