DIY: The kids and I apply wall putty and rig hanging posters

05 November 2016

Parents need to be creative when they want their kids to learn. For me, I like to teach them practical knowledge that they'll be able to use when they've grown up.  Things like applying wall putty on cracks on the wall :)  It's simple, easy to do and enjoyable.  At best, it's doing something that will make them appreciate and value their room more since they had a hand in beautifying it.



The cracks on the walls were the result of moisture getting trapped in the paint.  When the paint eventually cracked, there were holes all over the walls.  It was pretty glaring and repairing it has always been on my list of household chores.

So, when I was able to buy wall putty from our local hardware store, I asked the kids if they wanted to do something fun, like applying the wall putty on the cracks on their wall.  They were so excited and so we started doing it.

I assigned each of them sections so they have enough on their hands.  Dylan had the linear cracks, Dana had the middle to the bottom cracks (they were bigger) and I took care of the ones on the higher level.  It was pretty easy.  We were doine in about 30 minutes.  I actually left them alone to finish it and they were pretty intent at it as you can see from the picture below.

After, we also rigged hanging posters to cover up the wall until such time that we'll have money to buy the paint for it.  Dana used to hang these posters on the wall with double sided tape but they kept falling off.  So, I thought we should do the hanging this way.  

We used folder sliders, carton, ribbons, tape and hooks.  First, I asked Dana to measure the wall to figure out how much surface area we can cover with the posters.  We then knew that we could put three posters in a vertical row, so Dana just arranged them in groups of three. 

Second, we needed to make the edge of the posters that needed to fit on the slider thicker so that they won't fall off.  See, if you add the weight of the posters when you put them together, they will pull on the folder slider and they will fall off.  So we added a bit of carton on the edge that goes on the slider.  When that was done, we taped the rest of the posters together (at the back).

Before we put the posters on the folder sliders, we cut ribbons (these were leftover ribbons from gifts) and threaded them through the folder sliders and knotted them so we could hang them on the hooks that we installed.  These were sticky hooks that we also bought from the hardware store.  

Once that was done, we just inserted the posters into their respective folder sliders and put them up on their hooks. They look like banners now and Dana can freely move them about if she gets tired of the order :)

They had so much fun doing the chore that the next day, they insisted on doing the bigger crack on the adjacent wall.

After which, we rigged another hanging poster to cover the cracks :)

Then Dana said that she didn't like that there was still a big space between the posters, so she rigged some of her horizontally-oriented posters and placed them on the gap.

The kids felt extremely happy about their accomplishment.  They are actually looking for other cracks in the other parts of the house haha

I think our next project will involve painting these walls and I can't wait to teach them that :)