My Secret Garden.....

I had never custom painted a wall before 8 years ago. We had always had white walls for "resale" value. When we were going through such stress with a divorce, I told my kids they could choose any color they wanted for their rooms. When one said she wanted a tree in her room, I was so scared to try. Once I got into my head that if I messed up, I could paint over it, painting started to be fun.

This was my 4th room custom painting. I am not a painter and other than plain color on walls and a few crafts, this was a new thing for me. I did find however that once I started, there was no end to the creative outlet decorating and painting walls could be for me.

I made our upstairs guest bathroom into a "Secret Garden." I started painting a rock wall and used two or three bottles of acrylic paint in black and brown. I let the white show through that was on the wall already to lighten the paint. I kept the paint thicker for darker color on the edges of the "rocks" and added a little water which made the paint thinner to lighten some rocks.

If you notice, you can see that I started on the left and up and over the "door" and then realized that the rocks were leaning. So, I started at the bottom on the right and came up and met where I had stopped above on the right. If you try this, I would suggest that you build evenly starting at the bottom, just as you would a real rock wall.

I made an arched door out of paper. I folded the paper in half and drew half so that when opened it would be even on both sides. I then taped it to the wall where I wanted the door to go and traced it onto the wall with a pencil. I once again let the white of the wall show through as I used tan acrylic to paint the "door" planks on the wall. I used a smaller brush (1/2 inch wide) and brown paint to paint the lines defining the planks but held it sideways. I took a much smaller brush to draw the "knots" on the door.

I searched second hand shops for a towel bar that would make a good door handle. I got ivy at the dollar store and actually stapled the ivy to the wall along the door frames, windows, shower edges and fixtures.

I painted the back of the bathroom door with a wood grain texture also making it look like a hand made wooden door of a garden.

I painted the "rock wall" look behind the toilet and stapled ivy along the top of the rock wall. I framed some garden sayings and other sayings I like for decor on the back of the toilet and hung some on the wall. My favorite of these is "There is no testimony without the TEST." There is also a wooden frame hanging on the arched wooden door above the towel rack. The saying on that door is, "Ask and it shall be given you, Knock and it shall be opened unto you."

I stuck a watering can with silk flowers and greens in the window with a few other decoration and made a wall hanging with some clear frames of real dried pressed flowers to go above the shower stall. I liked that the real flowers added to the garden feel.

I added a few sayings I like about "Counting Your Blessings" and a "Bee Grateful" cross stitch done by a friend. It has been a fun room that gets comments often.

I finished it off by putting our favorite copy of "A Secret Garden" in there for reading material.

This is a garden you can make anywhere! Happy painting!