Bloom Where You Are Planted

All three of the kids' rooms need some help these days, so I've been trying to do some fun little projects here and there to spruce things up a bit. It started with the DIY desk for my daughter's room a month or so ago...

She loves this little corner of her room, and I can assure you, it doesn't look anywhere close to this nice, neat picture anymore! If you were to go upstairs and take a peek right this minute, you'd see about 800 scraps of paper on the floor, scissors, glue, marker and crayon marks on the desktop...oh well, at least it was captured on film as looking pristine and new at one point in time.

If you couldn't figure it out by the picture, my girl is a girly-girl if there ever was one. Her world is filled with nothing but flowers and rainbows, fairies and princesses. And pink. LOTS of pink.

I had a 24x36 inch canvas laying around here from forever ago - I thought I was going to use it for something and went another route and never returned it. So I had a vision...her room is a flower/garden theme. Here's a picture of her bedspread...

So I went to Michaels and picked up some random scrapbook paper in a variety of colors - yellow, pink, orange, purple, green, brown, you name it, I grabbed a sheet.

I wanted to make a little scene of a tree, some flowers, the sun, maybe a butterfly or little birdie somewhere, and have always LOVED the quote: bloom where you are planted. I thought the two would go just perfectly together, so I started cutting shapes and made sure to leave some empty space to stencil in the words. Once I laid the shapes out and was happy with it, I mod podged them onto the canvas and let it dry. The next day I got out my stencils, mixed some red and white acrylic paint I had to create a pink color (of course!) and got to work.

I've been asked about stenciling from several people - here are some tips. Use a foam brush, and only put the TINIEST bit of paint on it. Dab - don't brush - the stencil, then carefully and quickly lift it up. I love these 'rustic' stencils, because they don't have to look perfect to begin with, so if you have a little leakage, it's all good. (I got these at Hobby Lobby by the way- they're called 4in Rustic Stencils). Then, as you can see in the above picture, I hop from word to word since I have little zero patience waiting for the previous letter to dry. By the time I'm done stenciling a letter on another word, the next letter from the word I was just working on is dry. Did that make ANY sense?! Or only in my head?!

So here it is, complete, and hung up in her room...

Let me give you a piece of advice so you don't make the same mistake I made! Use MATTE Mod Podge - I already had gloss on hand, so I just used that, but it dries with a sheen (hence: gloss - DUH.) I wasn't even thinking about that, and now I have a somewhat shiny piece of art;) Doesn't bug me immensely, but really wish I had thought of that and went out and bought some matte for this project.

While we're on the subject of my girl's room, let me share with you her other favorite spot that we just recently added:

She has a great time in this little spot. She hides from the evil villain (aka her brother when he's chasing her), she reads in here, she pretends she is Rapunzel trapped in her tower...(I get to play Mother Gothel - which is only fun the first 999 times, I can assure you). We picked up the canopy from a yard sale for $5 last summer, and it was hung over her bed, but I thought it would look (and be more exciting for her) in its own special corner. I was right - she loves it even more by itself, draped over her floor pillows. I just stuck one of those garden hooks right into the ceiling and that was it. I would have LOVED a special little spot like this when I was a kid!

Ok, that about wraps it up I guess. There will be more kid room updates in the near future, I'm sure...especially with our son's room. He's now 2 1/2, and his sweet nursery is slowly but surely turning into a big boy room. I'm excited to start on that one, but a little emotional as well. HOW did that boy get to be 2 and a HALF is what I would like to know?!!!


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I linked this up At The Picket Fence...