Playroom Shelves

I left off with my last house post talking about the boys' bathroom. It's a hard room to photograph and it's just a normal bathroom, but I still love it. This week I'll keep up upstairs and circle bath to the Bonus Room.

I shared a post about our Bonus Room, and I think I mentioned how that room was not complete. I wasn't yet happy with it. It currently serves as a play room with the majority of the toys. We used existing furniture we had, but it wasn't working. We had some wire shelving that was meant to hold storage cubes. I had cute baskets to hold toys in there, but I didn't like how it looked. It felt cluttered. And when you have lots of toys, it's hard NOT to look cluttered.

I searched for cube storage and just wasn't finding what I liked. And when I can't find something I like, I make something I like!

Mr. JCrew has an amp for his guitar, so I wanted to created something that made it looked built in to the storage area.

It started off as buying wood deep enough for the cubes. They are 13 inches square. If I bought a 12 inch piece of wood, the cube would hang off. And my first idea was to make floating shelves.

I bought the wood, stained it and bought simple brackets. I also searched for brackets I liked, but went with cheap ones I could buy in a big box store instead of a custom order. They were silver and I painted them bronze.

I used a new stain for this wood and fell in love! Best brand! I've stained before and always did a bad job. This stain covers your sins! (ha) I felt like a pro and wanted to find more projects to stain!

Once I got the shelves up, I realized I needed longer brackets to make sure the weight would hold. Even without toys on the shelf, it was already dipping forward.

I then decided to put pieces of wood on the end that I could bracket the front end of the shelf to. It would feel much sturdier. And it did!

I was hesitant to make it look like a piece of furniture when I already have a console under the TV, but it works.

And it cleans up that area much nicer. Looks much more open and less clutter!

One day the shelves won't be full of toys, but we'll turn it into library shelves.

Face Cutouts 2017

I’ll begin by saying I don’t know what these things are called, so I call them “Face Cut Outs.” We see them all over the place. Our favorites are at the Pumpkin Patch.

This year, I made some of my own! It was an easy project that I got started with in July.

Every December, my neighborhood hosts a Luminary Stroll. This is our third year doing it, and I spear-headed the event. We use plastic luminaries instead of white paper bags and it has a light string to use instead of candles. It’s really awesome. Especially when you get all your neighbors to do it and connect to each other (not really, but it looks like they do). I am so proud of my street! This is the first year we have had no blank houses… 7 houses in a row! And it actually continues with four more if you hang a left where the luminaries on our street end. The effect is really pretty.

At the Luminary Stroll, we gather at the clubhouse to mingle and then head out to view the Christmas Light Displays together. Each year the event gets larger and we add more things. Most ideas come a week before the event, but we can’t execute. So we save the idea for the following year. One of those ideas was for the face cut outs.

I got the ball rolling in July by trying to come up with a design. I needed a design that was sturdy but didn’t have a large “footprint” so that they could easily be stored. I searched around on Pinterest.

I ended up with a simple stand.

But before I got to that part, I practiced cutting out the hole for the face. I made sure I picked out thin wood so that I could easily cut the hole out.

I traced an oval for the face shape and then drilled holes along the line.

I then took my reciprocating saw to “Connect” the dots.

I then sanded the edges… VERY IMPORTANT! You don’t want people to get splinters in their necks.

My circles weren’t perfect. The battery was getting low, causing me trouble with accuracy, but I finished!

I then attached the boards to the stands.

I now had a base to paint. With how the wood was cut and how tall and wide I calculated my measurements, I ended up making four face cut outs. I had two volunteers that said they would help me paint. One lady took two and she made gorgeous snowpeople! I had no idea how talented she was. The level of detail is amazing!

Another lady whipped up a Nutcracker in less than a day. I dropped it off at her house early afternoon, and she text me a picture that night of the final product!

Because a nutcracker is known for their mustaches, we couldn’t leave that part out, yet, the face was cut out. So, my volunteer made a template and I used some leftover wood and my scroll saw and cut out a mustached to place over the hole. The only downside, is people can’t rest their chin on the cutout, but it gives them a mustache and it’s cute!

I decided to be artistic and painted one myself. I do not considered myself an artist in the true sense of the word, but I was proud of myself with this one. I paired my cutout to go with the Nutcracker. I made Clara!

I can draw pointe shoes like nobody’s business, since I drew them all growing up and had it perfected, but ask me to draw body parts, and I flunk!

I started with one color at a time. This made me feel like I knew what I was doing.

I was pretty proud of the finished product.

I colored the hair brown, because I thought that was an easier color to create than blonde, but it got lost on my navy background. I then tried to up my game and add dimension. This is where things got dicey. I was not good and very critical. I realize now, that adding dimension needs to be done while all paint is wet. I tried and tried to add detail. That dress has seven coats of white on it, as I would try to show creases, but didn’t like it, so I painted over it. I finally gave up and put subtle lines in there, but you can’t see them, they are so subtle.

I did try and add detail to the hair so that you could see it better and see that is was ringlets. 

I only painted over the brown 3 times before I liked it. 

The event was this past Sunday and the kids loved the cutouts. They were a huge it!

Now to store the cutouts are the clubhouse and not my garage!!!

Adding a Little Detail

Baby B's bed has been done for a while. We put a crib in the spare bedroom and called it a day. Little JCrew's room has two twin beds in it and we did the same thing and just sticking a crib in there. In my mind, it's just easier than designing a whole nursery and then redesigning it later.

The crib was refinished (as documented here) and a pallet wall was installed as well. When I built the pallet wall, I mentioned that I would document later about what was to go on the ledge. Sorry it has taken so long, but I was being indecisive!!

The rest of the room is bright colored, yet the bedding is subdue in grey and white.

I wanted the things on the shelf to be bright colored to tie in the rest of the room.

I had bought a green clock on clearance with every intention of hanging it on the ledge, but I was nervous. I don't know why, but I wondered if a clock would look silly. Yet, I wanted a clock in the room. Then I found a more beautiful and cheap clock and knew it was the one. Instead of green, it was white.

Since the room was designed before either babies were even thought of, the pictures in Baby B's room were a bit girly.

I knew I needed to change them, but was being lazy!! I could definitely put pictures of Baby B once he was born in the frames, but I'd have to wait a while. I then got the idea to print elephant pictures and stick them in there in the mean time.

One of those pictures goes on the shelf and I love it!!

I guess this could fall under a budget craft of mine. I just changed the inserts on some pictures.

The ledge decor is almost complete, but there is an empty space above the block letters that I need to fill. I have a wooden plaque I made for Little JCrew's room that I never hung, so I decided to repaint it. (A sailboat just doesn't fit in the new room.)

I painted it using the grey color that was in the master bedroom (we changed that two years ago when I just couldn't get happy with the color.)

And the next step will be to use the paint color I used on the crib to paint and elephant. Once complete, I'll stick that up on the wall.

Everything that is on the ledge is tacked to the wall. Mr. JCrew is our safety expert in the house, and he wouldn't let me keep any of that stuff on there once the baby comes. So, Mr. Elephant's ear is nailed to the wall so he won't fall!!

Once I paint the elephant, I'll post a look at the complete details.