Thanks to the faux stained glass windows on the Halloween Cat Shelter and a serendipitous black drapery seen in my Halloween Thrift Haul video, my ideas for a fake window room divider can now come to fruition! Can cardboard be painted like stained glass of olde? Will a Goodwill curtain create the perfect backdrop? Can Kbatz work on the floor without the cat stepping in paint? Yes, yes, yes!
After not saving much cardboard over plague fears, I finally kept two large boxes that were too good not to re-purpose – cutting the flaps open and taping the folds with masking tape to create an accordion style divider that can stand on its own. This is both tall enough to hold the thrift valance above me as a photo backdrop (a black curtain behind black clothes wouldn’t help very much!) yet short enough to move under the rafters in my Dark Shadows Basement Studio. I laid the cardboard on the floor, using a thrift yardstick and an old school protractor to measure and draw grid lines for the window panes. Working with the cardboard folds created window squares or rectangles either eight or ten inches – a simple pattern in that Dark Shadows spirit mimicking both the stained glass windows at the top of the Collinwood foyer stairs as well as the fake studio window of the drawing room. Did you expect anything else from me? 🙂 The pencil line panes were retraced in black marker and then a coat of black paint, but the perimeter cardboard will be brown to match my wall color. Before committing to painting the window directly on the cardboard, however, I practiced in Photoshop with some random but symmetrical color patterns of red, green, yellow, and orange panes to compliment the majority faux glass blue. Once I was certain on my template, I marked each pane color before multiple, darkening coats of the red, yellow, and orange – mixing each with brown for a deep but faded hue a la ye olde. New Spring Green and Caribbean Blue paint colors were mixed with a darker Cobalt Blue for their depth, and after a day of drying time, it felt like forever touching up all the black grid lines, but it was really only two days.
Now it was time for the black valance, which was too short for my tall divider so two similar dollar store table runners were cut in threes and sew back together to match the panel widths before being sewn to the bottom of the curtains themselves. The runner lengths didn’t quite match either, but when drawn back with simple black ties, their tiered length creates a fine layered drape. While these fabrics are not durable quality for a real curtain in an active area – and the seam fraying, jammed threads, and bobbin breaks might discouraged beginning sewers – they work perfectly for a backdrop facade. The valance was loosely gathered and glued to the top edge of the cardboard using my preferred hot glue. Rather than a tougher adhesive or stapling, hot glue makes for an easier removal if needed, and the curtain sides are simply taped in the back so they can remain adjustable. The fabric can flip behind the cardboard if it needs to be out of the way, and tassels or faux vines or other ~aesthetics can be added as needed. While not everyone may need a large divider like this, the faux window painting technique is perfect for adding a gothic frame anywhere in your space and the kids can have some cardboard fun, too. Thanks to a $4 curtain, $25 in paints, $1 masking tape, $2 table runners, and free cardboard, a gothic vision came together with a clutter-hiding chef’s kiss.
Click for More Trash to Treasures:
DIY Cardboard Tombstones Video
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