Add your own custom art to your walls with these easy fabric printed scrolls! Print on your own laser printer and the best thing is that you get to pick the art that goes on them!

This DIY fabric printed scroll wall hanging was a fun project to make. My scrolls are on the smaller side of some of the big scroll art I have seen, but I think they turned out fantastic! After making these, I may need to make a bigger one as well!

Don’t you just love the way scrolls look? What is it about scrolls that are so cool? Maybe it is because we are so intrigued with items from history, to think that is what they really used to write on just blows my mind. I think it is really because it reminds us of a time long ago that we romanticize in movies and books. However, would we really want to live back in the era of scrolls? I don’t think so… LOL! Well, even so, I have been wanting to make some scrolls for a while because I love the way they look too.

This will actually be a two for one tutorial because I will be showing you how to print on fabric and how to make the scrolls. Just be prepared, it is a longer post but filled with lots of great information! My scrolls have birds on them to go with my spring farmhouse bird mantel, but you could make them into whatever you want. I can think of so many great ideas, like botanicals for summer, pumpkins in the fall or just word sayings for anytime!

Supplies to make fabric printed scrolls

*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.

• Freezer Paper
• Laser Printer
• Fabric – I used muslin fabric
• Cutting mat, rotary cutter and 24″ ruler – this is optional, you can just use scissors to cut your fabric but this makes cutting fabric so much easier!
• Iron
• Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks
• Kraft Paper
• 1/2 inch dowels
• Drill with small bit
• Miter Saw or Hand Saw
• Stain for dowels (optional)
• Jute twine
• Spray adhesive
• Scotch tape
• Mini Command Hooks

Cut your fabric and paper to size

First you will want to determine how big you want your scroll wall hanging to be. I wanted mine to fit on the shiplap backdrop on my mantel and I wanted 4 of them so I decided to go with a smaller size. Obviously since we are printing on fabric for this method, you will also be limited by the size that your printer prints. So I was just going to keep it easy and cut the fabric the size of a piece of paper, 8.5″ x 11″.

The muslin I used was a scrap piece of fabric I had, and there was just enough to make 4 scrolls. You can guess where this is going, I am sure. 🙂 Of course, Murphy’s Law, somehow I got my measurements screwed up and ended up cutting one of the pieces too narrow! Ugh! So that is why two of my scrolls are a little bit narrower than the other two. No worries, it all worked out! So the measurements for my fabric were:

• Wider pieces = 8.5″ x 11″ 
• Narrow pieces = 7.25″ x 11″

When cutting the kraft paper, I just cut it 3/4″ wider than my fabric. I cut the width off the end of the roll but left the length the whole 36 inches so there would be enough to roll up on the scrolls. The measurements for my kraft paper were:

• Wider pieces = 9.25″ x 36″ 
• Narrow pieces = 8″ x 36″

Select the images you want to print

Find the image you want to print and size the image to fit onto a word document. I just googled bird images to find the ones I used. If you would like to use these same images I have linked them below:

• Blue Birds
• Gray Bird
• Yellow Bird
• Yellow and Black Bird

How to print on fabric with a laser printer

The easiest way to print on fabric is the freezer paper technique. This also works with an ink jet printer if that is what you have. I could not find a lot of information prior to trying this if this would work on a laser printer when researching it, but spoiler alert, it totally does! Score!

Cut four pieces of freezer paper the same as a regular piece of paper, 8.5″ x 11″. The freezer paper is actually what is going to be feeding through the printer and it will give the fabric the stability it needs to be printed on. 

Line up the freezer paper directly onto the fabric piece and iron the shiny side of the freezer paper down onto your fabric. The plastic coating will stick to the fabric to hold it on there while printing, but don’t worry it comes off easily and does not leave any residue on the fabric. Cut any loose threads from the edges of the fabric.

