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We have recently moved our little girl who is 20 months from her "nursery" i.e. the box room with a cot in it, to the spare room, which is larger and has more space for her toys and furniture.

Because we were on an extremely tight budget we were unable to spend a lot of money on the trimmings you might perhaps want for a little girl. However, we managed to transform this empty room into a girl haven for our daughter and without spending much cash. When we moved into this house nearly three years ago we didn't have any children, and we decorated all the rooms to our taste. This particular room was painted pale yellow and we just used some cream curtains, which we thought was pretty neutral, and would be fine as a guest room, spare room etc.

So when it came to moving our daughter to this room, we were a bit unsure of what to do, I really wanted to paint it pink, buy pink curtains, just generally fluff it up to look gorgeous and girlie. But because we were on such a tight budget we were unable to do this (much to my disappointment), so we had to think of other ways to make the bedroom fit for a little girl.

And here's how we did it:

First of all instead of changing the curtains, I dug out my old sewing box which was full of buttons, sequins, ribbons & all sorts of different material and I began making pretty squares which I planned to sew onto the curtains to make them look nice and girlie; this cost me no money at all, just time and effort! The result was brilliant and they look really good, something of which I am very proud. They are also very unique and no other child will have these same curtains!

Secondly we purchased a packet of large wall stickers to decorate her walls. This packet contained mainly pink flowers, butterflies, bumblebees, & hearts; some of my daughter's favourite things. With these we were able to create little scenes on the walls of her new bedroom which look really effective against the yellow background.

Thirdly, I wanted to add a bit of colour to her pine furniture. I found some old wooden storage boxes which we weren't using for anything, so I painted these with some old tester paint we had lying around, the colours were pastels such as green, blue and purple and once they were done they looked really good. We positioned these on top of her chest of drawers and they are used as a place to stand her little ornaments such as money boxes, snow globes etc.

We also moved a lot of her giant soft toys (bought by Grandparents) into her room and just dotted them about the furniture and on the floor.

The overall effect of her room is brilliant, and it only cost us 6; this was the price of the stickers. I am really pleased we used our imagination instead of just going out and spending money on anything pink and fluffy. It may have taken a bit more thought and effort than your average decorating session, but I think it was well worth it. Our daughter loves spending time in there now and when she wakes up in a morning she can just look at all the lovely things and she's quite happy just chattering away to herself.

So if you are planning on decorating your child's room but just don't know where to start or have a tight budget, just a few little touches here and there can make all the difference.

Learn more about this author, Keelar.
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