There's a leprechaun in our house!

This is quite possibly the cutest craft I've ever done!  Ever since a friend of mine from Mommy and me showed me this link about a mom putting fabric on her sons walls with starch I have not been able to get it out of my mind!   What an awesome idea!  So I googled some more to get a little more info and make sure it really does not ruin the walls and for real it's true.  Also I talked with my mom about my idea for a St. Patty's theme on the wall and she reminded me of when we were younger and she starched some of my brother's t-shirts to the wall in his room! Oh Yeah! 

So my idea was to put some shoe prints and a little leprechaun on the wall for Caden.  I got him interested in "the wall" by knocking on the spot where I intended to put the leprechaun and saying "hello? is anyone there?"  We did this a couple times yesterday and right before bed we did it again and Jeremy was on the other side saying "hello!" in his best leprechaun voice :) Caden wasn't sure of what to think of that! Then he went to bed and I got to work starching my fabric to the wall. 

I sketched out my leprechaun the day before and made a list of the different color fabrics I would need to get from hobby lobby.  I dont have a stockpile of fabrics yet since I'm fairly new to being able to do fun crafts :)  When I was working full time my spare time was spent cleaning the house and working on the yard or pool, and of course spending time with Caden!  Now that I have the blessing of being able to stay home I can get creative! So here's my sketch.

I purchased some liquid starch from Wal-mart. I followed the directions on the bottle for HEAVY.  Which was just a mixture of half starch, half water.  I only mixed half a cup of starch to half a cup of water and had extra some liquid left over when I was done.  You can also create your own starch by using cornstarch but it includes corn starch, water and then adding boiling water.... honestly just using the liquid starch is so much easier. 

For the leprechaun I just drew and cut out the pieces individually.  I didnt stencil or anything I just did it free hand to the scale I wanted.  I'm really impressed with myself for how well it turned out! haha!  I didnt take pictures of those steps because I was trying to hurry and finish cutting them all out before Caden woke up from his nap.  (sorry!) 

But when you're ready to put your fabric on the wall you paint your starch mixture onto both sides of the fabric then stick it on the wall wherever you want! If you need to make adjustments it's easy to just peel it off and replace it.  Just wipe the wall with a sponge and water where you misplaced it and it's no biggie.  I've read that some people who are using large pieces of fabric spray starch thier fabric first and iron it so it becomes nice and stiff and apparently easier to handle when painting the starch on.  But I was using small pieces so it wasn't difficult. 

So here's Caden checking out the shoe prints on the wall.  I started them from the front door.  I made sure to keep his gaze away from the leprechaun when we came down the stairs so I could capture pictures of his reactions :)

Trying to take a clover off the wall!

Hey who's that?!

Checking him out

After knocking on the wall again he started clapping :) hehe!

Then he gave Mr. Leprechaun a hug! It was SO CUTE!  I did not even say "give him a hug". I'm so glad I got a picture :)

Close up of our little visitor.

The shoe prints along the wall.  I almost tried to do actual green footprints but I didnt want to mess with drawing feet. And then I would have had to make my leprechaun barefoot and I liked the boots better.

close up of the shoe prints. I also cut out little clovers to make it more st. patty's themed. Those were the hardest part of this whole project.  I couldnt get the clovers to look right! plus cutting them so small was a challenge.

hopping from wall to wall.  It would have been cute to have them going across the floor too but I dont think you can do this on the floor..... hmmmm that might be interesting to test out sometime on a hidden corner and see if it sticks, or hurts the floor. 

Anyway when you're done with your decor you can just peel it off and wipe the wall with some water and you can move on! I know this to be true because like I said my mom did this in my brother's room. 

There are so many possibilities with this. It's so awesome!!  I have tons of ideas! I only hope every project turns out as well as this one!

Let me know what you think!!

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