My daughter’s desk was starting to show lots of wear and tear (mostly due to the fact that she had a habit of peeling off pieces of the veneer and doodling on the exposed wood). Needless to say, it badly needed a makeover, so I decided to surprise her for Christmas with a doodle desk.
I painted the desk white, traced some doodles on top and went over the doodles with sharpie markers. Then I put a clear acrylic desk protector on top. She can color on the desk protector using dry erase markers and it helps protect the desk too. Talk about a win win! You can read a more detailed step-by-step of my diy doodle desk process below. There’s even a free printable for some adorable doodles for you to trace, so no worries if you don’t have any drawing skills!
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Materials
For the desk:
- Sanding Block or Sander + Sandpaper
- Primer
- Paintbrush
- Paint (optional)
For the doodles:
- Graphite Paper
- Pen or Pencil
- Sharpie Markers or Paint Pens
- Doodles (see below!)
For the desk cover:
- Clear Acrylic Desk Protector
- Hair dryer
- Scissors
- Dry Erase Markers
Free Downloadable Doodles
Can’t draw? No worries! I compiled a bunch of fun clip art to use for my doodle desk using Canva. There are three sheets: one has food doodles, one has fun symbols, and the other one has cute animals. Download the free printable PDFs, print them out, and you’re ready to go.
Painting the Desk
Unless you are starting with a desk that’s already in your chosen color, you will need to paint one! Painting furniture may seem intimidating but it’s actually pretty easy and relaxing once you feel like you know what you’re doing.
- Step 1: Give the surface of the desk a good sand. Use a sander if you have one or grab a sanding block. You should see and feel a little roughness in the surface. This is the key to getting your paint to adhere well. Wipe up well after sanding to get rid of fine dust and particles.
- Step 2: It’s prime time! Don’t skip this step. Your final paint job will look much nicer and last much longer. Apply 1 or 2 coats and be sure to leave plenty of dry time in between coats.
- Step 3: My primer was white and I wanted a white desk so I stopped at step 2. If your primer is not your desired end color then you will need to apply a coat or 2 of paint.
Doodling the Desk
I asked my friend Amanda for help with this step and I’m so glad that I did. Even with two of us, it took a long time to trace all the designs and go over them again with sharpie markers. Having a friend with me made it way more fun and it helped me stay motivated to finish the project too!
- We used the graphite paper to trace the doodles from the printable. We put the graphite paper shiny side down on the surface of the desk and put the desired doodle page on top of the graphite paper. We used a pen to trace the clipart. When we lifted the page and graphite paper we could see that the image had been transferred to the surface of the desk!
- We started with larger doodles and went back in later to fill in gaps with smaller doodles. We rotated some doodles so they were not all facing the same way.
- We got a little bored after a while so we decided to add little embellishments to some of the designs like adding a bowtie to a bear, giving a bowl of ramen a smiling face, and giving a cat a winking face.
- When we get tired of tracing, we switched to inking. We just used the sharpie markers to go over the tracing. Switching between tracing and inking gave the markers a break and kept things from getting too tedious.
- Afterwards, we cleaned up mistakes and graphite smudges using some white paint. You could also use a white paint pen.
Protecting the Desk
- The desk protector that I ordered came shipped in a roll. I had to roll it out and smooth it out with the help of some heat in the form of a hair dryer.
- I have a weird shaped desk so I needed to trim my desk protector to size. This was easy to do using a standard pair of household scissors (and lots of breaks for my hand because it kept cramping).
- In addition to protecting the desk, the clear acrylic sheet can also be colored on using dry erase markers and it’s easy to erase using a tissue or a paper towel.
That’s a wrap! What did you think of this diy doodle desk project? Do you want to see more home decor projects like this on Nine Inspired? I would love to hear from you in the comments below!