Remember that rock & roll themed playroom that I created for my boys in the former storage space under our basement stairs?! I hope you do, because it's one of my favorite spaces! We covered the ceiling in records, so when you stand at the door looking into the playroom, you see 45s as far as the eye can see - which is a pretty cool view {if I do say so myself}. But my favorite is actually the one you get if you walk into the playroom and look up above the door!
That's where you see the sheet music wallpaper I created! I had a vision of this collage for months before it finally became reality, and it actually turned out even better than I had hoped. Best off all, it's totally non-permanent, so it will be easy to remove totally damage free when the time comes to update this space. And today I'm going to show you how easy it is to create your own collage wall! And with back to school upon us, I can't help but think how fun this would be in a dorm room?!
Let me start by reminding you what space looked like before. After we cleared out the Christmas decorations and other items that we used to store in this under stair room, I was able to actually walk in {for the first time in forever} and look up at the highest part of the ceiling.
I already had plans for the side walls of the playroom, but when I saw how much space was up there above the door, I realized that it needed something special all it's own!
My boys LOVE the Pharrell Williams song "Happy," and my three year old has even declared it our family song! Insisting that we all stop what ever we are doing to have a family dance party any time it comes on. Here's an idea of what those dance parties look like...
Since the boys love "Happy" so much, and since the rock & roll playroom is meant to be there happy place, the sheet music to this song seemed like the perfect choice to create the collage on the top of the walls. I purchased a digital download of the sheet music from Sheet Music Plus for a whopping $2.07 {talk about an affordable project}. And then I printed out lots of copies of it on my home printer.
The margins on the sheet music were pretty wide, and I didn't want that much white space on the collage wall, so I used my paper cutter to trim off the edges of the paper.
I wanted to completely cover the upper portions of the walls in sheet music, but didn't want to use glue or any kind of adhesive that might damage the wall. I decide to try washi tape and see if it would stick well enough. I picked up a cute roll of black and white thin striped washi tape from Michaels. The stripes somehow reminded me of the grooves in a record and had a rock and roll vibe.
To test out my washi tape idea, I tore off some strips of tape and stuck them to the door frame, then climbed up my step ladder and tapped up a handful of pages of sheet music.
Then I walked away for a few hours and came back to see if any of the sheet music had fallen down. Fortunately the washi tape was holding strong, so I was ready to proceed with covering the top of all three walls!
Since the side walls are angled at the ceiling line, I needed to cut the sheet music to fit. To do this, I took a piece of blank paper, held it against the wall, and folded it to fit the slant of the ceiling. {I'm sorry I don't have any photos of that step - but I couldn't manage to hold the camera while standing on the ladder and folding the paper.} Then I got down off the ladder and cut my paper along the fold line - thereby creating a template of the angle of the ceiling that I used to cut my sheet music to fit.
I began lining sheet music up along the ceiling line, again taping it in place with my striped washi tape.
I didn't want all of the paper to be positioned perfectly straight, so I angled the sheet music to the left and right to give the collage more interest.
I continued adding paper on top of paper on top of paper until I was happy with the look.
Finally I had covered all of the wall space expect around the light fixture. Fortunately, I had the forethought to trace the base of the fixture before we installed in on the wall, so I was able to create another template.
I cut half a dozen pieces of sheet music to fit around the light fixture base, and then fit them in place.
At last, the sheet music collage was complete!
I stepped back to admire the space, and immediately decided it needed something else - some color to tie in with all of the other color in the playroom. I decided to create some simple song lyrics posts - primarily in black and white with pops of color. I chose lyrics that related to happiness and to music, and designed the posters in Photoshop. Good news - I'm sharing those posters with you! You'll find a link to download them at the bottom of this post!
After creating the posters, I was eager to add them to the collage, but since I also planned to add a shelf right above the door to display marquee letters, as well as rope lighting around the edges, I realized it would be easier to choose the positioning of the song lyrics posters after everything else was complete. So I patiently waited to complete the collage until after we installed the rest of the records on the ceiling, the shelf above the door, and the string lights.
Finally I was able to selecting the positioning for the song lyrics posters and add them to the collage!
Rather than hanging the lyric posters with the same black and white striped washi tape, I instead used this super fun skinny washi tape that I found at Michaels.
I matched the color of the tape to the color in each poster, and taped across all four corners to attach each poster to the collage wall.
I could not be happier with how this fun rock & roll collage turned out! It's now been up for nearly four months, and the washi tape is still holding strong!
The bright colors on the song lyrics posters tie in perfectly with the colors of the record labels, and really give the same a cohesive feel. I could seriously lay on the pillows at the back of the playroom and stare up at this collage all day long!
So what kind of a collage wall would you create? And where would you put it? The possibilities are really endless. I think it would be amazing to use this same method to cover an entire wall in maps! And how fun would it be to cover a ceiling in a kid's room rather than a wall?!
Ok, finally - here are those song lyrics posters that I created, ready for you to download for free! All nine posters are in the same PDF file, and each sized to fit a standard 8.5"x11" piece of paper. Have fun with them, and send me pictures if you use them {or tag me on Instagram}!
If you missed the full playroom reveal, be sure to check it out. There are still a few more DIYs from the room that I'll be sharing in the coming month, so keep an eye out for the DIY Dutch door tutorial, as well as the how to on the magnetic ping pong wall coaster!
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