Oh sorry! I was reading fast and was a bit distracted with the 2 little ones running around and assumed the 9x3 was the size of the rails.
How do you feel about some kind of design off a central stem? You don't have to do it all in one go, and you can also mix up what designs you use. So something like this:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]613789[/ATTACH]
I drew feathers at the bottom, swirls/curls in the middle, and leaves at the top. You could easily make the leaf into a skinny long leaf so it'd look like a fern and then those lines are supposed to be very random, but leaves are randomly shaped anyway so.... Curls can always be different sizes. You could mix leaves and curls together to make a pretty design too.