Evolution of a little boy’s room

I had Henry’s room painstakingly decorated before he even entered this world.

Everything was perfect.  Bumper pads and crib skirts hand sewn.  A checkerboard pattern on the wall that took an entire weekend to finish.  Everything matched.  Exactly.

And it had to.  It had to be just so or he would be robbed of a childhood.  Or something like that.

#firsttimemomproblems

I loved that nursery.  But then we moved and that checkerboard wall that I adored was not going to happen again.  I mean, it was rad, but holy moly it was a pain to do.  

The wall felt a little plain, but with his crib in the center, it worked.

Then we needed the crib for one of his new little sisters.

He graduated to a big boy bed.

And that wall that seemed kinda plain now drove me batty.

It was this big, giant sea of icy blue.  A great blue.  Love that blue.  But boooooring.

I thought about doing a gallery wall with lots of fun art and printables, but…I don’t know.  It just didn’t seem right.

And that big blue wall taunted me.  I loved the rest of the room…but it felt unfinished.

Well, the crib is back in the room again…only now it hosts the head of his little brother.  Because my kids have to share rooms.  The injustice of big families.  How will they ever manage?!

Either way, the wall sat boring and blue, and I couldn’t think of how to make it not so.

Until I saw this.

And I knew exactly what I wanted.  It was perfect.

But, it was kinda expensive.  Not really expensive, but more than I really wanted to spend on something we didn’t NEED.

And then one day, months later, I was wandering the clearance end caps of Target, and I saw it.

On clearance.

Half off.

It was like God knew of my boring blue wall and it was driving Him batty too but He knew I was too cheap to pull the trigger (even if I had had it in my Amazon cart multiple times.)

The box says it’s so cotton pickin’ easy to put up that ANYONE can do it.

They even underlined it in red for emphasis.

This should only take an hour, right?

Just one, easy, anyone can do it, hour until that big boring plain characterless blue wall was vanquished.

I even did a little jig, I was so excited.  No, really.  I did.

This would be cake.

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Oh no.  Not easy.  And I can tell you that it is a good thing I am married.  Because left to my own devices, I would have crumpled it up in a fit of rage in ten seconds flat.

I mean, maybe if your wall was the perfect size and you didn’t have to do any trimming.  And if your wall didn’t come to a peak where the ceiling pitches.  Then it would be easy.

Maybe.

This mural is wallpaper.  As in, you put glue on the back and put it up “permanently”.

But I wanted to be able to take it down if we ever moved, and/or if I wanted to put it up in our school room instead someday…so we used a staple gun…and to hopefully avoid tearing away from the staples, we put a square of clear packing tape wherever we were going to staple.  And we folded the map down rather than trimming it off so that it would be reusable.

In theory.

(I realize this will never work as beautifully in real life as it does in my mind.  Humor me.)

This folding and stapling may, or may not have contributed to why it was so difficult to put up.  I really don’t know.  But dealing with glue seemed pretty awful too.

So there it is.

Looks great, right?

But still…even with the ENTIRE EARTH literally on the wall, it felt like something was missing.

Hmmm…

BUNTING!!!!

Itty, bitty, teeny, tiny felt bunting.

I feel like it is more “little boyish”, don’t you?

Plus, it gives it a little more texture and color.

See?  Doesn’t Russia just look so much cuter now?

Obvs.

Want a super quick tutorial for making the bunting?  (Because it’s so complicated.)

Get lots of fun happy felt.  I wanted it to be mostly blues and greens, so I bought one of each hue that Joann’s had.  And then a few extra colors to give it some character.

Then I cut 1.5 inch strips along the “landscape” side of the felt piece.  (I cut three strips of each color and there was still WAY too much.)

Then, take scissors and just cut triangles out.  No measuring, not perfect lines, not exact sizes.  Not only can you not really tell, but I’m all about catywompus character.

Put it all in a pile and mix it all up.

Then, sew.  And sew.  And sew.  Take a few breaks.  No pattern of colors.  Just whatever color triangle you grab from the giant pile.  More fun that way.

Catywompus.

But isn’t catywompus oh so pretty?!

Pretty in the most boyish way possible of course.

And that boring blue wall is finally complete.

Even if poor Alaska didn’t really make the cut.

You can see the seams where the panels meet.  My bunting flaps around, twisting flags pointing up, down and to the side from the breeze that comes from the open window.

But me and my boys?

We like catywompus.

A lot.

(I realize it was a total fluke that I found my map mural on clearance, but if you want one too Amazon has them.  I’m sorry but you’re welcome.)

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jeannett

I'm a mom to four. A wife to one. I believe in story. I love telling you about mine and would love to hear yours. There's really no sense in wasting our suffering and not sharing in each other's joy. We're all in this together...even if it doesn't always feel like it.

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