Decorating Ideas for Your Daughters Room

Most mothers like decorating their children's rooms. We like thinking of ways to fix it up that will reflect how unique we think our daughters are. It's pretty easy to just go to the home improvement store and see all kinds of things to buy, but it can become really expensive if we are not careful. There are ways to get around the expense, and have a really cute room in the process.

For a very young girl, simply buying several cans of pastel paint is one answer. Buy enough cans of semi-gloss enamel to cover the entire room, then buy several smaller cans for sponge painting over this color. It's a good idea to pick up several really cheap disposable gloves too. These are usually displayed in the paint section, and you can buy a whole box of them. Pastel purple is a good color for a base. For the smaller cans, you can use pastels in blue, yellow, pink, and green.

Take your paint roller and paint all four walls, and let it dry. Then take any one of the smaller cans of paint and pour a small amount into a container small enough to carry. Put on one of your rubber gloves, then dip the sponge lightly into the container of paint and pat the walls with the paint covered sponge. Don't worry about the pattern, just pat all over all four walls, dipping the sponge whenever it runs out of paint. You can make big splotches, small splotches, dark or light ones. Make a variety, and leave a lot or a little space between the splotches. You can't really make a mistake with this kind of painting.

Once you've gotten plenty of splotches on all four walls, wash out your sponge, and let the walls dry. Then get a clean container and another color, and do it all over again with your next color patting between the last splotches. You can let the splotches in this color touch or overlap the color you did before, it doesn't matter. Just be sure and let the base color show in spaces throughout your painting. Repeat this process with each of the colors you purchased. Four or five colors is about right.

Once you finish, you can step back and view your work, and see if there is anyplace where you need a little more of one color or another.

You can also paint the door and the door and window frames with these colors. It looks nice to paint the door one color and the door frame around it another color. Paint each window frame a different pastel color. Then top it all off with filmy, pastel curtains either all the same color, or once again, different colors, the same colors as the paint you painted the walls with.

Lace, flowers and butterflies go well with this type or room. Hang lace butterflies on thin threads from the ceiling. Thumbtack them to the walls. Buy a pretty pastel butterfly bedspread for the bed. Wicker furniture would be nice, too.

An older daughter might like a more sophisticated look. A unique way to do her room is to buy joint compound from the home improvement store. It's cheap, about $15 for 50 pounds in our area. It will take about 150 pounds to do a regular size bedroom. Buy a spatula of some kind, like the putty type knives they sell to put this on walls. Purchase a little trough just big enough to hold in your hand, and several cans of paint, enough to paint the room. Then go to the Dollar Store or discount warehouse store, and buy several cookie cutters in different sizes. Heart cookie cutters work well.

When you are ready to begin, fill the trough with a good amount of joint compound and begin at the top of the wall. Using your spatula, apply the compound to the wall in downward strokes, but let the strokes go off in different directions. They should overlap. Again, you can't really make a mistake, except the strokes need to be fairly short. This will give the wall a stucco look. Don't apply it too thickly, but make sure it covers well. Once you've covered a large space, but the compound is still wet, press the cookie cutters into the compound. You can make a pattern, or not. Not making one is a little easier. Stand back once in a while and check to see if you like how it looks. You can cover mistakes with a little more joint compound, or go back and add more hearts if you think it needs it.

Continue doing this until you have all four walls covered. Then let the room dry. The compound will turn white as it dries, if you see any gray spots, give it more time. Once it's dried, you can paint the walls.

Dried flowers look nice in this room. Drape flower garlands that you can buy at the discount store over the windows, dresser, and/or headboard of the bed.

This makes a very unique room for your very unique daughter. Her friends will be impressed!

A little imagination goes a long way to both save you money, and to have a room that expresses your child personality. Have fun!