Painting Roller Blinds
Art idea supplied by Ewan McDougal
When it comes time to redecorate your child’s bedroom they are bound to want to get involved and help, this is great it really helps make a child’s room feel like it’s their home and own private space. Finding a little job for them to do however is not always that easy. One finishing touch you could let them get creative with is painting a roller blind.
If you’ve decided to dress your child’s window with roller blinds you are left with a large space for decorating that’s only visible at night. This, at least at first, can make bed times more exciting and means that of the whole project does go horribly wrong the blinds will not always be on display (With enough preparation any disasters should be avoidable).
What you’ll need:
There are a number of ways you can go about this and the exact equipment you need will vary accordingly.
The first thing you’ll need of course is the blind, most roller blinds come are made from either stiffened fabric or a plastic that feels quite papery. Either of these are suitable for decorating but you need to choose your paints accordingly.
A good all round variety of paints for this task are stencil paints. They are great for painting most surfaces and tend to be a little thicker so are less likely to run and shouldn’t crack so readily when the blind is rolled up.
If your blind is made from fabric then an obvious choice would be fabric paints, however bear in mind that many blinds are treated with stiffeners that may repel fabric paints. If this is the case you may have to wash the blinds first to remove this agent.
You may also find it easier to use a large table or board to spread your blind out on and weigh it down so it stays flat.
Choose your style:
Free paint
Those of you who have older more artistic kids, or are simply brave may wish to just present your children with paints brushes and the blind and let them have at it creating there master piece from scratch. If you select this option, just pour out the paints, roll out the blind and let your children have at it.
Stencil
Stencilled designs look great on blinds and most arts and crafts shops will sell a wide variety that you can choose from, or if you’re feeling creative you could make your own. Print out, or cut from magazines silhouettes of pictures mount these onto cardboard then cut out with a craft knife. Then just use sponges to paint over the stencils onto the blinds leaving fantastic results.
Printing
An alternative to stencils is printing, you can either make or buy stamps, or just let your children use their hands and feet to make stamps. The hands and feet option is great for young children as they can add to it over the years and trace how their hands and feet have grown.
Tracing
You could also let your child design the picture on paper first, or even find one in a magazine and trace this onto tracing paper then use carbon paper to transfer this outline onto the blinds, it’s then just your child’s job to colour in the picture. If you have younger children with a less steady hand, and you your self are more artistic you can easily fix there errors by re out lining the designs with black paint.
Caring for the blinds
If you used fabric paints the blinds should survive the washing machine (assuming they were already machine washable) nut the more you do this the more the colours will fade so it’s perhaps advisable to only wash the blinds when they really need it. If you used stencil paint then the best way to wash your blinds is with a moist soapy sponge taking care to avoid the painted areas where possible.
Whether your redecorating your child’s whole bedroom or just looking for a fun way to spruce it up a little I hope you find this creative project useful, and are left with exciting colourful bedrooms for your children.
