DIY Painted Foliage Wallpaper
This giant wall in our bedroom has stumped me for months, it’s tall, huge, and a strange shape, I couldn’t figure out how to decorate it. Finally, I decided to add bead board to give this big blank wall some character. I haven’t really included a tutorial on how to install bead board because there are sooo many out there already! Anyways, I suddenly had the idea to PAINT wallpaper above the bead board and instantly fell in love with the idea.
This is my THIRD mural in this home (embarrassingly) First I painted our giant flower mural, then the abstract mural, and now this foliage wallpaper!
Since I was covering the entire wall in a pattern, I wanted the color to be very understated. My color inspiration was ‘Sherwin Williams Accessible Beige’. My local hardware store matched it as best they could. I painted the bead board the same color as the mural to keep the wall interesting but not having too much contrast or too much going on.
Anyways, let’s get started on this painted foliage wallpaper, and I’ll tell you how I did it so that you can paint your own too!
What You’ll Need:
Wall Paint
Small Paintbrush
Pencil
Ladder
Reference Photo (here’s mine)
How I Painted My Own Wallpaper:
- Start with an inspiration photo. I used this one. For my giant flower mural I used a projector and traced the design, but since this one was so big it would be hard to project, and it is just leaves I figured I could freehand it.
- I pulled my inspo photo up on my phone and looked at the photo as I traced the design in pencil. There are about 3 leaf designs in the photo that I would switch between. I know it sounds intimidating to freehand it, but truly, you can’t mess leaves up too bad, they are so simple, and there are so many that you won’t notice if some aren’t perfect.
- I drew the leaves in pencil until the wall was covered – making sure that there were generally even spaces between the leaves, and stepping back regularly to make sure that the leaves were mostly the same size and style.
- Once I finished drawing, I took a paintbrush that had a rounded top (as pictured) this ensures that all your lines are the same width, so that you don’t have to worry about that while you paint.
- I traced all of the pencil lines in paint. Since the paint was such a light color, I had to do multiple coats so that it would cover the pencil lines. So, make your pencil lines as light as possible!
That’s it! Enjoy your beautiful wallpaper! I also asked friends and family to see if there were any spots I needed to add leaves to, since it’s hard to tell when you’ve been staring at it for so long – ha!
Also, this IS a time consuming project, but it’ll save you money on wallpaper AND the hassle of installing it. I think it took me about 4 hours to paint the whole wall, but I took my time over the course of a couple days. Make it fun!
Trace leaves out in pencil
The brush I used
Trace the pencil marks with wall paint
If you paint your own wallpaper or have any questions please tag or DM me @mikylacreates on Instagram! This DIY really transformed the entire room, plus is was fun to do too! PS. podcasts make it more fun! See you next time!!
