I'm not the only creative one in the family...

Thought I'd share a project that my daughter did last year.

First, our playroom carpet, this was not meant to be ours, but my mother insisted and she was right.

Then about a year later, I found this poster at the trade show my association manages:

It now hangs in the playroom too.

These two pieces inspired my Bug Girl to pick up a marker, paint and paint brushes to create this:

It took her well over an hour, which for being 5 I thought showed amazing dedication. It has been featured in our kitchen since she created it, but I think it is time I let it go to the place she had envisioned it being, the playroom.

SMILE!

So we've made Ana's clip art rails and my plan for them was to feature the kids artwork on them for the bottom clips.

For the top, my daughter and I worked on a little project. I asked her for a list of words that she thought of when she thought of the play room here is what we came up with:

We then agreed our favorite word from the list was "SMILE." So we turned to the cricut and cut the letters out along with a bunch of what we agreed looked like "bubbles." We had so much fun making the bubbles that we couldn't stop and ended up with extra's which now are on the bottom of the rail... for now. We'll likely swap these out as we feel like it.

For now, it certainly makes me Smile.

 

A couple of close ups:

Play Room Clip Art Rail

It was through Kari at UCreate that I found Ana at Knock Off Wood when she featured this project:

Creative Guest: Knock-Off Wood {Clip Art Rails Tutorial}

I picked up the 1x2 for less than $5 at Lowes, everything else I had on hand to fix up this bare wall in the kids playroom:

Ana's tutorial is much better, but in case you are interested, here is how I did it.

Materials:

• 1 length of 1x2" pine
• 2 handfuls of clothes pins
• Spray paint
• Gorilla Glue

Ok - so first I measured and cut the 1x2" to 80" which was about 4" shorter than the wall.

Then I painted it black to match the bookcase and frames in the room.

I took apart the clothes pins and spray painted them silver (the color of metals in the room, the lamp the storage stuff in my craft area.)

And then I had to put those little suckers back together which I've got to tell you is NOT easy.

I was going to decoupage the clips, like I did back in November but then decided I liked them plain.

Next up - affixing the clothes pins to the 1x2 - I decided to use Gorilla glue rather than screwing them into the rail, the stuff worked really well on the bunk bed book shelves and I've got plenty left over.

Once the Gorilla Glue had dried, we simply used dry screws to attach it directly into the studs.

(That is the back of my husband - I don't have quite the muscle to counter sink the dry wall screws into the studs... had to bring in the muscle.)

And here is the finished rail:

More tomorrow on what we've done with it... stay tuned.

Toy Storage

Toys. We've got a million toys. Perhaps a billion.

But we don't like the house looking like we've got a quite that many and have found some pretty creative toy storage solutions.

1st, in the playroom: The Ikea shelf unit known throughout the world. We've got it too. Only we didn't use the bins and boxes that they have at Ikea. We went with a couple of different solutions from Land of Nod, I was trilled to find such perfect bins in the exact colors we wanted.

Also in the playroom we've got  two sets of the ever popular bins found at Target, you can see one of the sets pictured here on the left as well as the classic toy box.

What I like about our solutions - is that they are just that, solutionS. I don't think there is a one size fits all solution to storage. There are some things that won't work in a bin or a box, but they'll work on a shelf. And some things that you just plain don't want seen and can put in the toy box.

And what we love about the bins, is the majority of the toys can live in the play room, but at any given point in time, the kids can grab a bin and take it to anyplace in the house that they want to be.

(I need to update my pictures of the playroom, we don't even have that kitchen anymore...)

But of course, our toys aren't limited to the play room. We also have a "healthy" collection in the family room on the main level of our house. And for this, we turned to Ikea and Land of Nod again...

The toys are there for the kids, but in a way that we can live with. The colors that match our space and our decor. I love using this piece a a HUGE sofa table. It really has the presence and weight needed to balance out our large red sectional.

Sigh.... Our large red section. One of my other favorite pieces of furniture of all time... But that is another post.

Crayon Crazy

A little over a week ago, I went to Eastern Market in DC and fell in love with... well, I fell in love with everything. I'm lucky Eastern Market is about an hour away and not very easy to park around otherwise I could get into trouble.

But one thing in particular that I fell in love with what a photo that I thought would have been perfect for the kids play room. It was of a fresh pack of crayons, spiraled out in a circle with all the tips pointed to the center. The problem, it was $250 - that was the "sale" price. What was particularly annoying is that the expensive part was the frame, which I couldn't have cared less about, but the vendor wouldn't separate them.

So, I decided to create it myself.

And now - a disclaimer. I suck at photography. I know it, I accept it, I live with it. We don't have the best camera, I don't even know what to buy that would be an upgrade. I just don't have the energy.

I decided to give it a go anyway, and I'm really pleased with what I came up with. Since my camera isn't a super duper 27 mega-pixel thing, or whatever the latest technology is, I knew I wouldn't be able to take a very large single picture that would have enough presence. So I opted for 3 different photos.

Here is the before:

And here is the after:

And here they are one by one:



My favorite view:

So I ended up with 3 photos, instead of 1, for a lot less money.

Crayons - Free, thank you Birthday Party goody bag
3 - 11x14 photo prints (that I cropped to 11x11 each) $36
3 Frames - $36 thanks to 40% off frames
Craft paper for faux mattes - free, already had it.
Total: $72 plus 2-3 hours to take, pick up, crop and hang the photos.

Edited to add: If anyone is interested in recreating this on their own, I have the original photographs that I'd be happy to send to you for you to print and do with whatever you want.