My Wonderful Walls Blog — Wall Stencils

Gorgeous Ocean Wall Mural - Customer Spotlight on Wisconsin Couple Gina & Neal 0

Every now and then, our My Wonderful Walls office gets a chance to have a peek inside the lives of our customers. Recently we were able to talk to Neal and Gina – a couple from Waunakee, Wisconsin that were looking for something unique to make their son, Victor’s, nursery extra special. It means a lot to us to hear how happy they were with the quality of our product and the friendliness of our staff, but we also really appreciate getting to hear the story of how our stencils helped transform their nursery into a place of wonder and imagination.

After careful consideration and time spent looking online at the My Wonderful Walls website to make sure that they chose the perfect wall stencil kit, the couple decided on the Under the Sea Stencil Kit, which is a magical blend of sea creatures and underwater scenes that depict the beauty of the sea at its finest.

Gina’s top priority was finding something for their son’s nursery that was colorful and bright. As color is one of the first things to grab a newborn’s attention after they are born, it was important to her that Victor’s wall mural be as visually stimulating as possible while still exuding a sense of peace. Enter the ocean wall mural, Under the Sea Themed Wall Stencil Kit – a perfect hybrid of bright colors and the serenity of water.

Even though the My Wonderful Walls website offers wall stickers and decals, Gina and Neal decided from the very beginning that they wanted a more hands-on approach, which is what drew them to the wall mural kits that include reusable stencils and patterns. Gina, a crafter by nature, had worked with craft paint before and was excited to put that experience to work in the nursery.

Additionally, Gina’s father had been a talented artist that had filled her childhood room with hand-painted murals that she remembers fondly to this day. While Gina feels she inherited her father’s creativity, she also feels that her freehand abilities are not superb, which is why the stencil kit was, in her mind, the way to go.

Because of the intrinsically custom nature of the stencils and the accompanying paints, Gina was able to select colors for this ocean wall mual that complimented the baby blanket they had found for Victor and incorporate that color scheme into the mural as a whole. To add yet another level of personalization to the artwork, Gina also hand painted white detailing marks on all of the sea creatures and used glitter pens to add depth and sparkly to the creature’s eyes.

After it was all said and done, the couple’s favorite scene for this ocean wall mural turned out to be the large, loveable turtle; it is one of the largest stencils in the kit and is complimented by a realistic and detailed coral reef scene as well. The best part about the entire process in her mind, though, was the efficiency of the process from start to finish. From base coat to finished mural, Gina and her husband clocked in at a mere three days – an extraordinary transformation for their darling baby boy’s special room.

Manhattan Couple Creates Calming Forest Wall Mural for New Baby Girl's Room 0

When you manage a busy, internationally known company like My Wonderful Walls, it is easy to get caught up in the day-to-day business and lose count of the hundreds of people that have benefited from our products in a very real and meaningful way. Recently I was able to catch up with Kristi and her husband, Kevin, a New York couple that just finished painting a forest wall mural for their daughter’s room.

Stephanie: Why did you choose this particular theme wall mural?

Kristi: Our apartment is in the middle of Manhattan, so we wanted to create a place in the city that was just for Adeline - something fun yet calm. The Forest theme brings a little nature into the city and serves as a bright, natural spot in the midst of the hustle, bustle, and noise of the city.

Stephanie: How long did it take you to complete the project from start to finish?

Kristi: We were working insane hours all through my pregnancy so I would have been happy to get even just a simple coat of paint on the walls of our new apartment.  That said, we were ambitious and allowed ourselves three days. Kevin painted the sky and grass on one Saturday, and the following weekend we spent both Saturday and Sunday adding in all the little features that made the mural come to life.

Stephanie: That seems like the process went really quickly! Can you describe your artistic comfort level?

Kristi: We both work in a finance-related industry and haven't a creative bone between the two of us. When Kevin announced that he had a vision to paint animals in the baby's room, I pictured a misshapen free-hand rabbit haunting our child's dreams. He scoured the Internet and found the stencil kits on MyWonderfulWalls.com to help alleviate my fears.

Stephanie: Had you looked at other sites before choosing one of our kits?

