In our last house, the little guy never had a color paint on his walls. The room was still the same builder base white when we moved out. So I promised him that with this new house, his room would be the first to be painted. And with the help of a bunch of teenagers (that are always around so I put them to work) his room got painted first. He choose a theme of Phineas and Ferb. If you don't know who they are, you can see their picture here, and a short video of them here. It is a super cute and creative cartoon from Disney Channel.
So he wanted his walls to be "Agent P" teal. We took his Perry the Platypus stuffed animal to Menard's and matched it up with a color swatch the best we could. The entire room was painted in this bright teal color. The inside of his closet was painted with a leftover pail of orange. Why orange? Well Perry's bill, feet and tail are orange, so the closet represents the second color that he sports.
So with plain teal walls it didn't look enough like Phineas and Ferb to me. So I sat in his room and thought about it for awhile. I considered painting the words to the theme song (There's a 104 days of summer vacation...) in a gloss paint the same color. That way it would just be shimmer words that you really had to look for to notice them. But I decided against that. And then I got a new job...at a University...they had LCD projectors that I could borrow for a weekend! I decided to do the characters hand-painted all over his walls. I ended up penciling the outlines of Phineas, Ferb, Candice, Baljeet (my favorite character) and Agent P parachuting into the room. And then they sat.


So color by color I started painting the characters. I didn't take the time to think about which colors I should have used first, and that might have helped in the long run. I just started with the color that most of the characters had in them first. If I do another round of characters (to include Dr. Doofenshmirtz, Isabella, and Buford) I will pay attention to what colors should be underneath and paint those first and do the details over them. Otherwise it is just a huge game of paint by numbers. Look at your picture that you used to trace the pencil lines, and match up the colors to make it look the same. Because I was painting over a colored wall, I did two coats of each color to make the paint color look richer. The orange could have even used a few more. I also had cramps in my thighs for a few days afterwards due to squatting to paint a few of them! It took me two days to paint them all up, one day to have them dry completely and one day to outline and add features with a black sharpie marker. After the first day of painting, all the characters looked like they were zombies because none of them had pupils in their eyes yet. I thought that was one of the funniest parts of painting them.


What's left for this room? There are a few more projects that need to be completed before I consider this room done. My list includes: more mural characters, room darkening curtains behind his Phineas and Ferb curtains, a valance, a new lighting fixture or maybe ceiling fan, and either a new door, or painting the door. He also needs new carpet, but that will have to wait until the whole upstairs gets recarpeted. There will always be smaller projects too, but I will tackle those when they come up. As of right now, he is happy with his room, so I am too.
I am sharing this post with:
That DIY Party
The Chicken Chick
DIY Home Sweet Home
Family Home and Life
Fine Craft Guild
Sugar and Dots
Someday Crafts
The Trendy Tree House
Creations by Kara
Clean and Scentsible
Ginger Snap Crafts
We Like to Learn as We Grow
Adorned from Above
No Minimalist Here
Consider Me Inspired
House of Hempworths
Artsy Fartsy Mama
Two Yellow Birds Decor
Seven Alive
52 Mantels
A Glimpse Inside
I Should be Mopping the Floor
Today's Creative Blog
French Country Cottage
30 Handmade Days
Crafts al a Mode
What child wouldn't like this on his/her wall, such fun....Thank you for sharing with the Clever Chicks Blog Hop this week; I hope you’ll join us again!
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Kathy Shea Mormino
The Chicken Chick
http://www.The-Chicken-Chick.com
This is awesome! I think my husband would even like this...he loves Phineas and Ferb!
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