Friday, February 2, 2018

wallpapered printer DIY



I have a large format Canon printer that prints up to 13" x 19". It's a necessity for me, but a two foot hunk of black and silver plastic can be a bit of an eyesore in my candy-colored room! I've been trying to come up with a good solution for concealing the printer, and I think I finally found it! If you like blending your necessary (but ugly) appliances into their surroundings, read on for my DIY instructions :)



Here's the before picture. It sticks out like a sore thumb!



You only need a few things to do this project:

- A ruler
- Scissors
- Peel-and-stick repositionable wallpaper

I used this design from my spoonflower shop. It's cheaper to just buy swatches for this project rather than a whole roll of paper. I measured my printer before ordering and calculated that I'd need four swatches (they are 2' x 1' each) but I actually only ended up needing three! So that's a total of $21 for this whole project!



The easiest part is covering the pieces on the printer that are perfect rectangles, since they're really easy to measure and cut. For the curved pieces and for cutting out an opening for the buttons, I just used plain thin copy paper and traced the form of my printer, then I used that as a stencil to cut out pieces of wallpaper that would match. To be on the safe side and to make sure I didn't waste my precious swatches, I transferred my stencils onto scrap paper first and wrapped that around the printer to make sure everything lined up perfectly before I actually cut into my wallpaper.

To apply the pieces, carefully line up the wallpaper in one corner and then slowly smooth it out as you apply the whole piece. I can't say for sure whether all peel-and-stick wallpaper functions the same way as Spoonflower paper does, but this was very repositionable and whenever I messed up at placing it, it was easy to peel it up and try again.

Also, it goes without saying, but don't cover any of the functional pieces of the printer. You need the buttons to still be showing and you shouldn't cover the parts that come into contact with the paper.

I hope this helps if anyone out there is as obsessive about having matching decor as I am! haha! :)