Bursting with life.

Now that I don't have the T.V. to stare at while I eat dinner or relax after work, I find myself and my mind wandering about. One day I noticed how blank the wall behind my T.V. was. Blank and HUGE. What to do with such a clean slate? My first thought was to buy a large vinyl wall sticker of a tree and birds and things to cover it. I even found a Groupon for some vinyl wall art. However, even with the Groupon, to get the size of tree I needed to cover the large space would have cost me nearly $300. Again, what to do. [please ignore the mess in my house]

For a few weeks I stared at that wall while eating dinner or breakfast, and it taunted me with its possibilities. Then, I saw a Pinterest post about a school art project made with magazine strips and a simple silhouette. Eureka. I'll build my own tree out of the many magazines I have just lying around in my apartment. So I got to work on my tree. I'm going to give the rest to you in a step by step with pictures...if you just want to see the final product, scroll down to the bottom.


1. First, I had to find something I could use to stick the magazine strips to the wall, without upsetting my landlord when I move out. After searching on Amazon and reading reviews I settled on Scotch brand removable poster tape. It worked perfectly for this project. Not only did it stick well, but if I didn't like where I had placed something, it was easy to remove it.

2. Next I ripped out pages that were full of color (usually the ad pages) from 2 Real Simple (c) magazines I had lying around, and cut those into strips.

3. Next step was to draw a silhouette. I'm no artist, so I Googled vinyl wall art trees until I found one I liked and mimicked it as best I could. I drew with a pencil on the wall so I could erase easily if needed.

4. Then it was time to build. I started with the trunk first. I put strips down one side, following the silhouette, and then came back on the other side, following the other edge. This way the strips overlapped some to create a good texture and the sides of the trunk were where I wanted them to be.

5. For the branches, I used strips for the wider parts and then cut out smaller pieces from new magazine pages. (I used notebook paper to trace my wall outline and then used that to cut the small branch parts).

6. For the leaves, flowers/buds, birds and butterflies I created a stencil from the magazine cover (thicker) and then used one more issue of Real Simple (c) to cut these out.

7. The final product was an incredibly cheap, yet strikingly wonderful wall tree, bursting with life. The cost of the project was just the removable poster tape...I went through about 1 and 1/4 dispensers of it. So I estimate around $5 or $6. In total, I used three issues of Real Simple (c).

 In the center of the tree on the trunk, a little hidden note:

Turn off, and tune in to LIFE.
-Becca