All photos are also in my flickr. A few of my thoughts on decorating children's spaces- I like to try to encourage imagination and playfulness when decorating children's areas. I also like a lot of color. In our new house, we are lucky enough to have play room. What a wonderful place to try out all the children's techniques I've been talking about lately! Organization, simple labeled containers and shelves are key. I think that natural wood color is best, it's very simple and pleasing to the eye. It also matches any colors for your wall paint and pictures. If I had my way, I would have everything in wicker baskets, colored and natural. Unfortunately, cost prevents this, so the next best thing is large plastic tubs with picture labels on them. Display Kid's Art One of the easiest ways to decorate is to put the kid's own art on display. Bulletin boards are perfect for this but if you don't have a bulletin board, make one by putting borders around a wall area just for kid's art. Even just hanging the art on the wall works. Another great idea, I have seen a million times online lately, but I swear I just got this idea from my sister in law! Hang twine between two nails across a wall and use clothespins to hang up artwork. Put the twine in rows about 12 inches apart and you have a whole art gallery! You can change it when there gets to be too much or change based on a theme. Posters and Pictures Choose interesting pictures from magazines. You can mount them on construction paper and have them laminated, or hang them as is! National Geographic and Nature and Animal magazines are great sources for pictures. If you collect enough, you can change up the room based on a different theme every so often. Posters may be a bit harder to find, but they can be fun too. Teaching supply stores may have birthday posters and calendars, along with other educational posters for a very reasonable price (the one near me has tons for $1.99). Posters also often come in children's magazines. Sometimes the library gives away posters of different books, or if you homeschool (or are a teacher) you can join Scholastic.com and get free stuff with their book orders. This photo shows some posters that I haven't put up yet. You can find maps at thrift stores from National Geographic magazine- they're perfect for a block area or book area. The ABC poster is meant to go around the edge of the room. I got it at the dollar store (they have a lot of teach supplies there, these days, regular size posters too). And the leaf poster is free from the government. Google free posters to find some good resources- I think I have a food pyramid and a bunch of nature posters, and they're on really good cardstock. Make It Yourself This rainbow is on a large piece of butcher paper (because we rent, otherwise it would be directly on the wall). You can get butcher paper at a teacher supply store. Also, at newspaper printers or other paper printers, you can often get the end rolls for free. I painted a wavy rainbow in "off" colors of the four basic colors. I used rose, mustard, olive and periwinkle-ish. I just used a regular sponge brush and followed some light pencilled in lines. After I was finished, it looked too flat, so I took the bright shades and used a dry brush to put on a light "scratching" over each color. I think that gives it so much more depth!! I love a tree in a children's room too- just the branches of course, then you can hang their art on the "tree"- hearts for Valentine's Day, colored paper leaves for fall, snowflakes for winter- the possibilities are endless! To make a tree, take a sheet of butcher paper outside and let the kids go crazy painting it with several shades of brown. When it's dry, draw a tree shape on the back and cut out. Paint the tree with mod podge to protect the paint and give it a nice sheen. Then hang it up. Here's a photo of one in my classroom- it's painted on the wall, but I actually prefer the kid painted paper idea in this instance. Other make it yourself ideas... have your kids paint large sheets of newsprint or white paper with watercolors. Put two together and cut out a fish shape. Staple all around, except an small opening. Stuff with newspaper, just for a rounded look. Finish stapling and hang with fishing line from the ceiling. Another thing I want to work on for our playroom, is to make the "house area" look a little more like a house. I think the easy way to achieve this, is to use one of those netting canopies, hang it from the ceiling and hang the edges up around the wall. Well, I don't do easy! So, I am going to take a long rectangle of fabric and sew a casing on each end and in the center. Then, I will hang it up using dowels and fishing line, so that the center is higher and looks like the roof of a house. This will be a great way to use more color in the play room. Nature & Bits and Bobs The nature shelf itself is a great decoration- I put a few baskets out and the kids fill it up with leaves and twigs and rocks. Get a couple magnifying glasses from the dollar store and you have a great place to look at things. If this interests you, you might also google "Waldorf seasonal table" and look at the really impressive pictures that will come up. Usually it has a cloth that reflects the season, or one for each season and some little acorn dolls. I found the blue vase on our nature shelf at St.Vincent's for a dollar or something. It is papier mache and has a small cylindrical glass vase inside. I had my class sponge paint it with purple and blue and then used a clear coat varnish spray to make it all shiny and pretty looking. It's gorgeous and we fill it with nature items from outside, branches, reeds, stalks of wheat.... What I love about the nature shelf (and I learned this from a tour of another preschool classroom)- put out an artichoke and just leave it there and see what happens. That's what's so great, finding things in nature and seeing what happens to them. The flowers on ours started out as blue, now they are brown and dried. We can also compare that to the bush of them outside our front door. Another nature thing to do is to use branches for mobiles (I haven't done this yet). Little bits and bobs of decoration are just waiting for you to find them and use them. I found the plastic part of this mobile from a daycare going out of business and saved it until just after S was born to create this mobile- each piece if made out of felt and machine sewn, then hung with fishing line. This strand of stars was in the clearance pile after Christmas at World Market- I think it is so adorable in the playroom! Like with every other article I've been writing lately, I think the keys here are to use what you have (make your own) and keep an eye out for the perfect piece to decorate your child's space! Don't forget to ask your child/ren what they like- they might have some great decorating ideas! It is a space for them after all! Enjoy!