Inexpensive Children’s Wall Art

A couple of years ago Last week my son’s room was decorated with a  “surf” theme.  All of the décor was chosen by me, which I think is fair when it’s me that is buying it, me that is working hard on it and me that has to dust it stare at it day in and day out. I had bought the whole surf collection when it first came out at Pottery Barn Kids {afraid it would be gone soon and never come back- little did I know they’d bring it back every single spring/summer!}  Anyways, after blowing a small fortune on the quilt and sheet set and a few odds-n-ends, I needed to find a way to save a few dollars.  So I created 4 pieces of framed art from Pottery Barn’s Wallies stickers.  His were surf theme…but they sell all sorts of wallies to go with their latest trends:

All of the pics above are current Pottery Barn Kids “Wallies” “Decals” {they changed the name since I bought them} and are designed with peel and stick backs meant to be stuck to the wall.  Well, I took them a step further and framed them into “works of art”!

Here’s one of the surf pictures from his old room, read: pre-7 year old room.

I found some {cheap} frames at Ikea in this beautiful gray-blue…..ahh, how I love gray-blue, let me count the ways…no, no, never mind.

Then I used acid free, non-fading, poster paper as a mat and viola, a framed piece of art!

Well, now that Star Wars has taken over his life our entire house, my husband thought it would fun to let him decorate his room like he choses- as a birthday present.  So I agreed, kinda. I bit my lip as we ordered the Star Wars movie posters…I was thinking more of just space ships or something…but I did veto the 2 ft by 3 ft HUMUNGOUS {teenage room} posters and chose these smaller scaled versions, which I could frame.  A win-win.

I started with the same Ikea frames from before and spray painted them black…anything Star Wars has to start with black.  See tutorial for spray painting frames here.

Why, oh why, am I painting over that wonderful blue-gray?  Blue-gray, blue-gray, how I love thee.  Oh, sorry.

Ok, moving right along….next stop was Michael’s for a new set of mats to match the Star Wars posters…I picked up the same type of poster paper that is acid free.

Now, orange isn’t usually my go-to color, but you’ll see why I chose it in a minute.

So then you just cut the poster board to be the same size as the glass, center your piece of “art”, secure with a piece of tape…and there you have it, art work for a kid’s room that is inexpensive, can readily change with their latest obsessions, and still maintains an element of design appeal.

Oh, I forgot to mention where I picked up these pictures from! The selection at Pottery Barn Kids was not huge {except for this incredible light up LED poster of all the battleships in Star Wars for a mere $300}, so I did a little Google search and found this great store, Postergods, that prints thousands of posters in TONS of sizes.  These posters I found, which are episodes I, II and III of Star Wars, are called Giant Post Card Posters.  They measure 11 inches x 14 inches and are just like the title, huge post cards.  They are heavy like a postcard {not thin paper that can roll like a poster} and a great size for framing. So I ordered the first three episodes for his birthday {he’ll likely get the next three for Christmas.}  Oh and the best part, they are $5.99 each!!  And I got a 20% off coupon from a live chat agent!

There it is, above, as advertised on their website.  Click on the picture to be taken to it.

And here it is framed:

Yeah, Ikeas frames don’t come with glare-free glass! Oh well.

But at $6/print, $10 for Ikea frames {which I bought years ago} and poster paper {on sale now at Michael’s for under $2}, you can’t beat it!  And when I’m my son is tired of Star Wars, I’ll happily change it out for something new- without feeling guilty that I spent a fortune on them.  If I had bought that $300 LED picture from PBK, he’d have a Star Wars theme room until he’s 18.

I know he’s gonna LOVE them!