I love wrought iron art. The richness of the metal, the character of the forging, and the Art-Noveau-ish-ness of the designs are very beautiful.

Unfortunately, wrought iron kind of costs money. Imagine my amazement (and my why didn't I think of that?!) when I saw Suzy's Faux Wrought Iron Tutorial.

I knew I had to make this project for my bedroom. (I'm decorating with DIY projects). I actually made this project nearly two months ago, but kind of forgot to share it with ya'll... (ooops).

I collected bunches of paper towel rolls and a Cherrios box.


(Yes, when you live in a big family you can collect that many toilet paper rolls in just a few weeks. And you tend to get huge boxes of cereal.).

Are you familiar with the art of quilling? It consists of rolling thin paper strips into various designs and glueing them together.

The genius of the project is quilling toilet paper rolls! Just wrap the cardboard around a pencil... glue (I used ModPodge), and use clothespins to keep the design in shape while drying. (use wax paper behind your project to keep the glue from sticking to your work surface).




Suzy used wood for the outside frame, but I didn't have wood... so I made a frame out of a Cheerios box instead!

The hardest part was making all the components match. Do you know how hard it is to make the exact same swirl, 15 times over?





The last step is spray painting! FUN. This was my first time spray painting (I used paint left over from m brothers' Boy Scout Pinewood Derby. With my brothers, you have to have black paint for homemade speed cars).

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I stuck 3 sewing pins in the wall and hung my artwork from that.

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Is it pretty or what? I might put more scrollwork ontop of the rectangle eventually.