Wall of Art

This blog post is dedicated to all of my much more craftier blog friends and family (and by "craftier" I mean those who actually have things like collections of paints and fabric and who visit places like Hobby Lobby and read Family Fun on a regular basis).  I am not much of a "crafty" person.  My "craft box" gets opened once every few months and then usually only to retrieve the bottle of Elmer's glue to try and fix something that broke.  I once subscribed to Family Fun magazine, but I'm pretty sure I only ever opened one issue on one occasion and decided I was never going to do that stuff anyway, so why was I paying the $5 subscription fee and taking up space on a book shelf?!? (To redeem myself, I have loaned out my collection of issues to a friend who happily used them.)

All that aside, I channeled all of my inner-craftiness into a wild, hare-brained project this week.  I think it all began when Emily apparently had a really good time at the Art Center at preschool on Tuesday and came home with a whole stack of pictures.  The fridge was already covered with marker drawings and watercolor paintings (her newfound love).  We were playing in the basement and it occurred to me that maybe we could use her artwork to decorate the long, drab walls.  However, since almost all of her artwork is on white paper and the cement basement walls were already painted an off-white color it would be pretty boring.  So I packed up the kids for our second trip to Wal-mart of the day and let Emily pick out some pink paint.  Then we actually went to the craft section.  There's some pretty cool stuff there!

Anyway, I opened up the pink paint on Wednesday during Lincoln's naptime.  Emily took pictures and offered commentary while I haphazardly rolled paint on the wall.

After the pink paint was gone Emily helped paint the clothespins green using leftover paint from her room.  I'm proud to say that for the most part I resisted the maximizer/firstborn urge to "fix" her paint job.  Of course they would have looked nicer with two coats of smooth paint on all sides, but from a distance the uneven, sometimes gloppy fronts and backs look just fine. ;o)  BTW--Emily was totally digging the Rainbow Brite sheets I was using as a dropcloth.  My sister & I had matching ones when we shared a room growing up.

The next morning Emily decorated the clothespins with sparkly foam flower stickers.

While Lincoln was napping and Emily was at preschool on Thursday I used the green again to paint a border around the pink.  Then I put three rows of removable Command micro hooks on the wall and strung nylon rope across them.  When Emily came home she said, "Mom, I LOVE it!"  Then she proudly hung up all her artwork and even drew a couple more.

Here's a close-up of one of my favorite watercolor paintings by Emily.  It's a picture of her holding an ice cream cone.  If anyone would like to fund her college education by purchasing this or any future paintings, please let me know!  ;o)

I also have purple paint left from Emily's room.  When my much more artistic sister comes to visit in November I may have to have her embellish the wall some more (see this post from her this week).  In the meantime, there is plenty of space left on the 12' x 6' "Wall of Art" and another 25 clothespins if needed.  I'm sure it won't take long to fill it. :o)