Kid's Room Decor - Cheap and Easy to Do

I decorated this bedroom for some little girls a few years ago but since it was so easy to do and barely cost anything except my time, I thought maybe someone else could try this technique. I had to paint the room anyway so not counting that paint purchase, the only other items I needed were school chalk, folk art paint and some small to medium brushes all from the Dollar Store. I wasn't about to use my artist quality paints for a project like this. Oh I nearly forgot, I bought some star stamps for the ceiling - also from the Dollar Store.

Wall of Fairaes. One of them on a toadstool catching falling stars. The large one has her magic wand ready.

As usual, I didn't really plan things out. I have this really bad habit of just starting and adding to as I go along. Next time I would do some more planning to make the drawings flow better. Or maybe create a storybook timeline that the kids could follow across the wall.

My original idea was just to paint the ceiling a shade of midnight blue and add stars to it. That was easy enough. The hardest part was painting the whole ceiling with a roller and trying to get good coverage using such a dark colour. I did prime first with a tinted primer so I really ended up painting the room 3 times. Once for the tinted primer, and 2 coats of dark blue. If you use a lighter colour on your walls you won't need the tinted primer. I used an eggshell finish that is fully washable and good for kid's areas. I don't recommend using a flat finish. It's doable, but a bit trickier if you need to do a LOT of chalk "erasing".
So I started by putting the stars on the ceiling. I used 2 or 3 different sizes of stamps. I used silver paint for everything. I was going to use various pastel metallic colours but decided against it once I saw the silver on the dark blue. The silver paint really showed up great against the midnight blue.

I brushed some of the silver paint onto a stamp and went crazy stamping all over the ceiling. Don't try to be too organized with where you are putting each star. Just try for a good mixture of sizes all over the ceiling. I also stamped some of the smaller stars on the wall to look like they were "falling stars". More on that later. If you mess up a star, don't panic - it's easily wiped off at this stage with a damp cloth. Just don't wait until it's dry before you wipe it off. Even if you decide much later that part of your drawing really bugs you but the silver paint has dried on hard, just take a bit of the room colour and paint over it.


Silver stars on the ceiling.

 
OK, now for the drawings on the walls. Different technique!
I did my drawings freehand but don't let that scare you. The trick is to do the original drawing using chalk before you even start to use paint.  Chalk allows you to make tons of mistakes and all you have to do is wipe it off with a damp cloth or even just your hand. Keep working at your design until you get something you like. You can't ruin anything.
Just go crazy with anything you want to put on the walls and don't stress over making mistakes.
Once you have your chalk drawings just the way you want them, go over the chalk lines with your brush and silver paint. Once again, don't stress this. Any chalk left showing can be easily washed off after the silver paint has completely dried. Corrections with the silver paint are handled the same way as the star stamps.

Little elves napping on the leaves.

I think my largest fairae looks more like a Barbie Doll, oh well!
Look through story books for ideas, or maybe the kids have a favourite cartoon or Disney character they really love. How about Spiderman? He would look great on a lighter wall. If your not into drawing figures, how about a bunch of balloons, or flowers, toadstools,or make a shape and draw around it.

Arial, a castle and a dragon.

This Arial drawing was taken from a storybook the kids liked. The castle was from another book, I think it was Cinderella - not sure now. The dragon just came out of my head - there should always be a dragon when there is a cool castle.

A fairae talking to Mr. Toad and a little elf scattering moonbeams.

As part of the decor, I added some stars that I bought at Value Village. They are Christmas decorations that were already painted gold. I felt I could live with the gold colour so I didn't repaint them. I also found a Man in the Moon mirror at Value Village. This also fit in with the theme. The Christmas stars in the first photo are actually star shaped baskets. The kids would use these as little shelves for Barbies or small stuffed toys. I added little pieces of Christmas tinsel wire ties to these for a little extra bling.
This project took me 3 days to complete - AFTER I had painted everything midnight blue. The first day I stamped the stars on the ceiling. The 2nd day I started to draw with chalk and I painted each figure right after I finished the chalk drawing. That's because I was too anxious to see what it looked like painted and so I kept going around the room this way. Because I didn't plan anything, I just looked at the blank spaces and then decided what I would put there. Next time I would try to plan the figures more.

Hope you give this technique a try. Thanks for reading.