circus' room

Man, this wall has been nearly a year in the making. When I found out we were moving and started plotting out the Circus’ room, I knew this wall was a must. I really wanted a way to convey the Circus’ unique personality and I think this object and text feature wall was the perfect way to do it.

You may have seen a wall similar to this in a Kate Spade store. I’m not sure if every store has them, but I know the one that I have been in does have one and it’s what inspired this wall. Of course, the Kate Spade version doesn’t mention yard sales or tutus, but that’s their loss. 😉

How to Create an Object and Text Feature Wall

Custom Wall Decal (I got mine from Wall Quotes – I’m going to show you how I made it. Disclosure: They gave me my decal to use in this post, but I had planned on buying one anyway.)
Objects (to add into the wall and take the place of some words)
Paint and FrogTape (if you want to change the color of your wall where the decal will go)
Command Strips and Command Hooks to hang the objects

Step 1.

The first thing you’ll want to do is come up with your text. If you’re doing it for a person, make a list of things they really love or that describe them and then work those into sentences. After you’ve done this, go back through and make note of words that you could actually replace with objects. We did this with the words horse, tutu, cowboy boots, money, yard sale and umbrella.

Step 2.

Now you’re ready to make your decal. I made my decal through the Design Your Own feature at Wall Quotes. The design center walks you through all the steps, but I also made a video to show you specifically how I made mine.
[adthrive-in-post-video-player video-id=”rejB6yTP” upload-date=”Fri Sep 16 2016 18:40:58 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)” name=”Rain on a Tin Roof – How to Create a Text Feature Wall” description=”Create a text feature wall that perfectly describes your child with a touch of whimsy!”]

When you make your decal in the design center, I think the biggest thing is making sure you have the dimensions of the wall area set correctly. The spaces in the sentences didn’t really matter that much while making the decal because I had to cut some sentences into two pieces to make room for the objects anyway. Also, make sure to take into account your wall color. I knew I was painting this section of the wall white, thus why I set it to white when making the decal.

Next, try to wait patiently for your decal to arrive! 😉

Step 3.

If you’re planning to paint the area of the wall where the decal is going, go ahead and do so. I didn’t realize that the wall needed to be painted at least three weeks prior to the decal going on until I got my decal, so that slowed my project up a bit. I just rolled some bright white paint (Bit of Sugar), onto the wall.

Step 4.

When your decal arrives, pull it out of the box and unroll it.

When I unrolled mine, I realized I was definitely going to have to cut the sentences into strips for it to feel the space I wanted it to on the wall.

That wasn’t a big deal at all – it didn’t affect the text in any way.

Tape your strips onto the wall and move them around until you get them where you want them.

Once I got the strips where I wanted them, I tested out the objects in their spaces and ended up cutting most of the sentences where the objects would go so I would have room for the actual object.

Step 5.

Once you have all the strips in place where you want them, it’s time to start actually applying the decal to the wall. Instructions and an application tool are included with Wall Quotes decals. It’s really simple though.

Just apply tape to the top portion of the strips (as shown in that top sentence of mine), carefully pull the backing from the strip, then smooth the top portion onto the wall. Use the application tool to fully smooth and apply the decal onto the wall, then pull back the top portion.

Add in your objects as you go so that you can move strips if you need to.

Step 6.

If you painted the area where you put the decal and objects, then use FrogTape to straighten up the edges and go back over the outside with your wall color.

I used Command Strips to keep the horse and boots on the wall. The tutu is held up by clothespins that are hot-glued to the wall. The dollar bills are just taped and the coins are hot-glued. The yard sale sign is taped and the umbrella is hung on Command Hooks.

I really love this little sneak preview you get of the wall when looking into her room.

The Circus can still easily get the umbrella and tutu down to play with. The cowboy boots are actually too small for her, so she’s ok with them being on the wall. She was a little upset when I went to put one of her horses on the wall, but when I pulled out the 50 other ones she had, she forgot about that one real quick.

Only a couple more projects to go in her room!