Article 3 of the Mural Series

Oakley's 'Under the Sea' Room

A few weeks before I was due to have Capri another mom from Cedi's daycare asked me to paint an 'Under the Sea' mural in her son Oakley's room. Oakley is a very smart little boy and he LOVES sharks and sea animals. I went over, took a look at the room and made a plan in my head. Of course I would do it! My mother-in-law had to come with me the first time to help get the images on the wall...I draw them on small pieces of paper and then project them onto the wall. I couldn't go super high since my stomach was HUGE and balance was a little off.


The whale in the picture to the right was my first inspiration for this room. He wanted whales and sharks and I thought it would be fun to have a rather larger whale coming out of the door. That way it wouldn't take up the entire room but wouldn't look strange having just a partial image...



I used very few 'repeat' images from my own 'Under the Sea' room but I did use a few of my favorites...the group of turtles and of course the adorable manatee (in a more boy color of course).





This is a picture of the tiger shark that I put up per Oakley's request...

Article 2 of the mural series


When we discovered that Cedi was going to be a big sister, and soon, we started to prepare her
for the fact that she was going to be living in "the Jungle" instead of "Under the
Sea". I had previously painted all of the animals on the wall,
but I had yet to find the proper inspiration for the leaves and vines. I started to paint something that I wasn't 'feeling' and it just didn't look right so I stopped (for about a year). Luckily, in December 07 inspiration struck (Capri was born February 08) and I was able to FINALLY finish the jungle and paint the leafy vines all over the wall. I had a small dilemma with the angled portions of the ceiling because they have this crazy texture that made painting in any sort of straight lines near impossible (for me at least). I used a leafy rug from my college days to cover up the biggest portion of the angled ceiling and then I did some draping with some hand-dyed netting near the other portions. I also trimmed the top edges with Hawaiian leis to cover up the imperfections of my paint job between the flat ceiling and the angled ceiling. I personally think it worked out well.




When Cedi moved into the jungle, she LOVED it! She was just learning animal noises so in the morning when she woke up we would often times hear roaring through the monitor! As you can see a lion peeked at her through the crib bars!

A few weeks before Cedi turned 2, she was very angry with the fact that we had put her to bed for the evening and she decided to climb out of the crib. Of course, she hit her head on the only possible thing that could cut her in the area, sliced it open and bled EVERYWHERE! It was definitely one of the scariest moments thus far in motherhood. Once we were able to see where she was bleeding from, we discovered it was a ridiculously small cut that required nothing more than a band-aide and a kiss (thankfully). That night, I took the crib down and moved her into the big girl bed. I tried to get her to sleep on the lower trundle, but no matter what I did (big girl blankets, special sheets, special pillow) she always climbed up into the double. Now she spends her nights sleeping in the alcove next to the monkey on the wall. The quilt you see in the picture to the left was made for Cedi by my mother-in-law. It is absolutely beautiful! The quilting, done by my aunt-in-law, Barb (http://www.quiltsbybarb.com/) is more than you can imagine. She quilted my daughter's first and middle name into it as well as the proper textures for the tree, animals, and even added some more animals and jungley objects into the stitching! Absolutely beautiful! I think I'll have to take some better close ups of the quilt and do a story on that itself!

I hope you enjoyed the second article in my mural series! Next time I'll talk about the second 'under the sea' room I completed!

About 2 years ago, my husband and I made the decision to tear down our falling apart house and build a new one. We decided this in January and we needed to be done (or super close to done) by the middle of August when apple season started. In order to accomplish this we decided to put up a modular home from All American Homes. I know many people's gut reaction to this is, what crap, but our our house is actually quite nice. We put up a cottage style home that came in four different sections. Before it was delivered we had to have the basement in. We made our basement with really high cielings and installed a commercial kitchen immediately (one of the smartest decisions we made because of our apple store). It is a very 'open' house that I truly love.


Well, at the end of February we discovered that I was pregnant. A bit of dilemma because I wasn't able to do quite as much as I normally could have with the house. In order to keep myself busy I decided to paint murals in the future kids' rooms. The first I will talk about is my 'Under the Sea' Room (currently Capri's). I have always loved painting murals (I was lucky enough to do them in elementary, middle and high school). I knew that I would have to make my kids' rooms super neat. I tend to have these ideas in my head that don't always come to fruition, but after I painted the manatee.... I knew that it was going to work. I don't have the best pictures of my 'Under the Sea' room but here are a few....





Cedi lived in this room for a little over a year. She loved to look at all of the sea creatures on the wall and learned how to make fish noises at a very young age! Capri is really enjoying now...she loves to try and 'pet' the animals on the wall!

Later....I'll be posting about a jungle room and another under the sea room!