Hello! Brett Bara here from Brooklyn Craft Company. I’m so excited to drop by the Spoonflower blog today to share a peek at the amazing custom Spoonflower wallpaper we recently installed in our DIY studio!
To back up, Brooklyn Craft Company is a new space in Brooklyn that offers modern craft and DIY classes for adults. We do a little bit of everything, from sewing and knitting to glass etching, terrariums, jewelry, and special crafting events like Brooklyn Craft Camp.
We just moved into a new space a few months ago–it’s a 1400 square foot loft in a former pencil factory building. It was a big blank box when we moved in, and we knew we wanted to decorate it with a colorful, modern, creative, crafty vibe–including a cool focal wall.
Pulling from an idea that’s been kicking around in the back of my head forever, I thought a large-scale, photo-realistic knitted wallpaper would be just the thing… and I knew Spoonflower would be the perfect place to make my crazy custom vision come to life!
Creating and installing this wallpaper was truly a team effort! After dreaming up the idea, the next step was to knit a swatch that would be used to create the design. My mom was visiting one weekend, and as always she was looking for something to keep her hands busy, so I asked her to knit a 12” x 12” square in simple stockinette. The original swatch was made in a smooth yarn in a neutral color… pretty crazy to think our aqua paper started from this bland swatch!
Next, Aoife Ludlow, a NYC-based textile designer, offered to help me turn the knitted swatch into a repeating digital design. She photographed the knitted swatch, then digitally corrected it to even out the shadows and texture in the stitches. Then, she converted it to many different colors so that we could start deciding if we wanted pink wallpaper, or blue, or grey… or who knows.
We ordered many (many!) color samples from Spoonflower and tacked them up on the wall to decide which one we liked best. Everyone who stepped foot in our space voted on which color they liked best, and finally we settled on aqua and ordered our paper…. the only thing left to do was hang it.
My very DIY mom and dad came to Brooklyn for the weekend to help, and the three of us hung the paper in ONE EPIC DAY. But in just one long day, it was done, and the Brooklyn Craft Company walls were transformed from boring white to amazing blue knitted fabric!
I just love our wallpaper and almost everyone who comes to visit remarks on how awesome it is. I think it is absolutely amazing that something that was kicking around in my head forever came to life through such a great team effort and through the fantastic Spoonflower services! I still can’t believe it’s even a “thing” that you can print any wallpaper you want… I mean seriously, that’s pretty amazing!
Our wallpaper has already become a beloved backdrop for photo shoots…
…and for many Instagram moments during our classes.
We love it and we can’t think of a more perfect accent wall for our crafty space! We still have a lot of decorating to do here, and all of that is coming along in the next few months. For now, our blue knitted walls are the perfect starting point!
Thanks for reading, and to keep in touch, please check out our website, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!
Update: You can buy the wallpaper featured in this post here in the Spoonflower marketplace.
-Brett
About Our Guest Blogger
Brooklyn Craft Company was founded by DIY expert Brett Bara. Brett is a Brooklyn resident and crafts professional who has been crafting practically since she was born, having been raised by parents who are crafty to the max. She spent her twenties working as a magazine writer with a side of handbag designing and wedding cake making. Later she became a crafts editor at Woman’s Day SIPS and eventually the Editor in Chief at Crochet Today magazine, which led to becoming host of the PBS television series Knit and Crochet Now.
Before launching Brooklyn Craft Company, Brett worked independently as an author, designer and DIY expert. She is the author of Sewing in a Straight Line (Potter Craft/Random House, 2011), one of the top sewing instructors on the video class site Craftsy.com, and a DIY columnist for Design Sponge. She lives in Brooklyn in a very DIY apartment with her moderately-internet-famous cat Fifi.
I would love this paper in my craft room at home!
So did you use the lighter or darker aqua to achieve this?
Is there a way for others to order this same print on wallpaper? I would love this on my craftroom wall.
This iOS unique! So glad your vision came to life!
OMG I LOVE
I’ve been wanting this for so long but have no time to try to make my own!!!!!
Gorgeous!
that is awesome. i wish i could have this for my craft room. wow.
How can we order this? I must have this! Please, the teeming masses are crying out for this!!!
Apparently, custom wallpapers and fabrics are able to be ordered through spoonflowe, the company mentioned in the above article. Here’s the link:http://www.spoonflower.com/welcome
@HealAtAspenwood, right, you can have custom stuff done buy you can also sell your design at Spoonflower for other people to buy. If Brooklyn Craft Co. was interested, they could post this pattern for sale and make a few extra bucks and apparently make quite a few people very happy.
For those who are looking for a knitted wallpaper look, I have a number of versions available on Spoonflower. Mine is a hand-rendered print. Here’s a link to my “Hand Knit” collection: http://www.spoonflower.com/designs?view=24820. Each of these prints is available as fabric, gift wrap, and wallpaper!