Diy decorating ideas: making a fish wall paper border

Wallpaper borders add a wonderful dimension to an otherwise bland room. Furthermore, you do not have to be an interior design expert to use them as a decorative edge to your room. You can either buy an already printed spool, or you can enhance a border with your own creative touch.

You can find a plethora of designs that include flower bouquets, cartoons, general patterns, and of course, calming varieties of sea life. A fish pattern can create a calming and sometimes alarmingly dramatic effect to any room of the house. You can buy a border with a fish pattern on it, but making your own fish wallpaper border can culminate in a uniquely intriguing design.

To create your own pattern you will need several spools of solid light blue wallpaper border (Tip: Spools usually have fifteen feet of paper, so measure the perimeter of your room and divide it by fifteen to find out how many spools you will need). You will also need to find stencils of tropical fish (preferably a stencil with three fish) and seaweeds. The colors of the fish will give you the greatest decorating advantage. Look at the type of furniture and other things in the room to decide which colors should be most prominent in the details of the fish. When this is done, you will need to buy the paints. You can find small containers of paints at both hardware stores and craft stores. The basic colors you will need are green, black, yellow, and white. For filling in the stencils, you can use any paintbrush, but there are special circular brushes made specifically for stencils. You can find them at the craft store as well.

First, hang the border in place. Then, tape the seaweed stencil in place starting at the bottom of the border. Fill in the stencil with light strokes of green. Repeat the pattern along the entire length of the border. Then, add the fish stencils by alternating all three fish with one or two fish facing in opposite directions. For the fish, start from the outside and use light strokes toward the center of the patterns. This will give the fish a three dimensional look. When you are done with this quick stenciling of all the patterns along the border, go back and add some details. Darken in some of the outside edges to add depth, and use simple black dots for the eyes of the fish.

For children's rooms and bathrooms, you can try a really simple approach to creating your own fish wallpaper border. All you need for this simple approach is pre-pasted wallpaper with various fish designs, water, and a pair of scissors. Select various fish and carefully cut them out. Then, dunk the cut out pieces in a bucket of water and apply them along the border of the wall. This approach gives you some leeway with regard to placement. You can create a linear border, or you can paste them around wall fixtures, such as bookshelves or towel racks.

You can enhance the aquatic effect of this design by placing an aquarium as a focal point in the room. For the bathrooms and children's rooms, a small fish bowl can be just helpful. When you are completely finished, sit back and enjoy the peaceful environment of your room.