Baby proofing

The Youngling keeps getting bigger and more curious. He's always trying to get at things he can't quite reach. Lately he's been trying to pull down these books, and succeeding in a rather uncontrolled manner that leaves him at risk of big heavy objects landing on his feet, possibly hitting his head on the way down. So I need to stop him getting at it.

I've got this bit of card that's big enough to cover the space on two shelves. I paper mache it with one layer of kitchen towel, then squirt some poster paints on it. I want to make a green / blue spray from a white centre. 

I spread the coloured paints towards the edge, then towards the white centre.

I didn't really have enough blue poster paint, but luckily I still have a few blue and green shades left over from the paint by numbers that The Artivist bought me for our anniversary.

I paint lines spreading outwards using all the blues and greens I have left, trying to keep the darker shades nearer to the perimeter and the lighter shades nearer to the middle.

I want more white in the middle but there's a lot of paint on the card now. It needs time to dry before I do anything else to it. I leave it overnight then paint a new white centre. 

Next I look online for silhouettes of faeries. I save a few pictures that I like, then use photoshop to copy elements of each. I like the wings of one, the skirt from another. I take the parts that I like and stick them together to make my own design. 

Once I've created a silhouette I'm happy with I print it and cut it out. I put the template on my painted card (which is dry by now) and draw around it with a pencil. The wings and hair are a bit fiddly to cut out so I'll paint those free hand.  

Then I paint over my pencil lines and fill in the silhouette. Finally, I copy the wing detail and the female's hair by eye.

Last thing to do is fix the picture to the front of the bookcase. The bottom shelf is for The Youngling's books and toys. I fix two angle brackets to the bottom of the next shelf up, pointing upwards, and two onto the top of the middle shelf, pointing down. I leave enough space for the cardboard to fit between the bracket and the shelf. Then I slide my picture in sideways.

I'm sure if The Youngling wanted to get at the items behind the picture he'd be able to destroy it in 30 seconds flat, but he's so far made no attempt to do so, or even appeared curious about it. So I feel my mission is accomplished.