DIY: Owl Tree Wall Mural

Miley just loves owls ever since she was a baby (I think it started when she watched a Twinkle Twinkle Little Star video featuring an owl). So when we moved into our new house, there was no question what design her room would be. I knew I wanted to put a tree mural on this wall so I searched online for decal stickers, but they were all so expensive! The ones I wanted were about $100 up!

No way was I going to spend that much when I could make it myself. So, armed with my self-taught photoshop skills (thank you to all those years working in advertising), I found a peg of a wall sticker and recreated it. Now this takes a lot of time and effort, so if you don't have either, then I recommend just buying the stickers.

After I had finished making the owls and the leaves, I had them printed on sticker paper. Each sticker sheet is 1ft x 1ft and I had 12 sheets printed. The whole thing cost about P1300.

After I cut the stickers, I then positioned them on the wall using scotch tape first. After I was happy with the arrangement, I then drew the tree trunk free hand with a pencil.

I then used painter's tape to outline the shape of the tree.

I used this brown paint from Ace Hardware (around P200). They had me choose what shade of brown I wanted then they punched the codes in the computer and it was mixed by a machine. It was my first time to experience that so it was pretty cool haha! Of course I made sure the paint I got was water based so it would have no smell (it didn't) and it would wash off easily on my hands or on the wall if I made a mistake (it did).

I used a paintbrush at first but the paint came out uneven on the walls because of the bristles! I think I spent about an hour just painting and reapplying several layers of paint to make it even but to no avail. I then used a rollerbrush and the paint came out perfect and consistent. I also just spent about 10-15 minutes using the rollerbrush to paint the entire tree! So quick and easy and no drips!

My favorite part! Removing the tape!

Now, this was the problem. There were some parts where the paint seeped through the tape causing jagged edges. What I did was buy a brown pentel pen and just traced over the jagged lines. Problem solved!

So again, this was Miley's boring blank wall BEFORE...

And this is how it looks AFTER! If you look closely on the bottom left part, you'll see the happy occupant of the room =)

After I showed this to my friends and family, I got so many requests to make murals for their rooms! But like I said, this is really a labor of love. If I wasn't so kuripot, I would have probably just gave it and bought the ready made wall decals to make my life easier. But still, its a different feeling knowing you worked on something yourself. I'll probably do one again for Sabre's room in the future. For now I'm just really happy with how beautiful this turned out! =)