Feed the freezer paper into the printer just like a normal piece of paper. Make sure you know which side to load up vs. down. It is a good idea to test print a piece of paper before you do this so you don’t print on the wrong side. An easy way to do this is just mark an ‘X’ in one corner and pay attention to how you load the paper on where the ‘X’ is. If the ‘X’ comes up on the printed side, you are good. 🙂

The printed fabric will peel right off of the freezer paper. There will be a little ink residue on the freezer paper which is a little wet so make sure not to get that all over. 🙂

I wanted to make the edges a little frayed so it looked like an older piece of fabric so I just pulled a couple threads from all the edges. If the thread does not go straight across (like at the top of the fabric in the picture below), you will have to cut the thread after pulling it a bit so it does not go lower than you want it to. Be careful when doing this, you can always take more threads off, but you can’t add them back on. 😉

Cutting and staining the dowels

I bought two 1/2″ x 48″ dowels to make 4 scrolls. I had Mr. Wonderful cut the dowels for me. We cut the wider dowels to 11.25″ and the narrower dowels to 10″.

He gave a great tip when cutting dowels. Put blue painter’s tape around the area where you will make your cut. This will keep the edges of the cut nice and clean. He cut the dowels on a miter saw but a hand saw would work just as well.

See how the dowel on the left is a much cleaner cut than the one on the right that was cut without using blue tape? 

We used Minwax stain in Fruitwood to give a light vintage color to the dowels.

I did not put any top coat on the dowels as I wanted them to look older. I just put them in a mason jar to let them dry while we assembled the scrolls.

Assembling the scrolls

To attach the fabric to the kraft paper, we used a spray adhesive. We covered our work bench with a plastic drop cloth and masked off any area outside of the fabric. This way we did not get the spray adhesive all over. Apply a generous amount of adhesive to the back of the fabric.

Enlist some help to transfer the fabric to the kraft paper! It is much easier with help. We laid a couple pieces of scrap wood on the kraft paper to flatten it out, then measured and lightly marked where the fabric would go. Mr. Wonderful and I lifted the fabric by the corners and flipped it over to gently to apply it to the kraft paper. Hold it taut while you figure out the placement before you place it down or it will stick where you don’t want it to! Starting in the center and working out, we used a brayer to roll the fabric down completely onto the paper. Alternatively you could use your hands to press it down in the same fashion if you don’t have a brayer.

Attaching the dowels to the paper

To attach the dowels onto the kraft paper, I rolled them onto each end. It was easiest to start the roll by adhering the paper to the dowel by using three pieces of scotch tape.

Then I continued to roll the dowel evenly to make sure the roll stayed straight. Towards the end of the roll, I ran a thin bead of hot glue along the length of the dowel and held it in place for a few seconds to make sure the glue was dry.

After attaching the dowels to the kraft paper to make the scrolls, we had to drill a hole into each side of the top dowel. This would make it easier to attach the jute twine to hang the scroll from. We used a drill bit that was just a tad bigger than the jute twine. Mr. W drilled a hole 1/2 inch in from the edges on each top dowel.

Attach the jute twine

Run the jute twine down through the hole you just drilled. Leave yourself about 6-7 inches on the end but do not cut the other end of the jute for now.

Add a dab of hot glue onto the dowel and start wrapping the jute around the dowel ends.

I wrapped 4 times around the dowel and ended it on the back side of the scroll. Glue down the end to give a nice finished look.

Lastly figure out how much twine to leave for hanging purposes and then cut the twine leaving enough for you to repeat this on the other side. I also added some longer pieces of jute twine to the ends. They are about 6-8 inches long. I just hot glued them to the back of the wrapped twine on the inside wrap. It gives the appearance that it is a continuous piece of twine.

How to hang the scrolls

I hung my scrolls by some mini clear command hooks as I did not want to put nail holes into the shiplap backdrop piece and the command hooks were barely noticeable.

Whew! We made it through! Are you still hanging with me? I know it was a long post but it is so worth it! I love how these scrolls turned out and they store very easily! Just roll them up and lightly wrap a rubber band around them. That way you can enjoy them again and again over the years! 🙂 Check out my spring mantel post for more pictures of this DIY fabric printed scroll wall hanging!