#DIY Moroccan Wall Decor

Hello folks! I've always been intrigued and awed by beautiful Moroccan patterns and designs. I've wanted to have something in my home in my favorite Moroccan pattern forever! 
So I finally decided to give in to my whims and jumped into a,
DIY Moroccan Wall Decor project

My Moroccan patterned wall!

I'll take you through my journey step by step, so if you like what you see, you could DIY!

Okay, lets start at the very beginning, shall we?

I had this ramshackle old dresser that was in too much of a bad shape to be sold second hand/OLXed. Only the central mirror was of a good quality and I wished I could recycle it somewhere in my house.

The old dressing mirror

 

There was this wall next to my bathroom that was an eyesore after a poster on it got torn off. I had no plans of painting the wall anytime soon!

The damaged eyesore-wall

Both these separate agendas coupled, gave me an idea! 
I decided to decorate the damaged wall with my long-lusted Moroccan theme and launch the old mirror on this new wall! I hoped to cover the traces of the old adhesive and paint on the wall adequately with the artwork and the mirror respectively!

Pronto, I got the mirror removed from the dresser and fitted a bracket on the reverse at a glass shop so that it could hang freely on the wall.

Next came the design. I researched the net and came up with the pattern I liked, drew it on CAD and got four printouts of the same. I am sharing the print here, so you could use it directly if you want. 
The pattern "A" I made is  6" height and 5" width. When you place 2 units of "A", one over other, a central pattern "B" emerges, beautiful isn't it?!

Once you have the printouts, take a sharp pair of small scissors or a cutting blade and make your own stencils like this. I made 4 such stencils.

What comes next is probably the most boring and time consuming part of the whole deal -
Transferring the design onto the wall.
I used a wall tape to fix the stencil in position and laboriously started outlining them with a pencil on the wall. This is how it progressed....

Whew! I almost gave up on ever completing this, but I finally managed it! If you have better, less tedious ideas on transferring the design onto the wall, please do share them here!

Now time to get your hands, clothes and whatever else dirty....actually you could don an apron, now why didn't I think of that when I started the painting work?!

I used Fevicryl metallic gold and copper (it comes in powder form) in equal quantities and mixed it along with the Medium that comes with it. Make small batches, since the medium evaporates quickly. Take a good flat brush - I took a no.6, dip into your palette and have a ball!

 This is how I went about it, from top to bottom.

Painting the outlines in a coppery-golden

 

Progressing with the painting

I left out the spaces in the middle since they would anyway get covered up by the mirror.

Next comes, filling in the blanks! I found these delightful craft sheets online.

Or you could just use colorful paper, some pretty wrapping paper or some stuff from glossy magazines. You'll see by my choice of papers, I am partial to chintz patterns and English colors!


Again dig out the stencil and trace the patterns on the colored papers you want to use. 

Snip, snip, snip.....and snip some more, also very time consuming! As you can see, I cut equal number of pattern A and pattern B.
Well, I finally got it done!! It looked so pretty, I felt it was worth the effort!

Grab some fevicol or whatever good adhesive you have and transfer these cut-outs randomly into the golden outlines. Don't worry if the cut-out shapes are a tad big/small or irregular, the overall big picture turns out well, trust me! 
I tried to cover as much of the damaged wall portions with these cut-outs. I've left out a lot of spaces blank to give it a more lighter look and also to well, make things easier for myself ;)

And here you go...

More progress...

Now the mirror goes up, so I know exactly where not to waste my efforts! 

 Winding up the end with square mirror pieces

Aaaannnnd done!!

Now since I don't have an electrical point overhead, I decided to use my favorite fairy-lights alongside.....Ta-Da!!

The mandatory Before/After comparison!

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and I also hope it inspires you to take up this idea and incorporate it in your home. 

Go get your own Moroccan Wall Decor, try other patterns, color combinations, I am sure they'll turn out really cool!
You could even use this idea in a smaller version, to make a collage that you could frame or as a journal cover! 

Do share your inputs and suggestions in the comments below.
Would love to hear!
Till later, keep decorating :)


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