Wall Decal Made of Painted Contact Paper!

I was so thrilled about my wall decal tutorial being featured over at Beyond the Picket Fence that it motivated me to do another one last night. This time the decal was for a rather boring white wall in our living room. We have an accent wall in olive green, but the other two walls are white, and this one blank space in particular haunts me. It's kind of like I decorated the sides and corners of that wall, but I just had no idea what to do with the middle, which is why it was the perfect candidate for some experimental decal-ing. The experimental part is that I painted white contact paper with acrylic paint. 

And it worked!!! Couldn't believe it. I guess I imagined the paint wrinkling the contact paper or something. But it went on easily and dried in about 20 minutes. I think you could do it either way, but I chose to cut out the shapes first and then paint them. I think you waste less paint that way because you are only painting what you know you are going to use. 

Contact paper is so thin that it really just molds itself to the wall. It almost looks like I painted it directly on the wall, so I can see how this extra step of painting the contact paper and applying it to the wall would be a waste of time for some people. I'm a renter, though, so I am fond of projects like this that can easily be undone. And, by the way, the pieces are easily removable and replaceable - I had to move around some circles a couple of times before I liked it. 

So, the process can be kind of messy. he he! 

 Here is an in progress pic:

 The finished product!

Now that I know the painting contact paper method works, I think I need to spruce up my lab space at work with a few decals. I keep saying I'm going to make a tree, but geez that would take a while.... :) Guess I'm lazy.

Thanks for looking! I'm linking to...