Thursday, September 03, 2009

Decorating a kid's room on the super cheap...

I really wanted to get Seth's room decorated before Evan was born. And I had a particular idea in mind for it. See, I wanted it to look like a pretty little forest, but since I'm not artistically inclined, and I'm afraid of painting on my walls right now, I thought I'd go online and buy a pretty wall stick on tree. I went online. I saw the tree. It was tiny, and it was $30. For one of them. Sad, I gave up.

Then, about a month later, I was at the mall with a friend. Right near the play area there is a row of display windows. What should I see in them but large tree posters! So I asked my friend to watch Seth, and I went in the store nearby. Let's just call it "Kid's Location." =) I asked the manager what they were going to do with the trees when they got done with that particular display theme. She told me that they were going into the dumpsters out back. I then proceeded to shamelessly beg her to save them for me and give me a call.

God bless that sweet manager. She did keep my phone number, and the patrons of our local mall got to feast their eyes on the sight of a very pregnant woman pushing a stroller and carrying large cardboard trees. I got a few things in installments as they were taking it all down. I got multiple kinds of trees and a sun banner. And it cost me.... $0.

I went online and googled "bird templates," and came up with several I could use. I printed them out and traced them on construction paper, and then I put them by the trees with sticky tack. The trees were nailed to the wall, by they way. I used large pieces of blue posterboard to freehand some clouds. And here you can see the finished product....





Seth doesn't have a lot of decorating preferences right now. When he gets older, we'll spend a little more time and effort putting together a room based on his particular likes and dislikes. But for now, free kid's room decor certainly works for me!

5 comments:

Brandy Vencel said...

Wonderful! I am totally impressed.

littlebeemama said...

This is adorable, Ellen! I am also working on a woodland theme for Lily's room at the moment (although I've been too busy to work beyond the trees).

Becky @ Our Sweet Peas said...

Wow, good thinking! :)

'Becca said...

Bravo!! How cute!

We decorated our child's room with two wall-hangings that were very easy and inexpensive to make: Buy 2 yards of an appealing patterned fabric and a 7-foot length of thin wood such as cheap crown molding. Hem fabric if necessary (one of ours is polyfleece, which doesn't need hemming). Fold over 1" along one long side and sew it. Slide the wood through there so it sticks out at each end. Put 2 nails into the wall 6'2" apart, angled slightly upward, with about 1/2" sticking out. Place the ends of the wood on the nails. Presto! If you use fleece or quilted fabric, or if you sew a layer of batting to the back of thin fabric, these absorb some sound, which is great when baby's crying in the middle of the night and you don't want him to wake the whole neighborhood.

Click my name for some tips on finding cheap furniture.

Nettley said...

Awesome! What a great deal! His room looks great!