DIY DECORATING (THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX)

I’m all about decorating my children’s rooms and I’m used to doing it on the cheap.  Luckily, I’m creative and all about DIY.  I’m going to show you a few little things you can do to add detail and think outside of the box.


In my boys’ room, I have an idea in my head of what I want it to look like but it’s been an on-going project for awhile now.  This green shelf was handed down to me by my father who had it in his garage.  It was a burgundy color and I just so happened to have some lime green paint sitting around.  Funny, I have no idea what the paint was previously used for.  I guess the paint fairy left it for me for this project.  So I painted the shelf and lined the back with a striped vinyl tablecloth from Kmart.

The boxes are DVD storage boxes from Wal-Mart that I bought for my boyfriend.  He decided that he didn’t like having to dig through each one trying to find the movie he wanted so I took them back.  (I secretly wanted them anyway.)  They started off black and black just won’t do for me so I used some blue wrapping paper to cover them.  (You can find my tutorial here on how to cover boxes.)



The paper lanterns in the corner kind of happened by accident.  I had originally bought one for the hanging light fixture but it was the wrong size.  Several sizes later, I hung the one I thought was good but was unhappy with the blue glow it cast in the room.  So now I have a cluster in the corner of the room and I guess I’m happy with it for now, but I still had a naked bulb hanging and that was just so unsatisfying.

Then I found a plastic green bowl in the picnic section of Wal-Mart and suddenly that naked bulb appeared over my head!  I took it home and drilled a hole in the bottom and *bam* I had a new shade!  I soon found that it too cast a glow in the room but this time it was green, so I spray painted the inside white.  The spray paint can said that it could withstand up to 200 degrees F so hopefully that will be sufficient.


The little pictures around the picture of Pee-Wee Herman are postcards from a book of postcards by Paul Frank.  The Pee-Wee Herman print came from Monster Gallery on Etsy.  I did splurge a little for that one.  But I LOVE Pee-Wee!!

Ok, so just ignore the ugly rug.  I haven’t gotten that far yet.  The filing cabinet in the corner serves as a toy cabinet and I revamped it with colored duct tape.  It’s cool, too, because the boys can attach magnets to it.  It was fairly easy to cover.  Both the label frames and the handles were easily removed and it took all of twenty minutes to cover the entire thing.  The little wooden chair was purchased from the Habitat for Humanity Home Store and the little white chair was a green school chair from a yard sale that got a dose of white spray paint.  (Man, I love spray paint!)  The table was a present from a friend who also loves all things retro.  It’s a foldable table that I covered in dry erase contact paper I purchased from Michael’s.

Now off to my girls’ room.


To create a floating shelf, I just used a 1x4 piece of wood and heavy duty L-brackets.  I didn’t need anything super fancy since it was only going to serve as a ledge for pictures.  I frequently change out the pictures as my kids bring home their masterpieces from school.  I bought some pompom fringe from Tin Tiara Trims on Etsy and lined the edge of the shelf using tacky glue.

Long before I saw either of these ideas on Pinterest, I came up with these two crafts.  (Sorry, I just had to throw that out there.)  I started collecting various bottles I found at flea markets, yard sales and thrift stores as well as bottles of salsa, spaghetti sauce and the like.  I filled them with a bit of paint and swirled them around to cover the entire inside of the bottles.  For the sticks, I used two nice sized twigs from my yard and wrapped them in yarn.  Easy enough.

Now, here’s where I show you my weird side.  Yes, I painted the television.  And I covered the DVD player in fabric.  (This is the awkward moment where I realize I’ve just told you too much.)  You either love it or hate it.  I got mixed reactions from friends and family when they saw it.  They either thought I had lost my mind or that it was just another of my crafty projects.  But you know, I just hate electronics.  I think they are ugly and take up a lot of space that could be used for something pretty.  I’m not the first to paint a TV, though.  Years ago, my grandmother painted hers (although she’s an artist and the flowers she painted looked very much like real flowers.)  Everyone thought she was crazy too.  I’m very curious to hear what you think of it.  I don’t mind criticism. 

But incase you are interested, I used regular glue to paint the fabric onto the DVD player and grosgrain ribbon to trim the edges.  I would’ve rather used rickrack but I’m all out of stock.  I used my exact-o knife to trim out the buttons and the doors of the disc player.  I’m sure if this gets pinned on Pinterest it will surely make it to Pinterest, You Are Drunk.

I’m sure I’ll have more pictures of DIY decorating projects as they arise.  Until then, what ideas do you have?