The last few months have been a busy time of growing and creating. My body has been busy growing this little piece of heaven:
Anna Kathleen LaRoy, born May 1, 2015.
and my hands have been busy decorating. I spent my last few months of freedom (that is, having only two children), picking out fabrics, sewing pillows, hemming curtains, and DIYing art for friends and family.
I was delighted when my sister-in-law invited me to help create a “big boy room” for my four-year-old nephew. In the distant blogging past I was brainstorming how to artfully (and cheaply) address a large blank wall above his bed, what I called “the elephant in the room“. We decided to go with one of the most simple ideas, using pictures from children’s books as artwork. Picture frames can get expensive so we decided to mount the pictures on white card stock and hang them from gross grain ribbon with clothespins. Super heroes are among my nephew’s favorite things so I headed to Value Village to pick up a couple second-hand books which cost a whopping $1.50. The ribbon cost about $5.00 and I imagine my sister-in-law picked up the paper clips for a couple dollars. Accessorizing a whole “elephant” for under $10. Not bad.
The card stock acts as a nice frame for the pictures and adds substance to the thin book pages. If you decide to DIY a project like this I highly recommend using a paper craft trimmer for cutting out the pictures and card stock so you have a perfectly straight line lest the art take on a ghetto appearance. Cutting the pictures to different sizes adds visual interest and allows you to crop out the words.
The big boy room conversion also included painting walls, buying new bedding and accessories, as well as adding some better lighting. My sister-in-law picked out a stellar grey and white comforter and we worked from there, adding large doses of navy and some orange accents. Convincing my sister-in-law to paint a wall some colour other than a shade of grey was a hard sell, but as you can see, the wall behind the artwork is a gorgeous navy and guess what? She loves it! Here are some before and after pics.
Before
After. I happened to have an orange pouffe sitting in my son’s closet from when I changed his accent colour from orange to green. Score. More closet room for diapers, free pouffe for my nephew…an excellent launching pad for jumpy children.
(In a perfect world where little children don’t have grabby little fingers we would have done a third row of pictures lower down since odd numbers always look best; but…)
Before
After. I bought his gorgeous lamp base from Value Village for $7 and gave it a boost with a coat of orange paint and a new shade. Adding some navy ribbon to the shade was an easy way of adding some additional pizazz.
All in all a successful project that we are all pleased with. It’s amazing what you can accomplish on a limited budget. I always enjoy the challenge of finding creative ways to stretch a dollar. Thanks Di for trusting me and giving me a space to flex my decor muscles!