It's not entirely done in that picture, but I couldn't wait any longer before I shared it. I'm just so damn proud of myself. So just imagine the leaves a little fuller around the edges, and a couple of bird houses in the tree.
Since we can't paint- or, more accurately, we COULD technically paint, but don't feel like making the effort to repaint later when we need to move- I have been looking for non-paint ways to spruce up the owl nursery. I wanted to do a tree with some owls in it, and more specifically wanted that long branch over the crib to hang her name from.
My original plan was going to be to use cardstock pieces for the whole thing, including the trunk. But I was worried how terrible it would look having tiny pieces of brown for the tree trunk. You'd definitely see the lines and everything. So I got an idea from another mommy-to-be on Babycenter.com to use foam board covered with cloth. Perfect!
I got 4 large pieces of foam board from A.C.Moore for less than 2 bucks each. Then swung by Joanne's and found the brown fabric that actually looks sort of like tree bark (that wasn't a must, just a lucky bonus, and I would have just used any slightly patterned brown fabric) and got 3 yards of it. It was way more than I actually needed but since I wanted the entire center of the trunk to be one pieces of fabric, I needed it to be longer. I could have also just gotten less fabric and cut it in pieces like I did with the branches, I guess, but I wanted it to look uniform. I got a can of spray glue, too.
At home we already had a box cutter (although we desperately need a new one and I wish I knew that before trying to use the one we have!), cardstock for the leaves and owls, and duck tape.
I just cut the shape of the trunk out first by lining up the foam board pieces, sketching it out, and cutting away with the box cutter. I also cut out the shapes of the branches to make sure they lined up with the trunk. I taped the pieces of the trunk together, and then used the spray glue to put the fabric over it on the front. Once the whole front was glued I turned it over and secured it and pulled it tight on the back with duck tape. Then I did the same for the branches. After the trunk was covered, I did the same for the branches. For the hole in the trunk, I taped a pieces of darker brown cardstock behind the foam. All of that was hung up on the wall with small nails.
Then I started cutting out the leaves. I just picked some of the paper and cardstock that I liked for the colors and patterns, planted myself down in front of the TV for a little while and cut until I had a massive pile of leaves.
I have a lot of leftover foam board. For the trunk and branches I actually only used two full pieces of it. Instead of just hanging the leaves on the wall, I decided to glue them onto large pieces of foam board and hang the board on the wall. I used the other two left to cut them into half-oval and oval shapes. I knew that the two half-oval shapes would go against the ceiling (why they had to be flat) and the two ovals would be hung below the others. I covered each board with the leaves, layering them from the bottom up.
At some point, I ran out of spray glue. I just substituted with some Matte Modge Podge that I had anyway and it worked just as well. *LOVE Modge Podge!*
When all those pieces were covered with leaves I used small nails again, first hung the half-ovals with their flat edges along the ceiling, and then layered the oval pieces over the other pieces. I decided after that point that I wanted some more leaves, so I made a few extra foam board-covered leave chunks and added them here and there where I wanted. I will probably fill in a few more leaves by just using glue dots to hang individual leaves on the actual wall itself. I'm sure with better planning this would all be unnecessary, but I like to fly by the seat of my pants with projects like this so I wind up adding and adjusting small things all the way until it's done.
Then I made those cute little owls out of cardstock, gave them a home up on the branches along with a few more leaves. Like I mentioned, I'm not done with details like that. I have a couple of small wooden birdhouses that are painted and ready to be hung but I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
As for the name- first I printed out letters from the computer in the size and font I wanted. I cut them out to make a pattern for the letters. Then I traced the pattern onto the cardstock and scrapbook papers of my choice and used matte Modge Podge (Squeeee love Modge Podge!!) to attach the letters to their pages. After that, it was a quick trip to the Dollar Tree for 5 one dollar 8x10 picture frames, hot gluing some pink ribbon to the back of them, and putting my letter pictures into them and I was done! Easy peasy.
See what happens when the 3 year old spends a week with Mimi?
At least I think it's productive!
