It all started a few weeks ago. I got the bright idea to give Balian a little bedroom makeover. We started off with cute pastels and a Noah's Ark theme, and then graduated to jungle animals. Now that he's two and a half, Balian is really starting to like boy-specific things like cars... Disney CARS, to be exact. Cars has sort of taken over at our house, and not a day goes by that some mention of Lightning McQueen, Mater and all of their friends aren't being raced across the dining room floor.

So, I thought I would really give our big boy a treat and transform his sweet little babe room into a big boy room, with a CARS theme. We basically wanted to go for a makeover on the cheap, and I'll be showing you lots of different things we've done to transform the room for less than $100.00.

After we painted the bedroom a blue color (was a very light green to start with), and started to decorate, I really wanted to do some custom decor for Balian. I got to thinking about his pal Lightning McQueen and thought that a simple sign or something that said, 'SPEED. I AM SPEED.' would look great above the door.

Cabinet front, stickers...

I bought a long, black, finished cabinet front from Lowe's for $1.00 from the clearance table about two years ago. I had no idea why I was buying it, but for $1.00, seemed silly not to buy it. I fished the wooden piece out from storage, and decided to use it to make B that custom wall sign I mentioned earlier.

Licensed Disney stickers...

I also found some CARS stickers at a local consignment shop for a couple of dollars. There was a fairly large McQueen sticker that was puffed up and sort of dazzling, so I stuck that to the far corner of the black wooden piece, and then had the rest of the board to paint on.

Razzle dazzle them, McQueen!

Craft paints in various colors to match B's room decor...

I looked everywhere for vinyl letters and stencils and couldn't find anything I liked, so I decided just to hand paint the lettering onto the board.

Starting to take shape...

I painted 'SPEED. I AM SPEED.' onto the board, just like I wanted it. I am no artist, and my hand isn't so steady. I had to paint over the letters about three more times for it to really stand out. Didn't really think about the surface being so smooth, but don't worry, my husband was sure to point that out after I started.

Later on, it looked more like this...

...and after we put it up in B's room, I thought it looked pretty great!

There you have it! This would be easy to do for any theme. Keep an eye out at your local home improvement store for cabinet or drawer fronts that have been on display, or for anything else that might look like it would one day be useful from the clearance table. You never know! Of course, you can do this with stickers, vinyl, stencils, wooden accent pieces, or whatever you like. Just thought I'd share my idea, in case anyone else was looking to do something similar for their kiddos.

As McQueen would say, 

Ka-Ciao!