Hand-Painted Wall Decals

When deciding what I wanted to do with Alexandria's room before she was born, I knew I wanted to keep the blue wall color that I loved, but wanted to add some sort of 'girly' touch to the walls.  After picking out the perfect bedding, I kept trying to figure out a way to incorporate the bird/tree print onto the walls.  I actually bought curtains to match the set so that I could frame the print part of them in the corner and hang them on the walls; still a good idea that I have yet to do to date!

At some point, I noticed that the print on the comforter was a perfect size to add some detail to the walls.  If only I could figure out how to easily re-create the print!  So many people have asked me how in the world I did this, so I figured it was a good craft to post about while stuck at the house in the snow for what feels like the 20th time this year.  Here's a picture of a bit of the stenciling and the comforter on the back of the crib that I used as the template.

Things you'll need: - Image of whatever you'd like to re-create at the size you would like to re-create it at.  I was lucky and the comforter's print was the exact size I wanted to use.
 - Clear plastic roll or anything that's large enough and transparent to trace your image onto (I found the roll of clear thicker plastic at ACMoore, but I can't remember the exact brand.)
 - Piece of poster board (get two in case you make a mistake!)
 - Exacto blade
 - Permanent marker
 - Pencil
 - Tape - I used painter's tape just to make sure it would come off easy
 - Paint in all of the colors you'd like to use - I bought sample sizes at the paint store to use and they were more than enough paint for what I was doing and I got the benefit of being able to pick from tons of colors to match the original print's colors.
 - A few paint brushes - I got a few from a craft store that were a bit better quality than the Crayola kids paint brushes I had around the house!  No need to spend a ton of money though.

The first thing I did was lay out the comforter (or whatever image you've chosen) onto a table and placed the plastic sheet over the image.  I used a permanent marker to trace the pattern onto the plastic sheet from the comforter.  After I was done, I cut out the image pieces so that it created a stencil I could trace onto something else.  If your image is easier to trace onto poster board, then you may be able to skip these steps and just trace directly from the image to the poster board.  After making a plastic paper stencil, I traced that onto the poster board so I had a more sturdy stencil to trace onto the walls.  Again, I cut out the images (see below) so that I could use it as my stencil.

*Note: You need to make sure that you pay attention to where you need to leave pieces of the stencil in so that they connect the patterns.  If you cut out too much, then certain parts of the pattern will fall through and you'll lose site of them.

As you can see in the picture, the next step was to position the poster board on the wall where you would like to trace the image and secure it with the painters tape.  My stencil had a lot of things going in and out, so you'll see I have tiny pieces of painters tape throughout the branches to keep them from flopping away from the wall.  At this point, I simply traced the stencil onto the wall with pencil (easy for fixing mistakes).

The next step was to start painting the base colors (if your image has multiple colors like mine).  I thought it would be easier to paint the entire flower one color and simply go back after it dried to paint the middle circle and to place the dots on the image.  You can do this however you think it's easiest.  I did 2-3 coats of each color depending on how well it was covering.  I had 4 sets of the stencils on the walls, so I rotated around the room while everything dried.

In the above picture, you can see that I've finished the base color of most of the images, left the branches and leaves for last since they're the darkest color, and started adding pencil traces of small stencils I made for the bird's wing and the flower centers.  I made those cut outs using the cello to poster board tracing technique used for the full stencil.  Next up, I filled in the flower centers and bird's wing that I had just traced on.  Again, 2-3 coats were needed to get good coverage.  Then I painted in the branches and leaves while adding in some dots to some of the flowers.

The original image had a lot more 'activity' going on with the dots and colors.  As I was progressing, I made some executive decisions about changing some colors or not adding in everything.  This is of course something that everyone will have to decide based on their own image and personal preference.  Below is a picture of the final corner with two stencils.  There's another one on each of those walls, one in the opposing corner that you could see in the first picture in the post and another coming off of the trim around her door.

It adds a really neat personal touch to the room and really incorporated some 'girly' stuff onto the blue walls that I loved.  I'm going to be very sad to leave these behind when we eventually move, but Emma has already requested an image of a beagle in her room, so I'll be using this technique again soon!

Personalized Calendars

One of my husband's favorite gifts every year for his birthday is the personalized calendar that I make for him.  While you may be thinking, 'Oh, this isn't all that crafty,' you are correct; however that's why I'm a 'not so crafty mama'! :)

With all of the options available across various websites, I'd have to say that I like Shutterfly's utility the best for putting together the calendar.  I've used Snapfish in the past and that has also worked well.  It also helps that I already upload all of my pictures to that site to share my pictures with family (another not so crafty post to come!), so they're readily available to add to our calendar.

The theory for pictures that I use on the calendar goes like this; for every month on the calendar I'm making I use pictures taken during that month from the current year (ex. for our 2011 calendar, I use pictures from June 2010 on the June 2011 page).  This at least keeps some consistency with the calendar and provides a reflective reminder of where you were this time last year; our 2010 December calendar shows me as 9 months pregnant and pictures from Alexandria's birth!  Now I'm no longer 9 months pregnant and Alexandria is about to turn 1 in a few short weeks; how times change...

Enough nostalgia for now and back to the calendar.  I thought I'd list a couple of the tips and tricks I use to get this thing put together.

• Decide early whether you actually want to see some of the designs on each of the pages or if you strictly want to see all pictures.  I've gotten 1/2 way through and changed my mind, so it's a time-saver if you want it to be consistent throughout to make up your mind early.  Below is a picture from the back of our 2010 calendar where it shows you the picture part of every month.

• Do one month of pictures at a time.  This helps with keeping only pictures from that month on the month that you're focusing on.  Emma loves helping me pick the pictures we should use and figuring out where they should go on the calendar, so even your kids can be involved in the activity.
• Save pictures from the months that you didn't have room for to add to various holiday 'days' on the actual calendars day portion.  I love adding some of my favorites on random days throughout the months.
• Add in all of your family birthdays, anniversaries, and even vacations if you know the dates.  It makes my month in August when I see a week filled with pictures from last years trip from the beach representing the week we're going to the beach on the new calendar.  (I also enjoy putting goofy pictures of my husband on the day of his birthday to give him a good laugh!)  See below for an example of the what the top/bottom of the calendar looks like and how there are images on the dates.

 

• Add other personal dates to the calendar to add pictures to.  I've added dates for Alexandria's due date, my husband and I's first date, Alexandria's 1/2 birthday celebration, Trick-or-Treat night, etc.  Anything you want can be added.
• Don't forget you can zoom the photos so that you make sure you can show the part of the photo that you want to focus on.  This is especially useful for the pictures on the dates since they are small, so you'll want to make sure that you zoom (crop) in on exactly what you want to see.

The best part about all of this is that next year when you go back to make edits, the website saves your dates to reuse on the new calendar which is a BIG time saver!  Some even saves the pictures so that you can reuse the pictures you chose for people's birthday's last year on the new calendar without having to add them all individually again.

Now, I should probably get back to creating the one for 2011 since I'm behind on getting it done!!!  Feel free to comment with any questions if you get stuck.