d.i.why not? fab striped starburst walls

I'm excited to share today's DIY with you.  Even though this was a part of the Yo Gabba Gabba/  Habitat for Humanity of Greater LA kids' room project, I think the pattern is pretty cool and something that will appeal to any age.   Originally I was planning on doing a much more intricate design (along the lines of the cool hexagon wall I painted last year or even something like one of my past painted rugs) but when I learned that I needed to start and finish the room in one day (including paint drying time!!) I knew I had to think of something that wouldn't take nearly as much time to tape out and still be great looking.

I have been obsessed with cool graphic patterns and starburst designs in particular for a while now and have created lots of projects incorporating them from rugs to crayon and clothespin wall art.  I really wanted the design to look like wallpaper on the girls' walls and I think I achieved that!

And, here is a glimpse at what the room looked like before we got started!

When I learned that pink was their favorite color I knew I had to use it on the walls.  I love pink as well!  So, Poetic Princess from Behr was my color choice.  And thanks to the kind donation from my new friends at Behr we had plenty of it!  And don't you just love the name?  In my next life, I totally want to be the person that names paint colors... We used the Self Priming Interior Flat Enamel and used the base coat that was already on the walls. I picked the paint from the chip (something you should never do) and lucked out that the color was exactly what I had in mind, pale but not too pale and no where near Pepto Bismol!  Phew!

The other key ingredient in this project was Frog Tape.  I had never heard about Frog Tape until I decided to paint my own hallway walls with gold metallic stripes and had quite a bit of dripping and feathering through the standard blue painters tape.  When I told my sister about it she said "you should have used Frog Tape and that wouldn't have happened."  So, the thing with Frog Tape is you need to be sure you are adhering it to primed latex paint that has already cured for a minimum of 3 days.  Otherwise your results will not be so successful. 

To replicate this design, here's what you need:

• Frog Tape (depending on your walls use delicate surface or multi surface)
• Your Behr Paint color of choice (Poetic Princess is what I used here!)
• a level
• scissors or x-acto

And the how to:

1. Make sure your walls have been properly primed and cured before starting, and test the frog tape first!
2. Start with using your level and measuring and taping vertical stripes on the wall that are 18 inches apart.  This is the most time consuming part of the whole taping process.  Because there were a few volunteers helping me with this, I had one gal using the level to measure and pencil in the stripes, another person followed and taped the stripes and then I followed with the starbursts going around the room.
3. Add starburst pattern by taping a horizontal line across your vertical stripe and then a diagonal stripe across the center on each side.  Use scissors or an x-acto to cut the tape so that the edges are clean.
4. Vary the starbursts from vertical stripe to vertical stripe so that every other starburst is in the center of two starbursts on the vertical stripe next to it.  ** Note, these starbursts were all eyeballed and not measured to exactly match each other.  It was all done free form  and trust me it is easy!
5. Paint the tape edges onto the walls so that they lock in place and then paint the entire space.  I did two coats in this room
6. Once dry, pull the tape off, do a little happy dance, and then ooh and ahh at how cool your creation is!!

Locking that tape in with paint! It was a hot and humid day and we needed to work quickly!

The 7 year old gal in the Habitat family pitched in to erase pencil marks!

I mentioned in my Yo Gabba Gabba room reveal post that I had some amazing volunteers working with me during the painting and installation day.  And all 4 of them work on the actual Yo Gabba Gabba show (3 are dancers/ costume characters and one works on the fab sets!).  I was so lucky to have such fun and awesome folks helping me paint and assemble furniture that day and couldn't have come anywhere near completing the project in a day without their help!  All four of them had such a fun spirit and a positive can-do attitude and really came to work and I was so appreciative!  They contributed so much to making this room a success!  One gal in particular, Hanh, is in charge of painting the actual Yo Gabba Gabba sets and she was awesome in giving direction to the rest of the crew on how to properly paint this room while I was muti-tasking. So, when you watch the show, know that the folks behind the scenes and under the costumes at Yo Gabba Gabba are rock stars!

To check out other Yo Gabba Gabba themed DIY projects go here.  And to see the final room reveal go here!

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until next time...

the formerly almost 40 year old intern