DIY wall art for a baby/toddler room

How do you decorate a baby/toddler room without spending a lot of money?  And how do you do it in a foreign country without a Hobby Lobby in sight?  I found myself asking these questions while debating what to do with the big, long blank wall in Sophie's new room.  H wants to be involved in all decorating decisions.  He doesn't always like the things I pick.  The toddler room decoration negotiations commenced.

Before

At first we talked about painting but with all the moving craziness I don't feel like painting any walls right now.  Not with Sophie running around.  I'd rather wait until she's in Kita.  So paint was out.  Then we talked about wall stickers but they aren't recommended for children under three and we have textured wallpaper which can make them fall off.   Wall stickers were out.  I picked out some children's art prints but including the cost of framing I was looking at close to €300.  Why is framing so expensive?!  I would have gone ahead with the wall art but H didn't like the same things I did.  All the prints that I passionately loved he hated.  Stalemate.

 

Children's wall art is not complicated.  Some of it I thought I might be able to do myself.  First thing was finding the supplies. I picked up a big canvass for €4,99, some mirror stars stickers €1,70, and a little box of painted flowers and hearts also €1,70 at the Danish furniture store.  Finding paint and printed paper was a challenge because I have Sophie all day and I did not want to take her on an hour train ride each way just to check out art and craft stores all over Berlin.  After a lot of thinking I checked Amazon.de and found two books of scrapebook paper, €8 each.  I also bought acrylic paint because the blues I had weren't working with my color palette.  I found an owl template on the internet and I sketched out my idea.  I was inspired by the prints, a video of another DIY I saw a long time ago and a scrapbook our friends in Hamburg gave us before we left.

rough draft

I worked on the picture when Sophie was napping or after she'd gone to bed at night.  It was very simple and easy to do.  The background I painted and the elements in the foreground are all craft materials.  It took a little less than a week to finish.

I still had a lot of empty space and lots of left over craft paper.  Inspired by a fabric banner I saw at Zara Home over the summer I checked out some banner making tutorials.  It turns out to be super easy.  I made two in one night. 

Made from paper and white glue.

I'm wary of over decorating with all the different patterns in the scrapbook paper.  I don't think I'll put anything else up on the walls even though I have a bunch of other cute ideas.  Sophie's room is already pretty colorful.  The only thing it still needs is curtains. 

So far I'm happy with how it's turned out.  I plan on taking any decorating decisions very, very slowly that way I don't end up with things we don't need.  I am an impulse buyer.  Yesterday I was close to ordering some overpriced stuffed owl bookends but that pink Elephant up there ended up doing the job just fine.