Twins Room Phase 1: Giraffe Striped Feature Wall

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Now that the twins are TWO, I felt that it was time to transition into a more “big kid” room.  I chose a safari theme, and plan on doing a bunch of neutrals and soft fabrics.  I don’t want there to be anything too busy, especially as we transition to toddler beds.  This means a calm space with few distractions at nap and bedtimes.

I saw a new line of removable wallpaper at Target a few months back, and have been dying to try it out on something.  Lucky me, this project is on the front burner.  I really wanted to do a “feature wall” in the twins room that incorporated a giraffe pattern, but painting is out.  Enter my secret weapon: Devine Color removable wallpaper from Target.  Holler!  I bought two rolls of the weave wallpaper in the color “Mirage & Silver.” 

Here is a complete list of my supplies:

You may think I’m joking about the red wine and 90’s music being optional.  I challenge anyone to work on this project alone in a silent room.  You will start to lose your mind.  So crank up the tunes, crack open a bottle of vino, and hop to it!

Step One: The dreaded part of almost any DIY project – the math.  I will use round numbers here for my example.  Each roll of this removable wallpaper is 20-inches wide.  I wanted to do 4 stripes.  That is 80-inches worth of stripe.  Say your wall is 120-inches long.  Subtract the 80-inches of stripes from 120-inches of wall to get 40-inches.  Since there will be three spaces between the four stripes, divide the 40-inches of wall by 3 to get 13 1/3.  This means that the space between each stripe would be 13 1/3-inches wide.  Clear as mud?  Cool.  On to the next step.

Step Two: Freehand, baby!  I initially printed out a giraffe pattern off of Google images.  You can do the same thing, and follow it as closely (or not) as you would like.  I found that the less I thought about it, and the louder I turned up the music, the easier the pattern came.  I just flipped the wallpaper over, and drew  on the adhesive backing paper with a sharpie.

Step Three: Get comfy with your level and your squeegie.  I started by cutting out a few edge pieces of wallpaper.  I found that it was easier to treat this like a puzzle – start with the edge pieces and work your way in.  When I measured my wall, I made small tick-marks with pencil as a guideline for placing the stripes.  I then used the level to make sure the edges of my stripes were straight when I first placed them.  Then smooth the wallpaper out with a squeegie.  I also found it helpful to draw “up” arrows on the back of my wallpaper cutouts.  After about the 50th cutout, your mind starts playing tricks on you.  The arrows helped keep me on track.

Step Four: Once you have had your fill of your level and squeegie, step back and admire your work.  Aren’t you crafty!

I’m so excited to share phase one of this twin’s room project with you, and I’m already hard at work on phase two.  Hint: it involves framed prints from an old copy of “The Jungle Book” and new bedding.  Stay tuned!