When we were living in our little house, Zeek's room was part nursery, part music room, part sewing room. It was a mish-mash of everything. I just rolled with it and didn't give his room a theme - just hung some shelves on the wall and put random trinkety things all over the room. I liked it though - it was cozy and cute. A few months after Zeek was born and we found out we were moving to our new house, I hadn't thought of any different theme for his room and just handed my father-in-law a paint chip similar to what was in his room in the little house.
As soon as we moved in, I had painter's remorse. I hated the color. It was too candy apple. But Skyler said we were not going to repaint...so his room sat. I had no motivation to do anything to it. I threw a couple things on the wall that were in his old room, but I just hated it. I rearranged furniture about 6 times, hoping each time that all the sudden I would love his room. I did not. So finally 10 months later, I figured out what I want to do with the room. I have plans! It feels so good to have direction for the room. I want him to enjoy his space and feel cozy and comfortable in it. (Yet, I also had to keep in mind that I needed it to be gender neutral for future occupants, because he WILL be sharing his room with any future brother's or sister's until we buy our own house a few years from now.)
Well, wasn't that a short-story-long!? ;) All this to say, I made a new art piece for Zeek's new room! It's the first piece of his new room, and hopefully it will be "done" in the next month or so and I can show you the new space.
I originally had seen this piece of string art:
I liked the idea a lot - the colors, the rustic and industrial feel. I was going to do this on some old boards, like this:
Then, a couple days before I was going to start on this, my friend Sarah at It's On The Tip Of My Tongue posted this project, based off of this one from Honey & Fritz:
And I knew this version was way better. :)
I already had most of the supplies, so all I had to buy was the embroidery thread and the nails. All I paid for this project was less than $4.
I had this bulletin board hanging in our office:
Originally I had painted it white and was going to use it in Zeek's old room. I had gotten white paint on the cork though, but was going to cover the cork with this blue fabric that matched the curtains in his room. Unfortunately, I didn't realized until afterwards that the back didn't remove from this board and I wasn't going to b able to recover it in a nice looking way...I thought I'd ruined it and was pretty bummed.
When I saw this project - I had an "ah ha!" moment, and realized it no longer was ruined!
I just painted the rest of it white. I searched Free Fonts for a nice cursive font and chose Annabel Script. It took me a couple of days to decide what word to use. I wanted something that was more meaningful than just "dream". I wanted something that described Ezekiel. I thought of "happy", which is always what people say about him, but I didn't like the way the word looked written out, which led me to the word "joyful". I love the way the word looked in cursive and even more love the meaning. I printed it out in 600 size font, one letter per page. I taped them together and placed them on my board where I wanted them, using double stick tape on the back to hold them in place.
I wanted a little less shiny, more industrial look, so I chose silver nails instead of the gold. It was about $1.50 for a pack of these at Lowe's. I bought 3 packs, not knowing how many I'd need. Would you believe I used exactly the amount of one package, not on purpose?! I thought, knowing me, I'd have to bust into one other pack just for like 5 more nails. :)
I pushed the nails in with my thumb, all the way around the word. About every letter or so, to give my thumb a break, I'd go around with a hammer and tap the nails in a little further (since this is hanging above Zeek's bed and I didn't want the chance of any falling out!)
After the nails are in, carefully peel the letters out of the nail lining.
Then the fun part! STRINGING! This was so enjoyable. I tied knots around the starting and ending nails for each color and added a dab of tacky glue to the knots to make sure they stayed tied tight.
As mentioned in the Honey & Fritz tutorial, overlap the colors a little bit to get a blended look.
And here it is, all finished and hanging up:
I love the way it looks in his room! It broke up the green wall and made me feel just that much better about the way his room feels. :) It's coming together.
*Hindsight: I should have painted two coats onto the cork...But I think I was too eager to start this to notice at the time after I painted. But it's okay, I've made my peace about it. :)
What do you think? You like?
Love, K
