Do-It-Yourself Wall Art for Kids Room

If you have a little extra time for a DIY project and need to add a little flair to your home, these ideas are great if you are decorating any room.

My mother made a beautiful, creative wall hanging for my daughter’s wall. Craft supplies get donated to her all the time, and she ended up with a ton of wooden letters, so she came up with a good use for them. I love how my daughter will look upon her own personalized wall art until she is all grown up, and it will remain a very memorable fixture to her.

These are great to make because the supplies aren’t really expensive and it is so easy to make it to match the character. You can choose a theme (sports, princess)or do it the way this is done. She simply found pictures of things that started with the letters used. For instance, for an E she used an image of an egg.

Supplies:

Wooden letters - these can be bought at craft supply stores or Wal-mart. Buy smaller letters for long names.

Long thin stake or stick - long enough to fit all the letters across, strong enough to hold them on a wall.

Images to match your theme - cut these out of magazines or old books with pictures. You can also incorporate photos to make it more personal

Acrylic or Wood paint

Wood glue

1. First you want to paint the letters the colors you have decided on to match the theme, then let dry.

2. Glue letters onto the stick so that you can only see it in between the letters. Place them in various positions to get creative, but not sloppy. For example, have two letters glued on the bottom, one in the middle, and one glued on the top.

3. When these are dry and secure, choose the layout of where you want the images to go and then glue them on. That’s all it takes to make beautiful, personalized wall art!

4. Use the decoupage technique with mod-podge that was used in the first project or laminate the images to make the hanging last even longer.

This may sound difficult to get started with, but it was an especially good project for me because I always have old books and magazines hidden throughout my home. You might have an old art history book from school, or any picture book that might be torn and a little beat up also works great.

Choose your them and cut out (using xacto knife for perfect edges) particular words and pictures to go with the theme. I had an old Disney book so I used that thems and did Pinochio, Winnie-the-Pooh and Disney Princess. For a teenager, try a music theme.

Buy some plywood and cut to desired length and width or buy pre-cut. Choose the colors to go with your pictures. Special wood paint is ideal, but simple acrylic paint will work.

Use a base color to make a wash over entire surface. If using acrylic paint, be sure not to make it too thick. It is better to do two thin coats rather then one big gloopy mess.

Allow to dry completely, decide where exactly you want to place the images, then cover with mod-podge to make it a shinier. If you place images on it before it dries, you won't need glue at all, but if you want to wait, any kind of glue will work.

After it is completely dry again, paint anything else you might want on it (but be careful what you use, I tried sharpies on them and found out that they smear), wait for it to dry, then apply a thin layer of mod-podge over the whole thing. Be careful not to drip or leave lines on it. Do not use water or smudge with paper towel unless you would like to create a tint over the whole composition as it will smear the color. This can be a very tricky thing to do so if it is important for it to come out perfect, practice the technique on scraps of wood. I also have some video examples below.

Let dry, fix up anything that you wish to change, then apply a second coat. Let dry, drill holes and hang from strong string.

This gives any part of your house your own personal style.

Also use this method to decorate any wooden bearaus, footstools, vanity mirrors, bookcases, picture frames. This would also a great project for you and your teen to do together, and make their bedrooms tasteful but still their own.