For the Nursery (and a New PS!)

If you read our other blog, you know I enjoy Shannon's Rocks in My Dryer.  She always has something posted to inform me, entertain me, inspire me, or make me laugh.  Recently, this post encouraged us to make our own wall art inspired by Pottery Barn Kids.  I got on their website, and of course, I loved the biggest project the best:

And I decided to make one for the nursery.  The Pottery Barn Kids website listed the dimensions of each piece of the tree, which was helpful.  Artists' canvas was 50% off at my favorite local craft/fabric store, yay!  And I found all the right sizes except for the one for the tree trunk.  Here's the layout.  (Click on any picture to enlarge.)

I sketched the tree onto the canvas, copying the picture from the PBK website.  I wish I was good at drawing, but that didn't stop me.

Here's my tree with the blue background and the tree filled in.  It turned out way more blue than I had hoped, but I didn't feel like doing it again, so I decided to live with the color.  I also don't know anything about painting, but that didn't stop me, either!

Almost done!  The leaves and bird are made of scraps of fabric and old scrapbook paper that I bought before I got into Creative Memories.  I used Mod Podge to apply them to the tree.  Now the whole thing is ready for the last coat.

Here it is on the wall...and let me say, getting it up on the wall "just right" was tricky.

Jeff thinks (and I agree) that there may be "too much going on" in this corner of the nursery.  I like for a baby to have lots of bright, cheerful things to look at in his/her room, so I tend to err on the side of too much color in the nursery.  If I decide it's too much, I'll hang the quilt somewhere else.  Thank goodness for spackle and extra yellow paint.  :)

Anyway, here's how it looks!  I'm happy with it, especially since it's my first try with this kind of project.  Here are some things I learned:

• Mod Podge is really cool stuff!  This huge project took about 2/3 of a jar.
• It only takes a little blue paint to turn white paint blue.  Oops.  :)
• Mod Podge and vellum don't mix!  I had a few leaves cut out of some pretty vellum with a fall leaf pattern printed on it.  Luckily, I started with the tree trunk of this project and found out that the Mod Podge made the vellum wrinkle, so I left the vellum leaves off of the rest of the tree.  When I tried to take them off the trunk, they lifted my paint off the canvas.  So, I decided to leave them.
• Fabrics with a white background become a bit transparent with Mod Podge.
• If I had to cut fabric leaves again, I'd cut them on the grain instead of on the bias.  They stretched out and unraveled a bit when I glued them to the canvas, and I don't think they would have done that if they had been cut on the grain.

If you're like me in your craftiness, you know that no project turns out exactly the way you picture it in your mind.  But, this one was a lot of fun, and it was a good opportunity for me to think about the next addition to our family and pray for the baby and his/her birthparents.  May God keep them safe and send them our way.

**PS!!!  I have a question for all of you.  How would you recommend mounting these things to the wall securely?  Right now they're just hanging on the wall with a little sawtooth picture hanging thingy on the back of each canvas and a nail in the wall.  But, I haven't forgotten that a baby yanks on anything and everything and would pull the low ones down almost instantly.  What should I use?  :)  I should probably also have them hung securely in case of an earthquake so that they wouldn't fall on the baby, so that's another good reason for a different hanging method.  Please leave me a comment if you have an idea!  Thanks!