Have you seen some of the amazing things that people have been doing with vinyl stickers on their walls? I’ve been loving them and have so many ideas of ways that I could use them too. But, if you’ve been reading a while, you know that I am really really cheap  frugal, and would much rather make a knock off than pay for something.

I have been wanting to put a word or phrase in the little empty space in the middle of this picture grouping for a while and finally did it the other day.

I gathered:

• a pencil,
• soft erasure,
• watercolor paints (the really cheap dollar store kind that come with a plastic brush),
• cup of water and white saucer,
• and a moist rag,

all of which I already hand on hand – so this project cost absolutely nothing!

My first step, after determining what I wanted to write (and making sure that Emma was napping so she wouldn’t see me writing on the wall), was to pencil in the lettering.
I’m not quite confident enough to just take a paint brush to the wall, even though I would have been able to wipe it clean and start fresh if if didn’t turn out just right so the pencil allowed me to adjust the spacing and height of the letters a bit, and stand back and look before I comitted to using the paint. At this point you can erase the letters completely if you decide that it’s not the look that you’re going for.

The second step was to mix the paint. I used a sepia toned brown that I made by mixing a bit of black and brown in the white saucer. Once I was happy with the color I moved on to the third step which was start painting!
My hand shook a little at the beginning, but I used the damp cloth to ease out any squiggles and just kept moving.
I kept adjusting and adding paint here and there to darken it as I went, and then after a bit stood back to look. It turned out great!