Card Catalog

One of my favorite things is to reinvent old furniture....

Cloud Shelf

Here's a simple project for a high shelf in a child's room. You need laminate shelf boards, white support L brackets, scrap wood and white foam boards (office supply store or craft store). The boards were cut to the length of the room and installed about 18 inches from the ceiling using white L brackets. Clouds were drawn on one side of the foam boards and then cut using an exacto blade. Using scraps of lumbar, cut various block sizes and glue to the back side of the clouds. Rest the blocks with attached clouds on shelf in a three dimensional pattern. Stick some clouds close to the shelf and overlap them with others that stick out further. Step back and check out how your clouds look before glueing the blocks to the shelf. This is a great spot to place stuffed animals.

Rolling Hills Mural

Four Wall Rolling Hills Mural For Nursery

The top half of this wall and ceiling were roller painted light blue; the bottom half green; and the middle left white....(by my husband). I then painted clouds using white acrylic paint and a natural foam sponge. Some of the whites I watered down, others were true to the bottle. Some whites were mixed with a tiny bit of yellow, some with a tiny bit of grey. The ceiling clouds were hard for me. I was 7 months pregnant and at the top of a ladder.....not a pretty sight. I used more of a brush in the ceiling clouds in order for me to reach and I like how the sponged paint looks much better. Next I took a pencil and drew arches all over the wall, like hills. I painted every other one or every other two hills in the back with the darker green. The other hills I painted with the green that was rolled on the wall on the bottom half. I then defined the hills with yellow highlights and darker green low lights (paint on drier side). The trees I painted in groups of mostly odd numbers with shadows all in the same direction. The sheep were little puffy sheep bodies with darker grey heads and feet. There were a couple black ones. The sheep had little shadows as well that were basically real short around one side of the sheep. This helped to make the white sheep pop. I got my inspiration from a handful of children's books including Time For Bed by Jane Dyer It took me like six straight days of somewhere between two and four hours a day. I mean, don't get me wrong it's definitely a "put your life on hold, order pizza, and do a project" project. The sad part is that we moved six months later.

The stars in the night sky form my son's astrological sign Cancer

Photo Collages for Invitations, Art, and Christmas Cards

Over the years I've enjoyed getting to know Photoshop, meanwhile developing a standard of creativity for holiday cards by which I feel I must live up to and surpass annually. (...ahhh, the pressure!) While it is a complete absorption of time and you can often find the kids left in their pajamas all day, I do have fun with the end result. Besides collages for other people, I've made a couple invitations and a moving postcard for my family as well. Cue the guilt that only the first born has creative collages for birthday invitations as well as the first few Christmas Cards with the subject matter being none other then...the first born. Yay for sibling order stereo typing....just doing my part.