Angry Birds Themed Bedroom

      I have been working on redecorating my daughter's attic space bedroom. She's 8 years old and loves Angry Birds apparently. I don't see her play it often, but when I asked her how she wanted her room decorated that was her first request. I put it off for months... mostly because I was busy, but I seriously thought she'd change her mind. Of course she didn't. So my next problem was overcoming the problem that she's a girly girl (though she won't admit it) and the fact that Angry Birds is in no way girly. So I had to really put two things together (without drawing bows on the bird's heads) and hope they'd come together well. Another obstacle to overcome was the knowledge that Angry Birds won't always be in style, so maybe in 5 years she'll be sick of it.
Here are the before pictures:

I repainted the space a beautiful custom shade of blue in three tiers, brushing the lines between each tier to give it a feathery blend between the lines. Then I started work on the birds themselves. Each bird, between free hand drawing on a piece of paper, outlining the stencil and redrawing on the wall to actual painting took me about 3 hours. Take note I am discovering new talents and trying new things--I have NEVER drawn Angry Birds in my life or painted murals on a wall before. I do not claim to be a majorly talented artist, so keep that in mind. Here is what the paintings look like:

Thanks to the input of my daughter and my husband we have a fairly interesting mural, that only took two months to finish (thanks to my baby and other projects)! Thank goodness this painting will last longer than a few months. If she gets bored with it in the next year or two she's just going to have to deal with it. Next project please!

Super Mario Brothers Themed Room

     I was able to find jumbo Mario Brothers Wall Stickers on ThinkGeek.com (one of my favorite websites).  I used these stickers on the main walls of the room. I also found medium and small sized stickers on other sites. They were cheaper, but not as good as the jumbo stickers.

This last picture is a warp tube I made myself out of a Homer Bucket from The Home Depot.

     The only problem I found with the stickers is that the slanted walls have more texture, so they didn't stick well. I'm still trying to resolve the issue. I tried super glue, which worked on the smaller stickers, but the jumbo Mario made a giant mess. I will try Modge Podge next. If you have any other ideas I'd love to hear them!

Super Mario Brothers Clouds

      All of the things I've looked up on the internet about clouds have said that making clouds is one of the easiest things to paint because they are so forgiving. I never believed it until I did these clouds. I started with a simple shape drawn in pencil. To give a nice edge to the clouds I made sure to bring the wall color inside the drawing slightly so my white would be the last layer on the wall.  I used a primer and paint combo in white so I didn't have to do three coats (although I did two coats around the edges). I made the outside of the clouds with a handheld paintbrush using simple round strokes and filled in with a small paint roller. I outlined each cloud with an acrylic paint in an ocean-blue shade.

Adding the happy faces was the scariest part for me. I created my own stencil for the eyes using "Auto Shapes" in Publisher and then drew the smiles below. 

Hills and clouds together: