Apologies for the long absence. Although there has been some knitting activity in these parts (particularly some adorable baby knits for a few of my friends who are expecting little bundles of joy in the next few months), I thought I'd quickly share a different type of project.
By way of background, I am lucky enough to have my own office to work in. It's reasonably large so there's space not only for my L shaped desk where I do most of my work, but also a small round table for meetings / visitors and also plenty of storage space. The one eyesore in my office however, is a big support pole grey and a little unsightly.
Ever since my first job, I've always tried to decorate my office to bring a little colour and personality to my space. I'd already added some cushions for a little pop of colour and some cute little touches here and there, I did feel like the overwhelming feature in my office was a really huge, unsightly grey pole. So I decided to decorate.
Although I forgot to get any "before" pictures, here's an inspiration picture:
We found that on holiday on Copenhagen ! We were the cheesey couple that did a terrible kissy picture in front of it but I won't post that one here.
I did love that heart though - and I thought that on a curved surface like the pole, it wouldn't be super obvious as a heart. It also meant I could add a fun feature without having to try to cover the entire pole or have a square blob in the middle of it.
Step 1 was to find some pictures. This was easy. I have an Instagram account and on my recent 5 week holiday in Europe, I posted 1 photo a day. I really loved this set of pictures and knew I'd want them to be part of this feature in my office. I also had a range of other pictures I liked on my feed that I could pull from. There are a couple of different websites you can do this through and I think I used this one.
Step 2 was to get them printed. There are loads of places you can get this done online. Some places specialise in printing Instagram pictures so you don't need to do step 1 but they tend to be more expensive (and I assume better quality). As the quality wasn't a concern for me, I chose a budget option which was the Big W photo lab which printed 4" square photos for 15c each and posted them to me within a week for about $4 postage (there is an option for store pick up but I thought postage straight to the office would be easier for me). I think I spent about $15 total. If you're also in Australia, you can find a link to the Big W photo lab here. As I knew I'd need to touch them to stick them up and I'd likely brush up against them, I chose to go with the matte prints and I like the way the white boarder adds some consistency to the pictures.
Step 3 was to use some blu tack and have some fun! Actually, I originally tried washi tape but I found the patterning on my tape to be a little distracting. Here's the end result:
Can you see the heart shape? Maybe this view is better?
All of my holiday pictures makes up the first (nearly) 4 rows of the heart. The rest are a selection of my other favourite pictures.
I had a lot of spare photos too and as I add more Instagram shots, I might get more printed with the hope of maybe covering that entire pole in pictures.
I've been getting a lot of comments about how nice it is to have a pop of colour in my office, and I also get a lot of questions about many of my holiday pictures which is a lot of fun!
If you want to see my Instagram feed, I'm "Beeboppity" over there.
Hoping to come back to you with some knitting soon!
Cheers
B!
