Help decorate my dd's room

[onlyzombiecat]

Dd (8) and I will be decorating her room in a jungle theme.
We aren't going to have a lot of money to spend so no new furniture or expensive bedding and accessories.

Her current bedding is dark purple, light purple and pink. I have some plain white sheets. I have black curtains or cream curtains.
Her furniture is 2 small dressers (white), 1 bookshelf (white), mattress & boxspring (no frame), tv cabinet/table (brown).

The floor is wood.

Her walls need to be painted for sure. I have some blue paint. I suppose we could do blue on top and green and leafy on the bottom and/or paint animals?

Dd mentioned using ropes as vines.

I can sew. I can paint. We can do crafts.
I have a large piece of styrofoam and cardboard we could use to make something.

Got any ideas?

[Suzmama]

I painted my younger daughter's room when she was about that age. She was into fairies and wanted the room purple. One of her favorite things were these stick-on decals we found at AC Moore. Our's are fairies (flying in the room, sitting on the door jam, etc.) but I'm sure you could find different animals. I have an artisitic friend who did a beautiful jungle mural on one wall. Good luck with it...what fun!!

Susan Mama to DD (13) : DD (16) : & :

[kamilla626]

I was going to suggested painting the lower half of the room pale green, with the upper half painted pale blue, with jungle leaves and flowers.

How about making a "curtain" of green beads for her doorway, for vines?

[onlyzombiecat]

Those are good ideas.

Today dd and I drew animals and jungle stuff on her walls with chalk. She had sooo much fun drawing on her walls that I'm thinking maybe we'll do green chalkboard paint along the lower part and paint the ceiling and upper wall blue... maybe have the green edge look like leaf silhouettes. Maybe we could paint a few butterflies or tropical birds flying on the blue part. Or maybe we could make some birds out of the styrofoam or cardboard to hang from the ceiling.

[SAHDS]

DS's room was a jungle/safari theme from the age of 1 to 7 (when we moved).

Here's what I did:

Sponge painted the entire ceiling 2 shades of green - a traditional green and a darker green. I continued sponging about a foot or so down the top of the wall.

I then bought some cheap swags/'ropes' of leaves and 4 screwed cup hooks into the ceiling, 2 hooks about 18" apart in 2 opposite corners. I put one end of the 'rope' into one cup hook, let it hang about 1 foot down, then hung the other part near the other end through the other cup hook. Then, I sewed the very end of that 'chain' to a stuffed monkey's hand. It was ADORABLE. It looked like the monkeys were swinging in the corners, dangling from the canopy.

I took DS's white dresser and painted thick, black zebra stripes on it with some cheap black paint and sprayed a clear coat over that to protect it.

I put up tons of shelves (brown) and set ALL of his animals on them. A cheap tip - go to the thrift store and stock up on animal figurines and stuffed animals to fill the shelves.

I made framed collages of our trip to the San Diego Zoo (when I was pregnant with him) and hung those on the wall.

I painted the bottom sandy brown and put up an animal border. A cheaper way would be to paint think jungle grass midway up the wall. Either way, don't forget to add tree trunks to support the ceiling 'canopy'.

I went neutral bedding - brown comforter with a cheetah accent blanket at the foot. Black, brown and white striped curtains to tie the colors together - EASY and cheap to sew.

I found a CHEAP tiger rug at a garage sale and laid it on the floor.

I bought animal print frames at the dollar store and put family snapshots in them and grouped them on the dresser, shelves and windowsill.

I found a wooden animal mask at a store and hung that also.

Another cheap idea for wall art - buy a nice calendar with pictures of animals, disassemble the pages, frame them and hang them. 12 pictures for pennies each. I did this with baby fairies in DD's toddler room.

[onlyzombiecat]

That sounds like an awesome room!

Dd has too many animals as it is.

[kdabbler]

OP, your description makes me think you need more green. Ikea used to have these giant leafs or palm fronds that could be used as a canopy.

Other ideas: reed or bamboo mats for flooring or as a headboard. I always thought the wall lamps shaped like flowers, stars or animals were so cool. Perhaps you could do a jungle flower with an existing lamp with fabric and a glue gun? Or rig a floor lamp in the shape of a palm - cover the base with brown fabric and the top using green fabric stretched over wire coat hangers?

This project sounds like so much fun.