Little M's Tree & Tutorial

I have been working on my little guys room and it has been a slow process but it is comin along and I am determined to get it done before his first birthday (April 28th). I have had so much fun getting his room together. His cute ABC wall I did a few months back can be found here.

This is one of my very favorite projects that I have ever done. It was so easy and turned out super cute. I really wanted something big on this blank wall and my mom (from Organize and Decorate Everything) had the amazing idea to put a big tree there. I thought that this would be so perfect for a little guys room. Well, I knew that I couldn't paint it on the wall because we are living in Ty's grandmas basement so I couldn't do something that permanent. So then I looked into the vinyl trees, but they were way too much for my cheapness, but then I had heard about using liquid starch to apply fabric to your wall and so I did some research and found out how to do it. SOOO easy seriously. And it isn't permanent which is perfect if you are renting or just like to change your room often.

What you will Need:

-Your Image- I found a tree that I wanted on the image Google search and printed it out on a transparency just on my home printer.
-Transparency sheet
-A projector. Since I am not very fancy shmancy I don't have one of those cool now a days projectors so I looked on KLS Classified (it is a local ebay type site for Utah and Idaho) for an old school projector and found one for $15! What a steal I was so excited. I couldn't sleep the night before I was supposed to go and pick it up. I know I am a bit nerdish. Don't you remember your teacher's using these in elementary, Jr. High and high school? By the time I got to college they had the fancy ones. (I want to play school with Maddux:)

-Liquid starch (I had a hard time finding some. But ya'll might have better luck than me. The 2 Walmarts by my house didn't have it but the one in Syracuse by my parents did. Wahoo. I got it for like $2.50 or something cheap like that)
- Fabric- I used dark brown for the trunk and branches, a cute patterned green with circles all over it for the leaves, and some red, white and yellow for the owl. 
-A Marker or fabric pen
-Scissors
-Paint roller
-container to put the liquid starch in
-Paper
-Towel- To put under your work area so there isnt any liquid starch drippage on your carpet. Gotta protect yo!
-Rag- To wipe up the drips off the wall as you go
-Liquid Stitch 
-And a Blank wall to put it :)

 What I did:

**First I bought myself an awesome old school projector from the KSL classifies. (I love this thing it is my favorite purchase.) Oh and P.S. If any of my buds out there need to borrow this for your own projects let me know!
**Then, I found my image on google image search, printed it out on a transparency sheet from my home printer and projected that bad boy up on a blank wall. I played with the position and focus knob on the projector until I had it the size I wanted and had it as clear as I could get it.

**I pinned my fabric onto the wall using thumb tacks and got a tracin'

**Once the whole trunk and all the branches were on my brown fabric I took it down and cut it out placing it together together as I went to see what it would look like .

**After I was done with all the brown fabric it was time for the leaves. Since I didn't want to sit there and trace every leaf up on the wall. I found there were only two sizes and I counted how many of each size.
**Then I traced each size onto a piece of white paper, cut the pattern out, traced them onto the fabric and cut them all out sitting down comfortably while I watched love potion #9 (This is a total 80s movie that I had never seen before so I checked it out from the library. I loved it! It is such a fun cheese movie just like they all were then)

**Once everything was cut out I placed it all together to make sure I liked what I saw before I stuck it up on the wall. And lets just say I was in Love and couldn't wait to have it all up.

No craft is complete until little Maddux puts his little hands on everything I am working on.
Literally ;)

Don't you just love those puggy little hands projected up on the wall?

I was in heaven...it was so dang cute

He was pretty pleased too. :)

Seriously this boy is such a busy body and LOVES to help and see what mommy is up too

We are so going to be playing school with this projector when Dux gets a bit older. 

Doesn't that sound like a blast?

This boy will learn all his letter and numbers on this thing

I am a nerd

Have I ever Told you how much I love being a stay at home mom?

Welp that was a nice break now lets get back to the second half of the project

**I projected it up again but this time it was on the space that the tree would be going up (Maddux's big blank wall in his room) and it was to the size and position of right where I wanted it. This made it easy to put my fabric right were it was supposed to go using the projected image as a guide. Very helpful and saves lots of time...I promise

**Now to the fun part.
1. Dip your fabric piece in your liquid starch
2. Squeeze the excess liquid from the fabric so it isn't dripping. Put your fabric piece up on the wall smoothing it into place with your fingers (it will stick to the wall...if your fabric is heavier or is a really big piece you may need to tack it into place with thumb tacks until it dries but I did the whole big trunk without having to tack it at all, it stuck really well.
3. Get your sponge paint roller and dip it in the starch
4. Roll the painted roller on your fabric on the wall to make sure it is all smooth and there are no bubbles. Make sure to roll over the edges to make sure it is all sticking to the wall.

**After I got all the brown fabric up I took my sponge roller and rolled over the whole thing once more just to make sure it was smooth and on there really good. I didn't want this thing goin' anywhere until I said so.

**I did the same steps as above with each of the leaves. These went really fast because they were so small.
**Again I took the sponge roller and went over the top of the whole thing with the liquid starch just for a nice last coat to polish it up and make sure it was all stuck on there with no bubbles.

Isn't it looking so good. 

I loved it

But it needed a little somethin' somethin' more to it

so I added this little cutie below

don't ya just love him?

** I found this precious owl in the silhouette store and cut it with my machine onto card stock for a pattern

** I traced it all onto the fabric, cut out all the pieces and glued them to the main body with liquid stitch

**Lastly I dipped him in the liquid starch, placed him on the wall and rolled over him with the sponge roller.
**When your decal dries it goes back to the original fabric color and is stiff and stuck to the wall until you decide it is time to peel it off. (I love how un-permanent it is for renters like muwah)

 And Voila! the fabric tree is complete! 

What do you think?

I will be putting a saying above it with white vinyl so stay tuned for his completed room post coming very soon.

I am so in love.
M likes it to he is always touching it and smiling whenever he looks at it

It will be sad to take it down when we have to move one day. (luckily that is not for a while)

But the cool thing is that you can take it down without any damage to your paint or wall and it is so easy to do it again. 

I think Maddux is really going to love it when he gets older.

If you have any more questions you can email me or leave a comment!

This fabulous tree is linked to these fun linky parties:

Blue Cricket Design