How to Decorate a Wheelchair: Fun and Simple Ideas

Being in a wheelchair might limit some of your ease of movement, but it sure doesn’t limit the options you have for expressing yourself aesthetically.  July is National Wheelchair Beautification Month, so we’re out to help spark your creativity in finding ways to spruce up your wheelchair to make it more colorful and “you.”

Whatever materials you use, you want to make sure you’re creating a decoration that feels right for you. If you’re not sure you want to stick with any one thing, make sure you go with an option that’s not permanent (most of our recommendations aren’t) rather than something like decorating your chair with paint pens.

A lot of these ideas are kid-friendly, so you might consider enlisting your grandkids to help out.

1. Buy (or make) a decorative seat cushion or cover.

A wheelchair seat cushion can add more color and more comfort to your wheelchair. You’ve got lots of wheelchair cushion and cushion cover options online (check out the options here, here, and here, for instance). Or you can make your own. You can find a sewing pattern to use and pick out whatever fabric you like best.

2. Just add flowers.

Flowers are possibly one of the oldest decorative ideas around, but they’re always a reliable dose of color and beauty. If you want to go the simple route, you can pick out some silk flowers you like and attach them to your wheelchair with tape or wire. If you’re ambitious enough to go with fresh flowers, buy a water tube like the ones florists use and you can replace your decorative flowers as needed.

3. Light it up.

Add lights to your chair and spokes and you can really stand out in the dark. You can find some colorful spoke lights here and a few different options for wheelchair lights here.

4. Decorate with Shrinkins.

Shrinkins are a product specifically designed to add some character to wheelchairs, casts, and walkers. Pick out the design you like best and simply follow their instructions to add the decoration to your wheelchair.

5. Use stickers.

Stickers are about as easy as decorating can get. Whether you go with bumper stickers, stickers for a sports team you like or some other variety of decorative stickers, all you have to do is find some you like and stick them on.

6. Bedeck your chair with ribbons or streamers.

Wrap up the arms of your chair with colorful ribbons or streamers to give them more of a character and flow. Streamers are probably only a practical decoration for a couple of days, but ribbons can be a decoration that stays with you for a little while.

7. Buy (or make) wheelchair spoke covers.

You can dress up one of the main parts of your wheelchair with some snazzy wheelchair spoke covers, available in a number of different colors and styles. Figure out which style feels right to you and adding it to your wheelchair should be a snap.

8. Use colorful washi tape.

One of the big trends in the craft world, washi tape comes in lots of colors and designs. It’s easy to stick on to anything you want to add a little craftiness to – you can wrap it around the arms of your chair, circle it around the wheel, or coat the back of the chair in it to give it a new look.

9. Knit wheelchair shawls.

Ok, so a wheelchair shawl is more for you to wear than it is for the chair itself, but we’re still counting it. A knitted wheelchair shawl is comfortable to throw on anytime the weather’s a little chilly and can be a wonderful visual addition to your whole wheelchair getup (especially if you knit one that matches your other wheelchair decorations).

Anyone can show off their style with regular, everyday clothes but that wheelchair gives you a whole other outlet for showing yours. Get creative and make the chair your own.

Kristen Hicks

Kristen Hicks is an Austin-based copywriter and lifelong student with an ongoing curiousity to learn and explore new things. She turns that interest to researching and exploring subjects helpful to seniors and their families for SeniorAdvisor.com.