Monday 23 July 2007

Been Busy

For the last couple of weeks, two projects have kept me really busy: the decorations for my Sing & Sign Summer Picnic (since the weather's filthy, we had it indoors) and the bookshelves for K's bedroom. I haven't done a stitch of sewing!

Here's the picnic - this is actually afterwards, but you can get a good idea of how the walls looked. I did the grass and some bushes all the way round the room; a couple of trees as well (next time I think I will do another couple of trees, they looked great). The grass is painted wallpaper, the flowers are origami and stapled to green straws - they are not fixed so some of the older ones had great fun "picking" flowers! There were 25 butterflies, 10 rabbits, half a dozen each of bees, ladybirds, caterpillars, spiders and birds, and lots of balloons up the walls. The babies *loved* them - some of the ones who've already done a term with me were toddling around the room signing "bird" and "spider" and giggling at everything they could see. The new ones were just goggling and taking it all in. It was really fab and I'm so glad I took the time to do it all.


K's picture book shelves, our joint project, went from this:

then after two coats of primer and two coats of green paint and stencilling, to this:



Unfortunately we forgot to take a pic of the stencilling until it was in situ, but you can get a good idea from this:


The stencilling looks great, I think (you can't see the daisies too well in this pic but they have come out well after having been hand-painted on), though this pic does serve to show just how bendy the walls are in this house - it isn't the shelves, it's the wall! A is of course not happy with the rails across the front (bloody perfectionist, but I can see his point), so there will be some metal reinforcements happening at some point. However, the most important person, K, is very happy indeed to have all her stories within reach!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow I LOVE the stenciling! Your work is such an inspiration. When we move house (eventually...) I am hoping to inject a bit more personal style to our stuff so will be checking back here for tips and ideas :)

Caroline said...

*LAUGHS* Well, thank you, that's very kind. I think the trick is to start out quite plain - we just have magnolia walls and neutral carpet all the way through - and then see what happens. Oh yes, the row of animals above the shelving is my doing too - I got stickers from Mothercare and mounted them on to posterboard. They're actually only blu-tacked on so they can be moved according to how K wants them as she gets older. I did those before she was even born. :)

Anonymous said...

Cool. I will have to go looking for Barbie stickers when we move to do something similar to wind up Alex ;)

gillian said...

hiya im a crafter painter cardmaker stenciller from durham.
i turned to hobbies to recover my health.
love your blog i too jot down random thoughts its as if im talking to my inner self.
bye.