The Living Room Floor

The living room floor in the book is a beautiful wood pattern that takes over 500 pieces of wood to stain and cut out - but I think I can speed up the process a little and make something just as pretty using my embossing folders and some cereal box cardboard. So I pressed out about twelve pieces of the same basic pattern using my cuttlebug and a Paper Studio embossing folder.

My pieces were not wide enough to cut the pattern on the diagonal so I had to cut the pattern pieces square and then set them diagonally. I painted them with a burnt sienna acrylic paint and then did a dry brush technique and a wash using beige on some of the rectangles with a burnt sienna wash over that to blend it in. I varied the colors and amount of paint to make it look like wood grain. I used the same basic pattern to lay out the floor with my pieces. They kinda look like waffles at this stage!

I glued the embossed pieces to poster board, adding burnt sienna strips around each piece like the pattern in the book until I had a beautiful flooring piece. I let the floor dry overnight with a couple of books on top for weight and the next day I glued it into the room and coated it with a matte Mod Podge finish. Beautiful!