DIY Polka Dot Walls

Looking for some different ways to spruce up your living or office space? Try decorating your walls! There are more options out there than just paint and wallpaper these days. Get creative!

My personal favorite: Polka Dot Walls

This is a great option for any room in an apartment or an office space because they’re easily removable with no residue or marks. I just recently dressed up my office walls at work with GOLD polka dots and I’m really liking it!

After looking at different how-to sites, Pinterest and photos, I figured out a more cost-effective way make a lot of dots of my own without having to go to Etsy and pay $20 for 10 dots. This is not my original idea, but this is how I went about the process of making pretty gold dots:

1. I bought a Martha Stewart circle cutter. You can get these in any craft store, or Amazon.
2. I bought gold metal foil contact paper. I got mine from Interior Place. They have all kinds of different colors and patterns!
3. I got a kitchen cutting board I didn’t care about and rolled out a foot of contact paper at a time and taped it (with the side with no color facing up) to the table and cutting board so that the contact paper wouldn’t slide or roll up on me when I was cutting. (The contact paper is packaged like wrapping paper and comes in a tube.)
4. Slide the circle cutter’s measuring latch to what you want the diameter of your polka dots to be. With the Martha Stewart circle cutter, you can make circles as big as a foot in diameter. (I did 5 in. and I am really pleased with how it turned out.)
5. Then following the directions on the circle cutter, place your tool on top of the contact paper you’ve taped down. Press your palm firmly in the middle of the circle cutter and press gently (GENTLY is the key) on the part that has the blade and make a complete circle. You can go over it twice without it stripping the paper.
6. Then you should have a perfect circle! Now go make some more!
7. Next, I placed sticky notes wherever I wanted the circles to be. This was helpful because I was able to step back and look at the placement before I put the real deal on the wall.
8. Lastly, replace each sticky note with a polka dot and admire your handiwork!

*If you have a more textured wall, make sure you really press down and smooth out the wrinkles when placing the dots on the wall. I did mine on a medium-textured wall, and they are staying up great!

If you’re looking for another way of dressing up your walls, I also recommend looking at Stikwood to make your own wooden pallet-like wall. There are several tutorials to make one with an actual pallet, but I think Stikwood offers a safer and cleaner-looking alternative (with no splinters or rough patches! I think they might be lighter in weight than actual wood planks.). Similarly like the tutorial above, you can just peel and stick them on the wall! I’ve seen some pretty cool stuff done to half bathrooms and even large dining room walls and fireplaces with Stikwood. So, check them out if you’re going for more of a farmhouse look. I read somewhere that West Elm uses Stikwood for their store design. Pretty cool!

Have fun dressing up your walls! 

As seen on Biblical Woman.