How to Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids

As parents, we want our children to be happy, healthy, and curious and our job is to encourage them and stimulate their imaginations. What better way to stimulate a child's imagination than to create a themed bedroom for them? There are many different themes that children would enjoy but how about a safari theme where your child can pretend to catch lions or elephants as they travel across the African plains or perhaps make their way through a lush green jungle in search of lost civilizations? A safari themed bedroom can be a fun place for your child to play but the fun doesn't need to stop there in the bedroom when you can make plans to visit a real African Safari Wildlife Park such as the one in Port Clinton, Ohio. The imaginative possibilities for fun and learning are nearly endless for your child with a safari themed bedroom! In this article, I will list ten ideas to help you to design an amazing safari themed bedroom for your child. Before you even start on the transformation from a plain and ordinary child's bedroom into an exciting new safari theme, you will need to take everything out of the bedroom. It is a lot of work but it will make your task so much easier to have a completely empty room to start with. Have your child sleep in the living room or visit grandma for a few days while you work.

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #1: Decide the Type of Safari, Jungle or African

One of the very first things you will need to decide is if your safari theme will be a jungle safari or an African safari. They're totally different in every way. The jungle safari theme will include more green colors with a touch of brown. The African safari theme will include more browns and tans. Plus the animals for each safari theme will be slightly different. Fortunately, whether you decide to go with a jungle safari theme or an African safari theme, there are plenty of safari themed merchandise options to choose from. You'll need to consider your budget too when planning the safari themed bedroom because you can decorate a jungle or African safari for very little but if you have a big enough budget, then the sky is the limit on the merchandise that is available out there. One website, Maries Manor, can help get you started on your design for a safari bedroom.

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #2: Is the Safari Bedroom for a Boy or a Girl?

It may seem like a silly question but, is the safari themed bedroom for a boy or a girl? The gender of your child will definitely guide you as you choose safari themed merchandise for your child's bedroom. Of course there will be some items that are gender neutral but there are some girls who would prefer a little pink color with their zebra patterned bedspread such as the Kimlor Bedding available at Bedding & More. And it's possible that boys would prefer a more masculine color palette than pink. Another thing to consider when choosing items for your child's safari themed bedroom is the age of your child. A young child may prefer a more bright and cartoonish type of safari theme whereas a slightly older child may not. If it is at all possible, try to include your child in the decision making process as you design a safari themed bedroom for him or her.

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #3: Choose Your Colors

By now you know if you will be designing a jungle or African safari bedroom so it is time to choose the color palette for the room. What colors are going to best express the feeling of either a jungle or African safari in the bedroom? Let's start with a jungle safari theme. Jungle safari colors will be a lot of greens and browns to mimic the trees in the jungle and some oranges and blacks to mimic tiger or jaguar colors. African safari colors will have more browns and tans like the African plains, along with some vivid colors of both sunsets and animals (such as reds and golds). And along with colors, there are patterns, animal and plant patterns to consider. With the help of your child, choose three or four colors for the room that will express the safari theme that you are going for.

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #4: Walls (Paint, Wallpaper, Stencil, and Mural)

The first step to take in creating the design you've chosen for the safari themed bedroom is the walls. What are you going to do with the walls of the bedroom? Will you paint them one color or do the top of the wall in one color and the bottom in another different color? Will you be using wallpaper instead of paint? Or will you be combining part painted wall with part wallpapered wall? Plus there are either painted or wallpaper type jungle murals that can be done on one wall of the bedroom. Or, you can paint the bedroom walls and then place tree or animal stick-ons (like a giant sticker) onto the walls. If you are willing, you can also paint the trees and animals on the walls yourself. When it comes to the walls of the bedroom, the choices are many and it's important to choose carefully since the walls are the backdrop and set the feeling for the entire safari theme.

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #5: Floors (Carpet, Throw Rugs, Wood, and Laminate)

Buying an area rug with the print, pattern and in the colors you want is a great idea for the safari theme in your child's room. If you already have a carpeted floor in your child's bedroom, you can lay a large area rug on top of it. If you have a wooden or laminate floor, that's excellent as well, you can lay a large area rug on top of it AND have the browns of the wood floor to mimic dirt either in the jungle or on the plains. Plus with the wooden floor, there will be some hard surface available for your child to use their toys on that demand a hard surface. Unless you have a huge budget, I would not spend a lot of money on the floor of your child's bedroom, a large area rug can add to your safari theme and it's easy since you just place it on top of the existing floors.

