Decor Idea: Customising drawers with Famille Summerbelle ribbon tape
June 10, 2009 by Natalie · 5 Comments
I’m about to embark on a customising project with the two white chests of drawers in the babies room. The plan is to use some spare wallpaper from Mini Moderns on the larger chest of drawers but I’m going to hold off on the smaller chest of drawers to experiment with different ideas for a while. First up, using printed tape on the drawer panels.
I experimented with Famille Summerbelle’s adhesive ‘ribbon’ tape which features cheeky pink octopus. They also have a children’s farandole option in blue which has kids holding hands in a dance. They’re £8.50 each for 50mm wide, 66 metre long tape and can be used for packaging, bordering, or in this case decorating.
As you can see I tried it out on a couple of the drawers (the boyf put together the drawers whilst the bambino was around and now we can’t find the handle for the top drawer…) and it immediately livens up Ikea’s Aneboda drawers which are a very wallet friendly £29.26.
It does take patience and if you have already put up wall stickers, I highly recommend using the plastic smoother that comes with them to help you roll and smooth the tape out. Fortunately there’s plenty of tape for a few practices!
Tips – smooth the tape out slowly and use the smoother (or something blunt and smooth – a chunky piece of cardboard could work for instance) to roll the tape out over the surface. Make sure you break off the tape with some excess.
Once the tape has been smoothed right up to the edge of the panel and you have the excess overhanging, use the ‘smoother’ or even the back of a dinner knife and run it down the grooves to break away the tape.
Don’t use scissors to tidy up the tape as it may fray it. When it’s up against a groove, a fingernail will often suffice.
The chair pictured is an example from the Famille Summerbelle site of what can be done with the tape…if you have patience!
Is that your baby’s room in the pic? would be great to see pics of how you have done it up x
Oooh, loving this! Well done to ‘the Boyf’ for having the patience to do it. I think you can buy ‘smoothers’ from the wallpaper section in DIY stores…
Ellie – yes I will definitely do that x
Kat – I’m sure you can! God knows what the correct term is for them although I’m sure people get the idea!
Hi, i was just wondering what you thought of the quality of these drawers? we popped to ikea to get them at the weekend and i was unsure when we saw them in the flesh, i have made a mistake with some argos drawers before and they fell apart in a few months of use. Very inspired by your customising idea!! I was going to do the same with the aneboda wardrobe to match.
Thanks for your help!
Hi Lydia. I’m not the greatest fan of Ikea’s drawers however I do like their Aneboda drawers as they are great value so I don’t lose any sleep over customising them or them even taking a knock. That said, we’ve had the larger Aneboda drawers for over a year and they’ve held together far better than any other Ikea drawers I’ve ever owned and they all cost more. They are veeeery basic but they’re a bit like a blank canvas and with customisation, you can cover up the plastic drawer facing. Good luck