A Couple of Projects

I have had these pictures of some of my recent projects for a while. I figured that I should get them posted so I can erase them off my memory card.

I saw This project (go ahead and click it!) and I decided it would be a perfect way to hang things in Zane's room. I love that I can change things around as often as I want.

I started with long, skinny pieces of wood. They are called firring. I don't know what that means. I even called my construcion-savvy father-in-law to find out what it meant. He gave me a nice long explanation. And I still don't know what it means. At less than a dollar apiece, firring means cheap strips of wood to me.

We watched "Tangled" while I sanded my two strips. That was probably the fifth or sixth time I watched that movie in about as many days. I really love it.

I used wood glue to attach clothespins in alternating directions. The masking tape isn't permanent. It was just there to act as a clamp until the glue dried.

Once it dried, I peeled off the tape and spray painted all of the wood.

Then I hung them over Zane's crib. I am working on getting pictures of Zane with as many family members as possible to attach to his clothespins. So far, only Steph and Tony are hanging up. He loves looking at them.

The big letters of his name are just pieces of cardboard painted white. I found pictures of fabric that I liked, printed them out, then cut the letters of his name out of them. The letters are just extras that I made of ones that are hanging around the house. Thanks to the alphabet magnets that Steph gave us, Zane knows the sounds of the following letters: w,o,p,i,s,l,b, & m. Sometimes he knows z,x,y,t & j. But he doesn't know any of his colors. We're working on it. Wo unto the child who has a teacher for a mother.

We got this Ikea bookshelf for $5 at a garage sale a few months ago. It was disassembled and still in plastic. Clay put it together for me, and I spray painted it. The hardest part was finding a sturdy enough way to fix it to the wall. We wanted to make sure it was strong enough to not fall on his head when he is playing at his toy table below it. This bookshelf is specifically for his non-board-books. He has a floor canvas and wood bookshelf for the books that he can just help himself to.

Oh, and the monkey's name is Elvis. He normally lives in Zane's crib, but the other animal that was up there fell down, and I don't remember which one it was. Elvis graciously stepped in to model for the picture.

I created this subway art to go in Zane's bathroom. (The flowers are left over from the Mother's Day brunch I gave last month. I loved them so much I didn't want to throw them away) I wanted to print it on cute scrapbook paper, but white ink doesn't print. I finally discovered that I could scan in the scrapbook paper, then add the words on top in editing software, then print it out as a picture. Complicated, but it got the job done! Below is the actual picture that I printed twice and mod podged onto another piece of scrapbook paper and put into a spray painted frame.

Remember the Old McDonald board I did a while ago? I had a hard time not getting the other cute little wooden things. They had sea creatures and safari animals among other things. I have been trying to figure out what in the world I could do with them. I still haven't figured out something for the safari animals, but I made an ocean play board for Zane.

Using a hefty amount of spray paint, glitter, and mod podge to seal the paint and glitter, I made an ocean and a pirate's island. I added a couple of permanent sea-things just for fun. All of the wooden creatures, ships, trees, umbrellas, etc. are attached with velcro so Zane can move them around the board.

Zane loves to play with is new board.

And I love spray paint. I didn't realize it until now, but every one of these projects has included it in some aspect of it's creation. If you have any ideas for a fun project to do with safari animals, let me know! I'd love it if there was a song or poem or chant to go along with it. But that's not entirely necessary. I just love those little wooden creatures!