Kristi: Yes. Other sites sold individual stencils, and we really liked the fact that My Wonderful Walls would provide us all we needed to cover our whole room; not only that, but the kit came with paint and the stencils were reusable. All around it was really the best choice available, I think.

Stephanie: What did you like best about the wall mural painting experience?

Kristi: We are both ambitious and love a challenge, so stepping out of our artistic comfort zone was a fun project to tackle together. Adeline will turn one on October 1^st, and she is really starting to be interested in the mural scenery. It is so cool because we get to talk about all the animals – she even pets the bunnies and sniffs the flowers!  When we return home from traveling, she squeals with delight to see her room again; that alone makes the whole process worth it time and time again.

Stephanie: Do you have any helpful tips for people who will paint with our wall stencils?

Kristi: I would advise parents to plan exactly what might be where - we just filled all the walls with scenes, and then when the time came to place the furniture in the room, some of the scenes ended up being covered.

Jungle Wall Mural for Baby Room - Customer Spotlight 0

Customer Spotlight: Animal Lovers Lynda and Chris of Mississauga, Ontario, Canada Create a Jungle Wall Mural for Baby Room

Ever since the My Wonderful Walls stencil kits and wall art started gaining international recognition, we have loved hearing from people in other countries that have tried our wall stencils and fallen in love with how easy and fun they were. Recently we heard from our neighbors from the North – a Canadian couple named Chris and Lynda that heralded from the beautiful Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. They were decorating a room for their baby boy, William, and wanted something special that would set his room apart and make it a peaceful place for him to learn and grow.

As their family loves animals, the couple knew from the start that they wanted to do an animal-themed wall mural for his nursery. What they did not know, though, was just how easy and enjoyable the process would be. Once they settled on the Wild Jungle Safari wall mural stencil kit, Chris and Lynda could not wait to get started on their son’s room. When asked why they chose to go with a wall stencil over a decal, Lynda answered by saying, “I decided to work on William’s room while on maternity leave, and so I had some extra time to do something more elaborate than just placing a few stickers on the walls. Even though the stickers you had available were really nice, I had always dreamed about painting a mural for a nursery, and My Wonderful Walls was exactly what I needed to make that dream a reality.”

Although Lynda had planned on painting, she had no idea that the process would be so simple, and that the stenciling paint included in the wall mural paint kit would be more than enough to finish the wall mural and add special touches to his nursery. It only took her a week to complete the entire room mural, even though she took extra time to make sure each detail was perfect. She said,

“After a week, it was perfect. I admit I was overly particular, and went over each stencil twice, and then went over each stencil outline with a small brush to make all of the lines perfect. I'm a fairly crafty person to begin with, but certainly not a professional by any means. I would say I have a medium comfort level with projects like this, which I think helped me feel a freedom to create some different, unique looks. For example, I put a crown on the lions head and painted some drawer pulls with animals faces.”

When asked if she had a favorite vignette within the kids wall mural setting, Lynda replied by saying, “I really like the giraffe. I love how the spots turned out. Having two stencils really allowed for a nice layered, clean look. I also really liked all of the flowers; I used the stencils over and over again to create different groupings around the room.”

Chris and Lynda were ecstatic with how their son’s nursery turned out, and would definitely recommend any of the My Wonderful Walls products to others looking to create custom wall art for a child’s room or nursery. They loved how easy to use the wall stencils were, and would highly recommend purchasing the accompanying paint kit as well.

Customer Spotlight: Susan and David and Their Forest Theme Baby Room 0

It all started when a Chicago couple named Susan and David (and, of course, their beloved pup named Wally) found that they would be welcoming their first baby into the world. They wanted their little boy to have a beautiful nursery to come home to.

“From the get go, Dave knew he wanted to paint a mural.  Given that neither of us are artists, we knew that in order to successfully accomplish this, we would need some help.  We never considered using stickers; we were set on paint.”

Luckily, the couple quickly ran across the Wonderful Walls website where they were ecstatic to find a mural that – in their words – was “a spot-on reflection of what you see in our immediate neighborhood: ponds, frogs, cattails, deer, and lots and lots of birds and lush greenery.” They were even more excited to find out how easy the stenciling process was.

One of the best things about our stencil sets is how easy they make it for people to either follow the designs to the letter, or to customize the stencils to make them uniquely theirs. Susan and David had initially planned to just stick to the existing mural, but once they got into the groove of the project, they realized just how simple it would be to add their own special touches.