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #6: Furniture

What furniture will you need for your child's safari themed bedroom? Can you re-use some of your child's old furniture and just re-paint it? The bed is one of the most important and necessary pieces of furniture your child will need but the choices of what type of bed are huge. You can purchase a bed with a safari theme such as the iron bed available at Rosenberry Rooms or at NameBrandBeds.com. There are some decorating ideas for beds at Maries Manor. The choices of beds can cost you anywhere from just a few hundred dollars to many thousands of dollars. There are even companies that will make a custom bed to fit your safari theme. Custom Playhouses and Children's Furniture is one place that will create custom childrens furniture for you. Other furniture your child will need is a toy box, a bookshelf, a dresser, a table and chairs and perhaps a nightstand. Some companies, such as Target (www.target.com) sell safari theme furniture for children. You can check out their website for their selection.

If you are creative and handy with a saw, you can make a custom headboard for your child's bed. Trace the outline of an animal (head or full body) such as a lion onto a sheet of plywood and cut it out with a jigsaw. Sand the edges, paint it in the colors you want, then attach it to the wall behind your child's bed and you have an easy and cheap safari theme headboard for your child's room. You can paint an old bookshelf, add safari theme stickers on it, attach it to the wall (always a very important step in a child's bedroom) and you have a simple safari theme shelf for your child's books and keepsakes. To create a tree-type shelf, use a corner bookshelf, paint it dark brown to mimic a tree trunk, attach it to the wall in a corner of your child's safari theme bedroom and attach vines from a floral supply store at the back of the top of the shelf where the vines hang down along the edges and front of the shelf.

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #7: Bedding & Linens

Choosing the right safari theme bedding for your child's bed will really complete your entire safari theme. You can find matching sheets, pillow cases, curtains, pillows, and comforters that all match for your child's safari theme or you can buy just a comforter or bedspread and have solid color sheets. It depends on your budget. One website with a nice selection of safari theme bedding is Artistic Sensations.

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #8: Lighting, Ceiling Fans

Your child will need some lighting in their room and wouldn't it be fun to have a safari theme chandelier? You can find a Safari Walk About chandelier at Rosenberry Rooms that would be perfect for a child's safari theme bedroom. But if the nearly $500.00 price tag intimidates you, you can buy find some nice lighting options at your local WalMart or Home Depot for a lot less. If you need a ceiling fan in your child's room, you can find the perfect safari theme one at aBaby.com. Each fan blade is decorated with a different animal print so it's a fun ceiling fan! Or, you can buy a ceiling fan and paint each fan blade yourself for a much lower priced option.

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #9: Safari Accessories (Clothing, Mosquito Netting)

Different accessories can really set off your safari theme. Buy your child a pith helmet and some safari clothes and their playtime can be learning time as well as they dress up as an intrepid explorer or Indiana Jones on a quest for an ancient lost city. Add a compass and your child can really find their way around.

Purchase several yards of mosquito netting to drape around the bedroom, from the ceiling around the bed, over the windows or even covering the closet. Purchase some vines and other foliage to hang around the windows or even from the ceiling to mimic the dense jungle foliage.

Check out the safari theme party supplies at your local party store or at coolest-kid-birthday-parties.com to add some of the decorations to your child's safari theme bedroom. A unique addition to the safari theme bedroom would be the heavy cardboard free standing cut outs of a large lion, tiger or gorilla at ShinDigz. They're similar to store displays except they are of animals. For added fun for your child, you can take a large wooden cut-out of an animal shape (just like for the animal headboard), sand the edges well, paint it with chalkboard paint and then attach it to the wall for a fun chalkboard. What child wouldn't want an elephant or rhino chalkboard?

Design a Safari Bedroom for Your Kids, Idea #10: Toys

Don't forget to add some new safari theme toys to the new bedroom design. Add in a few plush lions, tigers, elephants, monkeys and other safari theme animals to your child's bedroom and listen to them roar!

Now that you've designed and created a safari theme for your child's bedroom, hopefully they will imagine many great adventures, enjoy themselves, and be the envy of all their friends. Let the safari begin!

Resources:
African Safari Wildlife Park.
Artistic Sensations. Animal Safari and Jungle Theme Room Decor.
eHow. How to Create a Jungle Themed Bedroom.
ShinDigz. Safaris Party, Jungle Theme Party Supplies, Safari Decorations.
The Realm. Maries Manor. Kids Theme Bedroom Decorating Ideas. http://kidsthemebedrooms.com/