Easily Painted Beautiful Birch Trees for the Nursery Wall
We have started a church recently and with that comes the need for a building. We were blessed by God that all the pieces fell easily into place and we were able to rent a large building and transform it into a church. It is a retail space so we had to be creative and turn the back room into a multi-purpose room. It needs to be a prayer room, a Sunday School room, and a nursery. I wanted the nursery to have a nice feel to it, so I decided to paint an 8 ft section of the wall with Birch Trees and woodland creatures. Then we put up white fencing to create a safe place for the crawling babies. Here is how I made the mural for this cute nursery.
Supplies Needed:
- White interior satin paint quart
- Painters tape
- Black acrylic paint
- Various other colors of acrylic paint
- Paintbrushes in large for trees, small for animal details
- Chalk
- Drop cloth or Tarp
- Ladder
Painting the Trees
First I lined the floor with my tarp to protect the new carpet in the nursery space. Then I took the painters tape and used it to outline my trees. I had a general idea that I wanted 7-8 trees, and I wanted them differing widths. Therefore I started from the left side of the wall and outlined my trees with tape. To tape the trees I started at the floor and ran one piece of tape from the floor to the ceiling. Since trees are not perfectly straight I made my line angle and veer slightly along the path. Then I decided how thick that tree would be and ran a piece of tape far enough apart to create that width.
After I taped all the tree outlines, I painted the inside of the tape with my white interior satin paint. After I painted each tree I pulled the tape off before it dried. The tape came off easily with a gentle tug from the floor. The tape was messy and I had to bunch it up and wipe white paint off my hands. Next I let the trees dry then applied a second coat with a smaller brush since I had no tape to protect the walls. I also free handed some white branches onto the trees
Painting the Woodland Animals
Before I added the black to the trees I wanted to add my animals. You do not have to add animals, but I wanted them since the theme was woodland animals. We got cute animal pictures to go on the wall, and a fox crib sheet. I found images of woodland animals online to use as ideas. Then using chalk on the wall since it is easier to wipe off than paint, I free handed my little critters. I drew a porcupine, two foxes, and owl, and an opossum.
After I drew them in chalk, I colored them in with my acrylic paints starting with the body colors and adding the details after the first color dried. The eyes and dark black accents went on last. As you can see above I left several inches at the bottom because molding was going to be added later.
Details
The Owl was done last since I had to climb the ladder to get to her. Here she is without her eyes finished. I did get them on a little later once the white of her eyes was dry. After I did the animals that were touching the trees I added the black tree lines. I just took a small brush and added small black lines up and down both sides of the tree in random arrangements. A small crescent pattern was all it took to bring the trees to life. Most of these photos are from the finished wall, but you can see that the lines really make the trees look great.
Finally finished with the black lines, while my daughter touched up some white. She wanted to help so bad, so I let her. The black lines took awhile since I had to go up and down the ladder. After this all I had left was the owl. All in all the mural took me 6 hours from start to finish. I thought about adding some little flying birds, but decided I had painted long enough. I can always add them another time. Of course I do not want to make it to cluttered.
Here is the finished nursery with the gates up to keep our littlest treasures safe from the older children during nursery. I am happy to have been a part of making it look so cute. The molding did go up on the wall a couple weeks later, so my critters are not floating anymore.
Where do you need beautiful Birch Trees in your decorating?
Here are some supplies to get you started:
Painters tape / Acrylic paint / Assorted paint brushes