Big Boy Room for a Little Man

My Little Man is getting big (insert sad face here). It was time to move him out of the crib and into his big boy room.  We had baby no. 2 in June and it is time to move her from the bassinet in our room to the crib in the nursery.

I decided to go with a superhero theme for the big boy room.  It was already painted blue so I am keeping the color.  A trip to Hobby Lobby and I found a bunch of metal vintage looking comic book wall art.  Bonus: it was all 50% off. Score!

I searched online yard sales for a toddler bed and found a Lightning McQueen for $75.  Eventually it will become a Bat Mobile but that is another project for another day.

We had an extra dresser that I wanted superhero knobs for.  I searched online and they could get a little expensive...we are on a serious budget here people!!  Making my own was really easy and they were completely finished in just a couple of hours.

Materials:
Wooden knobs from hardware store
Acrylic Paint
Mod Podge
Tissue Paper
Clear Gloss Spray Paint

If I am going to be honest, Apple Barrel is not my favorite acrylic, it is a bit too watery. I prefer Folk Art but hey, you make do with what you've got!

I painted all of the knobs an off white color and let them dry.  Acrylic dries very fast.

While they were drying, I did a Google search for the images I wanted and imported them into Power Point.
I like Power Point because it is very easy to manipulate the photos and move them around the screen.
I did a test print to make sure they were the right size to fit on the knobs.

Here is where I got really cheap. I found a piece of white tissue paper from a gift we had received from a friend. It wasn't too crinkled so I figured it would work.  I cut the tissue paper to be a little bit smaller than a standard piece of paper and taped it to the printer paper along the edges.  You don't have to go crazy here, just tape it enough so the printer won't eat it.
Press print.

 



It is really that easy.  Now remove the tissue paper from the printer paper and cut out the images.  I found it worked best to cut pretty close to the image or it has a tendency to wrinkle when you try to glue it to the knob.

After they are cut out, take a dried knob and with a paint brush, apply a coat of Mod Podge to the knob. Press the image on to the knob and using the brush with more Mod Podge, coat over the top of the tissue paper. Don't go over it too many times or the ink will start to bleed.

 



After the Mod Podge dried, I took them out to the garage and sprayed them with two coats of a clear gloss spray paint.  I left them to dry overnight.  I also waited overnight because the spray was pretty smelly and I didn't want his room to smell like that. 
The next day it was just a matter of unscrewing the old knobs and replacing with the new ones. 
My little man was so excited. Captain America (Packa Acka) is currently his favorite and he was so excited to see him in his room.
When I showed them off to my family, everyone thought they were porcelain...my secret.

Of course I don't have a picture of them on the actual dresser...that would be way to organized and put together of me :)

Have fun making your own...any image you can print out will work.  Trucks, ponies, Hello Kitty, shapes.  I imagine you could even do cute clip art of types of clothing (shirts, pants, socks) and put the knob on the corresponding drawer so little ones would know where to put their clothes away. 

Let me know in the comments if you try this and what style you made!

Happy Crafting!!