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.

Triangle Bin

James needs a bin for his room. James likes TRIANGLES. I made him a TRIANGLE bin out of paper mache. I like paper mache.

I rolled up three sheets of newspaper, folded them in half and taped them together to make a TRIANGLE.

I did this a few times and layered all the TRIANGLES on top of each other.

I started to paper mache it. I thought if I did too much at once it might get soggy and collapse so I just did one layer on the outside and just over the top. Then I left it to dry for four months.

Next I did the inside and then the floor, which I made from the newspaper sheet I'd initially used to stop the thing gluing itself to the table. As that sheet was stuck in place anyway, I just folded it over and glued down.

Then I decided the edges looked too chunky so I squashed them down with a book (which I wrapped in a plastic sheet because I wasn't gonna accidentally glue anything else to it).

After all three edges had been squashed the TRIANGLE was ready for decorating. James likes TRIANGLES, so I cut up loads of TRIANGLES from different colours of paper, card and tissue paper.

I squirted a few paints onto the bin and swirled it around to cover the newspaper. Then, with the paint still wet, I started to stick my TRIANGLES all over it. I added PVA glue for the paper and card ones but the tissue paper ones didn't need it.

Once it had dried I painted the inside. I didn't stick any TRIANGLES in there because you wouldn't see them if he's using his bin, but I did glue a few more tissue paper ones to the outside. And I let some of them overlap to create EXTRA TRIANGLES!

After it had dried it still didn't have enough TRIANGLES covering it, so I drew some on with felt tip pens.

I think that's enough triangles :)

Trinkets Bowl

I like paper mache. I'mma make a little trinkets bowl from paper mache :)

I take a plastic bowl and put a sheet of cling film over it, so the cling film bowl is shallower than the plastic one. Then I layer some paper mache over it. First newspaper, then pretty paper.

I let it dry then take it out of the bowl. Cling film always peels right off. I want my bowl to be steady so I make a ring around the bottom with a roll of glue soaked newspaper. I fix it in place with more paper mache strips.

And after it's all dry I just paint the bottom purple.

Post Organiser

Look at this post organiser!! Look how untidy.

If you're interested, here's how I made it. I'm sure it would be lovely if it were prettier.

But I never got round to making it look pretty. This was supposed to be a temporary measure for when we'd just moved in and were still sorting things out. But it's still there. The thing that really annoys me about it is that we still have pretty things hidden away in boxes because there's no shelf space to display them.

So, I've decided - away with the toast rack post organiser! Time to replace it with a sleeker, space-saver wall hanging one.

I started with some envelopes and I cut a piece out of the back of each one. The I slotted them inside each other and taped together at the back.

I punched a couple of holes in the top envelope and tied a length of string through. Then I just hung it from the picture rail.

 

And now the post is out of the way and I've got my shelf back for all my elephants and a couple of other things.

Achieved!!