I covered the first phase of the kids play-room transformation in this blog post along with a recipe for making your own homemade super cheap fabric starch. The following fabric creations are all adhered to the wall using that homemade starch.

The idea was to create a woodland forest for Calebs side of the room and a magical fairy tale twist for Noelle’s side. There were two sections of fabric I had selected as a low wall-paper-like border for both sides of the room to help set the themes.

After cutting the fabric in half down the middle to get the usable prints needed the next phase was to saturate them in the liquid cornstarch. Once thoroughly soaked the excess was squeezed out and operation plaster the wall in fabric began. The fabric stuck fairly easily to the wall and I used a sponge soaked in extra starch to smooth out bubbles and make sure the wet fabric was in full contact with the wall all the way across. For these lower sections I left the “ends” sticking out and came back with a razor knife after the fabric was dry to trim the edges. I rough cut out the fabric to go over the outlets once it was up on the wall but waited until the fabric was dry to trim tightly around the outlet with a razor knife. Wet fabric doesn’t cut very well fwiw and it is much easier to trim excess fabric or stray strings etc. after it has dried.

Caleb's fabric wall border

Detail of Calebs fabric wall border after it dried showing fabric trimmed around outlet

First section of Noelle's fabric wall paper border while still wet. You can see the rough cut-out for outlet that will be trimmed later after it is dry.

Second section of Noelle's fabric wall border. Neatly trimmed after drying.

With the large sections of fabric wall-paper borders out of the way it was time for the fun and really creative part. Using brown paper bags from Whole Foods I sketched some templates to use as patterns for the various odds and ends of fabric I either had on hand from previous projects or bought specifically from Goodwill for this occasion.

Whole Foods paperbag sketched Fox Pattern

brown paper bag template for owl

Dragon Fly sketched template

squirrel template

Bird templates as sketched by a friend on Whole Foods paper bags

Important side note: I did discover via trial and error that lighter weight fabrics work better-faster and easier for sticking to the wall than heavier fabrics. Some of the following was made out of heavier fabric but it took a LOT more work and may have to be repaired with additional starch to stay “stuck” where they are supposed to for the long haul.

Armed with my handy sketched templates I proceeded to cut various creatures out of fabric. Using cheap craft paint from Hobby Lobby accents and features were added to the fabric base. Once Paint was thoroughly dry fabric was saturated in corn starch and pressed to the walls. These smaller fun accent pieces went very fast and were not nearly as tedious as the larger pieces of fabric for the wall border.

On the back wall a bright and happy sun was attached.

Mr. Fabric Sunshine

Two fabric trees were created out of strips of cloth cut from a brown tablecloth.

Two fabric trees from brown tablecloth

Details on the trees were all cut out of cloth. The leaves were made out of an old pair of Camo pants. Accents on details were painted on with craft paint.

Caleb's Forrest Side of the room over Changing Table

Fabric Squirrel perched in painted tree

Cloth Owl starched in Calebs Tree

On Noelle’s side of the room I wanted to keep it fun and light with an underlying fairy-tale like theme. The flowers were cut out of cloth and accents painted on.

Noelle's fabric Flowers, birds and butterflies

On Noelle’s side of the room is the alcove that we painted blue. I found some paper and wire butterflies and dragonflies on clearance at HobbyLobby. These were hung from the ceiling and the walls decorated with fabric butterflies cut from the old sheet obtained at Goodwill. Over the alcove window I hung a fairy painting I did last Winter.

Alcove Painting and suspended butterflies

Other side of alcove with butterfly/sky theme

One wall was especially meaningful to me. Butterflies came to symbolize hope and restoration in a lot of ways to me as I emotionally processed our lost babies. This wall is in memory of our kids who won’t play in this room and in honor of my friends who are still in the process of hoping and praying for babies of their own to hold and love.

Butterfly/Memory Wall

The painting in the middle was done as a gift by one of my dear friends. It’s a veritable sea of butterflies floating out of a mist. The wall is not particularly special or significant except to me. It makes me smile every time I come into the room though. 🙂

Detail of butterfly painting/memory wall

When you come into the room this is the scene. Hoping to get a comfortable chair that will hold me, Noelle and Caleb to create a reading nook.

View of wall as one enters the room

All in all it has been a totally fun project. Once I get past having this baby in a few weeks I have a few more ideas brewing for the rest of the house. It was SO easy, so much fun and unlimited potential for creative expression. Have I mentioned the best part of all? Once the fabric is dried to the wall it can be pulled off in less than a second and any residual corn starch wiped off with a damp cloth. No damage to paint whatsoever. Super-easy.

Tell me what you think! 🙂