Free Wall Decor

Since I feel like the mess is under control, and our house is mostly arranged how I want, I’ve started decorating. So far, just the kidlet’s room, but they get most excited anyway. I did this last year when we renting a place, and my daughter LOVED it. She asked for the polka dots when we moved, so as soon as we found them, we hung them up. The best part is this is FREE! You have the stuff in your kitchen pantry and your craft room. How awesome is that? I’ve done this twice on 2 different textured walls, and it’s worked both times, so it should work for you. If you’ve seen the idea of ironing up fabric on your walls, that still requires you buy the special iron decal stuff. This is F-R-E-E!!
First thing is cut your fabric in the design you want. I did polka dots by using different bowls and cups and tracing their shape out while watching TV in the evening and then cutting them out.

When I had a good stack in the colors of my daughter’s room, I started hanging them up.
 
Here’s the concoction you want to mix up to hang these bad boys:
Mix 1/4 cup corn starch + 1/2 cup cold water, then add 4 cups boiling water
Because I’m so nice, I’ve already done the math to give you different amounts.
Mix 1 tbsp. corn starch + 2 tbsp. cold water, then add 1 cup boiling water
Mix 2 tbsp. corn starch + 1/4 cup cold water, then add 2 cups boiling water
The 1 cup mixture was just barely shy of being enough to hang the 20+ dots and tree/leaves. And let’s face it, if you have extra, you can always make gravy!!
Let it cool, and when it’s ready, dip your fabric in, get it nice and wet, then wring it out and hang it on the wall. Just smooth it out, and you’re done! It may drip a little, but just wipe it off with a towel. Once they’re dry, you’re set! I think I may cut out some more circles because this room is about twice as big as the other room I did it in last time. By the way, when you’re ready to take them off, you just pull it off the wall. Super easy! You may need to wipe the wall off so the extra threads and outline is wiped off, but not too bad! (sidenote: I’ve heard you can use liquid starch, but I haven’t done it, so don’t know how it works)
UPDATE: One of our readers has used both liquid starch and the spray starch. You have to spray it heavily, but otherwise it works the same!



Even though their room has a huge window, it’s been rainy the last several mornings, and by the time it clears up, it’s too dark for good pictures, so I’m sorry!



The letter was cut out from a cardboard box (we seem to have those coming out of our ears around here!), then hot glued around the edges for extra stability, and then I let the girls paint their letters with paint.



The purple lamp is a project I did awhile ago

Before:



After:



It’s ornaments on a PVC pipe, rewired and then spraypainted. I hot glued the fabric flowers on the shade when it was done…When I pulled out the polka dots, my girl wanted the tree that we had in our bathroom previously. So we hung that up too (by the way, the tree is just strips and pieces of fabric put up in a tree shape. I didn’t cut it out that way)



Eventually (when I’m ready to commit to holes in the walls that I’ll have to patch before moving) I’ll hang up these guys from our rental bathroom too.



They were total 70’s owls I found at the thrift store for 75 cents. Looked like this, except mine were more orange than yellow



These are $40 on eBay. I love the DI! I repainted them turquoise, and added the other colors for details. (can’t decide on the eyes, we’ll see if they stay different or if I change one of them…)



If you do bigger shapes, you may need to use pushpins to hold it in place while it dries…So what are you going to stick on your wall? I’m wanting to try some stripes in my craft room too! That’d be fun! Maybe like this…

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