I didn’t decorate the nursery with either of my children, which had more to do with my disinterest in interior design than anything else. And since we rent an apartment, I always felt I couldn’t do too much to walls or windows.

But it seemed a shame to let the chance pass me completely by, and I loved this cute idea to project an image on just a small portion of a wall, trace with pencil, and then fill in with paint.

The activity book I found this in is so old that it recommended an overhead projector for the task. (!) Do they even make those anymore? Failing to have a projector, I was at a loss for how to trace an image onto the wall until shown a neat technique, no artistic skills required:

Print out the image you want (we went with a farm animal theme) and make a heavy layer of pencil on the opposite side of the paper.

Now hold the paper up to the wall, and trace all lines with pencil – the graphite will transfer through!

Soon we had four little farm animals to color in.

I chose a spot on the wall that was fairly low, so it will be at eye level with Veronika once she starts to crawl or toddle about.

I used acrylic paint, and decided that it looked neater with the outlines of the animals painted, but not filled completely in.

Little blue sheep was too adorable!

Veronika was my eager audience, her eyes wide as I worked!

And ha, then there was the problem of explaining to my four year old why mom was suddenly allowed to paint on the wall. So I let him make a design of his choice in a tiny portion of the corner. Behold his red bird:

I can’t wait for Veronika to enjoy this beautiful little portion of her room!