How to Make a Body Poster for a Child's Room

Children love decorating their rooms. They appear to like it even more when they have a hand in making the decorations. The following project involves using inexpensive items such as paper bags, tape, crayons and paint to make a customized life-sized body poster of your child. The finished poster will be ready for hanging on your child's wall.

The project is also easy to finish, and it requires little adult supervision because scissors is the only tool required.

Begin by gathering papers bags. You can easily obtain free paper bags from grocery stores. Cut the paper bags so that they lie entirely flat. Then lay the bag down so that any print (such as a grocery store name) is facing down. Repeat the process with 5 or 7 more bags, depending on how large you would like the poster to be.

Place the bags on the floor in a large square shape. Then use tape on the undersides of the bags, to tape them together. I suggest that you use clear packing tape, as scotch tape generally is not up to the task of holding the bags together once the poster has been made and hung up.

When all of the bags are securely taped together in the square shape have your child lie down in the middle of it. You can use a marker or a crayon to draw around the child's whole body.

After you have completed this step, adult supervision will not be required until the poster is finished and ready to hang. Encourage your child to personalize their shape with clothes, facial features, hair, etc. Provide craft supplies such as crayons, markers, paint and even stickers and let your budding artist go to work while you take advantage of the quiet time to engage in a fun activity of your own.

Once your child has finished personalizing their shape you may want to consider adding further artistic touches to the poster such as a decorative border. If that is the case you can then encourage your child to paint, draw, or apply stickers to the edges of the poster. Alternatively you may use a dark marker, to draw a bold border around the poster yourself.

Allow ample time for any paint or markers used on the poster to dry. Otherwise when you hang the poster the colors may run ruining your child's work of art. After the poster has dried let your child pick out a spot in their room to hang it. Then hang the poster just as you would any other with tacks, tape, or other article of your choosing. Your child will now have a neat, personalized poster to decorate their room with.

This project is also a great way to keep multiple children occupied during sleepovers, slumber or holiday parties.