They used the flower stencil as a template for the flowers in their own back yard, including daisies and black-eyed Susans. They used a trailhead post stencil (along with some Internet research to find just the right bird house) as inspiration to freehand a birdhouse, complete with a ‘Home Tweet Home’ sign.  Emboldened by their freehand success, they then went on to create a family of bumblebees and ladybugs. They then finished off their masterpiece by painting their initials on a tree.

“After priming the room, we could have finished the mural in just a few days. We were really surprised at how quickly the room came together… that said, given that I was 7 months pregnant, it was nice to take it easy and do a few stencils each day,” said Susan. “We loved everything about the Wonderful Walls mural painting experience and would encourage anyone looking to add a special touch to their home to give it a try.  It was so easy and really allowed us the chance to work together on a fun project and create a very special room for a very special little baby.”

The couple’s overall response to their stencil kit was nothing short of sheer joy: “We had a blast using the Forest Friends stencil kit we got from My Wonderful Walls. The directions were fantastic, the product stood up to what it was promised to be (the stencils really DID stick to the wall and really WERE easy to remove and reuse), and we were thrilled to find out that the amount of paint provided in the paint kit was way more than we could ever have needed.”

Thank you, David and Susan; we wish you and your wonderful family all the best!

Our Farm Theme Baby Wall Mural – 3 years later 0

About 3 years ago, we painted a farm mural in our son’s room with our farm stencil kit. It turned out great, and we’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. We have actually gotten quite a lot of use out of this fun farm wall mural. We’ve told stories based on the farm animals in the the wall art. We’ve sung countless farm songs. We’ve adorned the farm animals with sparkles, felt, glitter and gems. (Hobby Lobby loves our family!)

The boys are now almost 3 and 5 ½ and sleep in the same room, so we have plans to give the room “big boy makeover”. I think we’ve agreed upon a boy’s space theme room with blasting rockets, robots, planets and aliens. But this morning as we were hanging out in the room, I realized that this farm mural still has quite a lot of life in it. Adrian, the little one, started pretending like he was a choo choo train, and he was taking all his farm friends with him on the journey. Then Isaac got in on the action and pretended to pack food for the trip, asking each what they preferred to eat. We eventually traveled to Seattle so these lovely farm animals could see the ocean for the first time. (Pause for preschool) and we are back in their farm themed room with an afternoon of more pretend trips around the world.

It was great fun! My boys have wild imaginations and thrive on this sort of activity, especially when they’ve got my complete attention. But still, I was impressed by how much fun they both had and by how much we were able to discuss and learn from our little pretend activity.

So, 3 years later, the baby room farm theme mural still definitely keeps on giving. Impressive indeed! Does this mean that the space mural will be put on hold? Probably not. You know how kids are when they get their minds set to something. But rest assured that there are endless possibilities you can do with your child’s wall mural. All you need is a little imagination.

Why Stencil? 0

We know that wall stickers and wall decals are the big rage these days. We understand the appeal. They are easy to apply, easy to remove, affordable and are great for fickle kids. That said, we feel it is time to address the beauty in wall stencils. Here are 10 reasons why stenciling is great, in case you are wondering.

• You can stencil the same designs repeatedly, making it possible to create a whole kids wall mural with just a few stencil designs.
• With wall stencils, you can choose your own colors and easily coordinate with your favorite bedding and room décor.
• Stenciling will bring out your inner artist. Gain satisfaction in knowing that you’ve created your own masterpiece.
• Stencils cannot be easily removed by curious and mischievous little toddler hands.
• Stenciling will give you a designer look at a fraction of the designer price.
• There are endless possibilities of what you can do with wall stencils. You are only limited by your imagination.
• You can use stencils on walls, furniture, fabric and more, creating a coordinating look throughout.
• Stencils encourage clean and classic designs.
• There is just something so tangibly satisfying from using colorful stencil paints and a paint brush.
• Stenciling is not just a fad. It has been around for ages and will forever have a presence in the world of wall art.

Have we inspired you to stencil? We hope so, but if not, stand by for our newest venture… Wall Stickers by MyWonderfulWalls coming this spring! Tee hee.