Decorating with Paper & Twine

Having moved into a new house recently I have been busy making it our home and putting our personal touch on everything, as you do. I decided that my girls needed a few special little touches added to their rooms but with a limited post-house-purchase budget I had to get creative with it, so I started decorating with paper & twine and painting some frames.

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In my eldest girls room there was an existing dark pink feature wall that after much umming and ahhing is still there. She purchased a great art print online for herself with some of her birthday money (she has great taste for a 5 year old!!) so I decided to pick up on the colours in the peacock.

I cut some hearts out of a mix of paper card, added some glitter to some of them and simply stuck them onto lengths of twine to create a curtain of love hearts to hang under her name light. You could choose any shape to cut out of your paper, but unless you have a large paper punch remember that you will be hand cutting these so don’t make it too complicated.

 

Hot Tip - I drew one heart onto a piece of cardboard and lightly traced it onto my paper so that all of my hearts would be the same.

 

 

 

Now that she loves to read in bed I needed to supplement her fairy lights, so I bought her a plain white touch lamp. I decided on plain white so that we can easily change the colours on it as her taste changes. I bought some cheap organza ribbon and wrapped these around the lamp shade – instant little girl glam.

 

 

 

I also upcycled a big old picture frame we had left over, painted it a beautiful deep aqua colour, strung some twine across it and added a handful of small wooden pegs for her to display cards, photos and keepsakes. She has a box full of photos from her travels around the world and playing with friends and family that she switches over from time to time. It is a great way for her to assert her own opinion and taste on the room, giving her independence to decorate and re-decorate on her own.

 

Next door, her little sister is starting to grow a personality and developing her own style. Her favourite colours seem to change on a weekly basis so I opted for a soft but bright colour pallete with apricot coral, pink, aqua, yellow and purple. It sounds like a lot of colours to mix together, but I think that they complement each other nicely and I am really happy with the end result.

She already had a print hanging in her room that I designed for her when I was pregnant so the colours spread from this, through her fairy lights and side table and across to her bed where I have hung a homemade mobile.

 

This was really simple to make and was done with what I had in my craft boxes.

I had a metal hoop that I covered in a white ribbon. I then cut small lengths of various ribbons, tulle, lace and material and randomly tied them on to the hoop until it was full.

I drew a simple bird pattern onto different coloured paper, including separate wings to stick on. Some of the birds had glitter added to create a bit of texture and shine.

I then used a needle and cotton thread to string a few birds up on each length and tied it onto my hoop. A small hook in the ceiling, some more cotton thread to attach it and I was finished.

These move slightly in the breeze making their shadows dance across the walls and the glitter sparkle in the light.

 

To fill the space on the wall I collected a bunch of different shaped frames and painted them to match her colour scheme.

A little bit of time on the computer and I created some simple words and pictures to hang in the frames.

To get the right balance on the wall I used the trick of tracing the frames onto newspaper and blu-tacking these to the wall. Once I was happy with the positioning I simply nailed the picture hooks on, ripped the newspaper out and hung the pictures.

 

My girls now both have beautifully decorated rooms that were really cheap to do so I didn’t blow out my budget and I wont be crushed when they outgrow them or break them. My tip if you try this yourself is to try and carry your colour scheme through everything but don’t be too strict on it; use paper and ribbon to cut costs; don’t try and buy the perfect colour in something, just buy something plain and cheap or upcycle and then paint it yourself, this has the added bonus of being able to use the same paint colour across multiple items to tie everything together. I’d also recommend getting your child involved if they are old enough to have an opinion. I imagine there is nothing worse than doing it your way just to suffer a meltdown when they don’t like it, besides, if they are involved they will take more pride in it and look after it better.

Have you done any DIY decorating in your kids rooms?