How to Whimsify Your Boring, Old Hallway👼💫

Step 1: Forget everything you know about crafts

The art and act of crafting is not at all what most people think.

You could be a fool with your hands. Your cutting skills could be seriously lacking. Your gluing abilities might not be so hot and you may have little-to-no- spare time. That’s okay, gurrrl—turning a dark, horrible hallway into a whimsy wonderland requires none of these things! There’s only one thing you absolutely need to create another world, that is, an idea that excites you.

This will not be your typical how-to.

Step 2: The Vision

When I’m feelin’ crafty but don’t have a project in mind, its hard for me to relax. I always have to be doing something with my hands, but I always remind myself that it’s never good to force something. In the end, the vision and the feeling has to come first.  

After 12 + hours a day pattern drafting and knitting at Eckburg, coming home and opening the door to a long, treacherous, empty, barren, dark, quite, scary hallway was kinda the icing on top of the workaholic cake. So. I decided to remind myself of one of my favorite feelings, whimsy💫

Once you know what feeling you want to create, hone in on that vision, beebee! If you have a strong mind’s eye, this may be easy, but for others, focus on that feeling; search online and look for inspiration. Create a mood board if you have to.

For me, I thought about friendly clusters of butterflies guiding me kindly, safely, to my bed so I may promptly pass out in peace. Motivation! 👏

Step 3: Choosing your elements

Now, I'm not going to lie to you all. I really broke the bank for this one, guys. I used some pretty high tech stuff (printing paper, masking tape). Which leads me to Bonus Tip number one:

Stay within your budget. And know that there’s almost always a much cheaper version of the material you’re envisioning. For me, construction paper was tempting, but in the end, borrowing copious amounts of paper from the printers at my school just made sense. 😊 ✌😋

TIP 2: Keep it consistent! More important than the materials themselves is consistency. Stolen sheets of computer paper may be paired well with masking tape found in a drawer! When creating a new world, the components need to create harmony.

Step 4: Execution

It’s all in the details on this one, son. 😎  The subtleties. The little stuff. Let the experience be organic. Don’t make every element a piece from a cookie cutter. Don’t feel limited to the designs you find online. Vary them in size and shape a little. Make some mistakes. I certainly didn’t cut all of these little butterflies perfectly. Some of them really suck. They aren’t clustered together into perfect crescendos or anything like that, and I didn’t have the principles of design floating around in my head constantly when placing them. I just had fun and cut away and taped and relaxed. Don’t worry if you mess up. You’ll be surprised: an imperfection up close can seem so horrible and ugly, but when you step back and look at your finished project as a whole, its these imperfections that makes it all beautiful.  

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