Painted Paper Lanterns

Hello All! I hope you're having a good week! Today I'm sharing a bit of personal news because it informs my project today and the projects that will inevitably follow. First off -- no, I'm not pregnant. However, Handy Andy and I are going through training to become a host home for Safe Families for Children, and will also be getting our foster care license this year most likely. Instead of explaining to you what Safe Families is, I'll just make you go to the site to read up on it! :)

In short, Handy Andy and I are both passionate about providing a safe, loving environment to children in crisis situations, and this is the direction we are heading with the goal of hosting children beginning later this year/early 2013.

In addition to training, we are getting our house ready by transforming our guest room into a gender-neutral, age-neutral kids room [why yes, that is challenging -- any suggestions??]. At this point I've picked a green, blue and yellow color scheme. I'm also thinking about an alphabet/words theme, but I'm still pondering that one.

Anyway, for the first little decor project, I decided to use something I already had...

White paper lanterns! [sorry, I didn't take a before picture, so this is off the internet]

I got these probably over a year ago on clearance at Hobby Lobby, and I think my mom bought them for me...so they were actually free! I love the look of these paper lanterns, but I couldn't find a spot for these in our house before now.

Once I decided on the color theme for the room, I got inspired to give these lanterns a makeover and [eventually] hang them in the kids room. I took some tempera paint I had, brushes, and a few jar lids to trace, and here's what I ended up with:

There was no special trick to this, but I did have to watch how much paint I brushed on at one time because the paper is really thin and was pretty fragile when it got wet. The circles were kind of annoying to trace and paint, so I only did the big one with circles. They turned out so cute! And this little project was FREE! I can't wait to hang them up!

Also, I recently purchased some clearance fabric to make some curtains out of...which should definitely be an adventure. Stay tuned!

Have a good one!

P.S. Linking up here!