{Disclaimer: I am a member of the DecoArt Blogger Outreach Program. I received compensation and/or products for this post. All opinions and ideas for these products; however, are my own.}
I’m going to have a bit of a nerd moment and admit that I love Star Wars! I am a bigger fan of episodes IV – VI, but that’s not to say that episodes I – III aren’t bad. I just like what I grew up with. My 5 year old is also a HUGE Star Wars fan. You can often hear him in our house humming the music from the movie while he’s playing (sometimes it’s Indian Jones). I have been meaning to actually decorate his room around a theme for a while and now that he’s getting older, I feel pretty comfortable spending the time (and money) to decorate his room in a theme that I am sure he won’t get tired of next week. He had several ideas, but finally decided that Star Wars was what he wanted. Just to be sure, I’ve waited almost a year to decorate his room. Just in case. Okay, I really am just kept putting things off.
My first project for his room was his toy box. We’ve had it since his big brother was 18 months old, so it’s been used and abused well loved. I was actually going to try to sell it or donate it, but have seen so many amazing furniture transformations with paint lately that I decided to give his old toybox a new chance on life!
Here is what his toy box looked like before. It was dinged up, scuffed, scratched, and had sticky fingerprints all over it.
I wanted this project to have a minimal amount of work involved, so I chose Americana Decor Chalky Finish Paint to cover it. You can purchase this paint online from Home Depot. You may remember my very first experience with this paint here. I liked the paint so much and I was itching for a bigger project to try it on. One reason why I loved using this paint was that I had to do ZERO prep work, other than grabbing a damp cloth and wiping the toy box down. The color I chose is called Romance and I applied two coats of it to the toy box.
I asked my son if he would like the symbol for the rebels or for the Empire. He chose to have the Empire’s symbol. He leans a little more towards the dark side;) I created an SVG file with the Empire’s symbol and cut it out of a scrap piece of vinyl and adhered it off-center on the top of the toy box. I actually cut this stencil too small (6 1/2″) and decided to go bigger and ended up cutting another one at 8 1/2″. I’ve included the SVG file for you to download at the end of the post.
I painted the symbol in Carbon colored Chalky Finish Paint and then peeled up the vinyl.
I knew it would be a bit boring with just the symbol on top so I always knew I would add stripes to it. I used painter’s tape to add the stripes. The center stripe is centered on the symbol and is 2 1/2″ wide. The outside stripes are 1/2″ wide. I taped them off and used the Carbon colored Chalky Finish Paint again for the lines.
Here’s how it looked completely painted. My excitement was definitely building for this project!
I used Americana Decor Creme Wax to seal in the paint. After buffing it byhand, the toy box had a nice almost semi-gloss finish to it.
I am so happy with how it turned out! I am really loving the pop of color it adds to his room against the navy blue wall. My son is really happy with it too, which I suppose matters more than my opinion;) His room is definitely not done, but I am loving how things are going so far.
I’ve got a few more projects I’m working on this week that I will be sharing with you, so stay tuned!
You can download the SVG file I made here.
~Katie
You can find me over at these link parties:
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That toy chest looks awesome Katie, my 5 year old is becoming a Star Wars fan too and he would love something like this. I didn’t know Home Depot sold that paint. Is it only an online purchase?
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Yes. It’s a fairly new product, so they may start selling it in stores at some point. I love it though!
That looks amazing!! Your son is so lucky.
Thanks! I’m excited to finish the rest of his room now:)
I love how it turned out!!
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That is so cute! I am totally going to do stuff like this when I have kids. Katie I bet your kids have the coolest rooms of all their friends! 🙂
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Thanks Amanda! I’ve got more work to do, but I’m hoping the results will leave me with some happy boys:)
Ummmm this is amazing. I would have LOVED this as a kid. Great job!
Stopping by from the Do Tell Tuesday party 🙂
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Wow, Katie! That turned out great! Your son should get several more years out of it now! Thanks so much for sharing, 🙂
That’s great! My son would love that!
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Katie … Love how this turned out! That chalk paint looks awesome! I’ll have to look into it because I’ve been dying to try some sort of chalk paint … And the fact that you can buy it at Home Depot has me leaning towards this stuff! You’ll probably laugh at me (my husband does and is shocked by the fact that) … I’ve never seen Star Wars. How fun that your son is excited about a theme, though! Can’t wait to see the rest of the room!
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I just found out that they are selling a limited stock of this in Home Depot stores right now and that it will be available in Michael’s stores next month. I was pretty excited about that! I can’t believe you’ve never seen Star Wars! I’m sure that having little boys, your time will come that they will be begging to watch it;)
I haven’t seen Star Wars either! I figure at this point it’s better to just not see any of them and keep it as an odd fact about me.
So excited to hear that there will be other options available for chalk paint!
Love how this turned out! I’m passing this along to a friend whose whole family is totally into Star Wars! They need one of these in their playroom! *Pinning!
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Shelly, I would probably do the same if I were in the same boat:) thanks for stopping by!
We have a big utility box that we take with us to Cons and Charity events that carries our Jedi Costumes. I’m going to paint it like this (but with the Rebel Symbol te-he-he)!! Thanks for the great idea
That’s a great idea! I’m sure everyone will think it’s awesome:)
I need one of these but as a linen box! We are huge Star Wars fans as well, but have no need for a toy chest…but this is brilliant, and we do need more storage. I’m going to have to convince my Mister to find me a chest!
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I stenciled several storage boxes for my son’s room with different star wars characters too. It was really fun decorating his room:)
i am going to do this! We just painted their room Star Wars, got the sheets and we have this exact toybox. My question is, did you use two bottles of Romance or one? Also, this is my first attempt with Chalk Paint. When you did the Wax, what do you buff it with? Thank you!!!
How cool! I used about 1 1/2 jars of the romance color, I believe. When I buffed the wax, I just used an old t-shirt. There are lint-free wax cloths you can buy and I actually need to purchase some for myself.
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