Making Rainbows out of Shit

Making Rainbows out of Shit

When an obnoxious visitor writes on your wall & ruins your baby's rooms new paint job, what do you do? Turn the shit into rainbows, or the writing into pretty boats.  Let's call it colourful boats over shitty quotes! There, let's begin!

First things first, let's look at the newly painted wall that was ruined:

Before - The "wonderful" writing that was on my son's wall 

The Shit

After: The boats I painted over the writing 

The Rainbows

So how did I get from The Shit to The Rainbows? 

Step 1: 

Find a photo of what you would like to paint from the internet. I searched sailboats & chose the style and size I wanted. I kept it simple & stylized so that I could cover the writing quickly & easily. Print it & cut it out. 

Step 2: 

Hold up the homemade stencil & trace out the drawing in pencil to hide the writing or position wherever you want if you're not covering damage.

Step 3: 

Fill in the boats with pencil before painting them. This is a different way to prime them for painting.

Step 4: 

I repeated the first 3 steps with more boats that were smaller & designed a little differently.

Step 5:

Paint the boats white to prime them some more.

Step 6:

After the white paint has dried, paint the drawings whatever colour you want & add details.  I'm still debating about adding my sons' names to the boats!

I'm so happy & relieved my son's room is painted with cute boats that cover up the crap that was there before. I'm also relieved that none of the marker has bled through the paint at all, so I won't have to redo the paintings or repaint the entire wall!! What was a really upsetting experience of finding the wall ruined turned into a fun project that has made the room even better than it was before. I've defnitely learned a lesson - in the future I'll know to be much more careful about who I allow to spend time in my little one's room.