Painting on walls

I love finding inspirations in catalogs of things I'll never be able to do or afford. I've torn things out of catalogs a hundred times to put in my "eventually I'll do this" file. I've been unhappy with how my four-year old daughter's room has looked since we got her a new bed and rearranged her room. She had this long wall with nothing on it that couldn't be filled with any more furniture. When I saw this picture in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog I was inspired!!

I love the entire room. Ideally I'd buy the whole set...but of course I live in a world with a budget! I showed the picture to friends and my husband to get their feed back and a vote of confidence that I could actually do something like this. Well deperate times (aka: sick kid, unable to get out of the house) call for extreme measures.

I took this blank wall (excuse the window reflection) and hand drew a tree form using the picture above as a rough guide.

I used brown acrylic paints from a craft store to paint the tree form on the wall. This was the point where I knew... NO TURNING BACK.... like it or hate it it was staying! :) I am no artist... so this was a huge risk for me.

Of course no craft project in my house of three kids under 4 turns out just as I plan.... while out prepping a template for leaves my 2 1/2 year old twins decided to help me out with the paint job. Imagine my horror (and delight) to find they had painted the wall ... but DIDN'T come close to the tree!

I used a template to start painting leaves on the branches.

Then I added flowers in varying shades of pink and red and added lighter colors to accent and add dimension.

In the end it doesn't look much like the PBK version and it's by no means perfect... but I think it fills the space nicely. Eventually I may hang a bird cage on the right branch that looks a little funny... but we'll see if that ever happens.

Eventually I'll finish the REST of the room...

linked here:

Making the World Cuter

Keeping it Simple

The Girl Creative