A is for Apple....

Between the kids' nap last Sunday and their playing pretty peacefully together on the morning of a snow day (we've had a bunch this year), I was able to knock this out!

This same artwork was in the kids' playroom in the old house, of course.  It was inspired by a photo I saw in a Pottery Barn catalog that had the same concept on the wall of a nursery.  I didn't keep the catalog, and this is the only photo I could find online of the inspiration.  You can see the bird, but you'll have to trust me that the apple and caterpillar are up there, too.

It's funny to think back to making this for the old playroom before the kids were born.  We bought the frames with a gift card from the shower on the same shopping trip that I bought the pants I wore to the hospital.  I painted the chipboard letters and craft paper backing in our old basement with no distractions at all, aside from a big ol' belly.
 

 

I sketched the stencils with my feet up on the couch, the way I spent a lot of afternoons back then.  I thought I kept the cut-outs just as keepsakes. Turns out it was so I could do it all over again!

I don't have a very vivid memory of painting the design in the old house (pregnancy brain?), but I'm sure later on I'll remember the kids playing around me this time around as I tried not to mess up.  Mike pointed out before I began that we have no more yellow paint for the playroom, so touch-ups would not be an option.  The pressure made me feel all Michelangelo.

I believe I will also recall Sophie telling me I'm very good at painting and asking, "When I grow up to be a teacher, can I paint on the walls like you?"  That teacher thing came 100% from her, despite my suspicion that she has it in her.  I told her yes, by the way. 

Above is a photo I took from my painting perch on top of the toy shelves.  Later I discovered that I dripped paint in Sophie's hair.  Better there than on the walls!

While it was certainly easier to paint with two munchkins peacefully rolling around in my belly, this was admittedly more fun and rewarding, especially when Michael came down from his nap to see what I had started and declared it a "Great idea!" 

Sophie exclaimed that my work was "just beautiful" when it was done.  Best patrons ever.

 

Mike and the kids also added a shelf to the kitchen area this weekend.

 

I can't believe how much better this playroom feels to me now.  It's all warmed up with memories of preparing for these two, of infants crawling over my legs, and of a couple of toddlers stumbling around gumming teethers.  We're filling the space now with games of Candyland and Memory and all sorts of imaginative fun, of preschoolers making observations and playing contentedly by my side.
 

The Little Kitchen

 As Michael and Sophie would say...

Ta-da! Mike and I finished the little nightstand-turned-kitchen in time for the kids' 2nd birthday celebration. Just barely, but we did.

I love how much I use the pronoun "I" in the first post I wrote  about this project.  At that point I had done the shopping, planning, and general obsessing necessary for this kind of work. 

Later, I transformed the four wooden sunshines into burners by painting their middles silver.  I also sewed the little cafe curtain and stuck silver scrapbooking letters (H and C) onto to the faucet knobs.  I painted the faucet and arranged the items on the top of the table in a configuration that pleased me.

Then Mike did the rest. 

He removed the drawer runners and drawer front. He cut the hole for the "sink" (but I traced the circle!).  He applied multiple coats of primer and paint to the inside and outside of the table (I said I'd do that...but then asked him to).  He attached all those items and hardware.  He even ran out at 10 p.m. to buy a magnet to hold the "oven door" closed the night before the celebration (while I made jello cupcakes cursing the crayon box idea).

In other words, this was the kind of team effort that reminds me why I like my husband so much.

It took a while to find the right table, so to satisfy my excitement in that down time, I Googled.  The list of blogs that I visited in my research for this project would be a mile long, and I just didn't really keep track.  Sorry, fellow bloggers.

The tutorial that helped me most, though, is a very detailed step-by-step series on Out of the Crayon Box. The most useful information that I took away was a supply list, particularly the wooden "J" for the faucet and a cake pan for the sink. 

Here's the table I finally found at our local Salvation Army after visiting it once or twice a week for a several weeks.

I saw a lot of these kitchens that look like contemporary grown-up ones with white, black, or stained wood and real faucets. I even saw one with a faux granite countertop. I, however, wanted a more vintage look and intended to paint ours--I mean, theirs--red. 

Knowing this kitchen would live in the yellow, green, brown, and white playroom, it was up to the fabric to make that red work.  I was thrilled to find one in just those colors, with little apples on it no less.  Teachers dig apples, and so do toddlers.

I do wish brown wasn't the dominant color as it doesn't look great with the red.  If it bugs me enough, that's a pretty simple fix.  Heck, knowing me, I might "redecorate" the kitchen just for fun one day.

We just happened to have a whole bunch of matching white knobs on hand.  I chose to use those letter stickers instead of painting the knobs just in case we ever want to use them once again as The Land of Nod intended.

While 99% of this project comes from the ideas of creative others, the sunshines-turned-burners was an idea of my own.   Most suggestions I saw were for electric-style burners, and I prefer gas, even for pretend apparently.  As I wandered the craft store aisles in search of something cheap that wouldn't require much magic to turn into a gas burner, I spotted those firey suns. 

I'm not a huge fan of those big plastic play kitchens and tables and club houses and whatnot.  The kids enjoy plenty of those on their child care center's playground, and I just don't like the look of them enough to bring any into our place.  I'm not saying it will never happen.  I'm just trying to avoid it.  This project helped me do just that while repurposing furniture, knobs, and hardware.  Maybe that green effort will ease my conscience a bit about all those disposable diapers. 

Nope, it didn't.  Sorry, fellow earthlings.

Local Artists

The warmer winter and early spring this year has kept me from falling into full-on hibernation mode and seems to have kicked the more industrious side of me into high gear.  I want to plan vacations, research home improvements, and actually feel motivated to go all Nike and just do some of the tasks that cross my mind.  Most of the time I feel like one of those circus acts with the spinning dishware, but I'm starting to think that's actually how I like it.

Several heavier pieces of art recently came home from the child care center (including those "turf paintings" pictured below), and when tape wouldn't hold them, I decided it was time to put one of my ideas into action.   I did hit up Pinterest to see if there were any better ideas, but the simple solution I envisioned seemed like the way to go. 

 

 



Here are a few cute solutions I did come across:

This one is super cute but more involved than I wanted.

The idea here is pretty much the same as mine, but again, more involved.

I love when people find new uses for familiar products like this.

We had the eye-hooks and twine in our basement.  I just had to pick up some mini-clothespins for $2 at Michael's (on the same trip that I bought the baskets for the pantry).  I'm thinking of displaying Christmas cards like this in the future.

The above wall art was already on the playroom wall.  Being so high up out of the reach of my shorties left a lot of space below.

 As adorable as those other solutions are, this one makes me think of quaint cafes that hang art from local artists beside the tables.  And I guess that's kind of what this is!

The Playroom

Our house and its rooms are all pretty small, so to avoid having swings, bouncy seats, and miscellaneous toys scattered at all times, we chose to devote the third room of our three-bedroom ranch to those sorts of items.  We call it the playroom, and some playing does take place there, but mostly it's a large and conveniently located storage room.

But I had to try to make it cute.

For this wall art I bought square frames and letters and painted them along with some craft paper for the background. I drew the mural details with pencil then painted them in and outlined with a large brown colored pencil.

This DIY wall art was inspired by this page in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog (and typing "Pottery Barn" for at least the third time in this blog, I'm feeling a bit obsessed...and unoriginal).  On that note, the rug and green bins are from there as well.

The tree is a vinyl decal.