Totoro Mural!

As I have written many, many times before, one of my favorite movies is My Neighbor Totoro. So when I thought about decorating the room for our upcoming baby, my first thought was, of course, to create a Totoro mural. Now while I am crafty in several realms, muralist is not a label I apply to myself with any confidence. So I enlisted (okay, bugged until he agreed) my brother Adam to create a forest-with-Totoros mural for the nursery. Here are some shots of the muralist extraordinaire in action. Adam had to paint about 5 layers of white on Totoro's stomach, so it's taken a while to complete, but we're nearly there and I couldn't be happier!

Room Prep

We've been working on transforming our spare bedroom/my study into a nursery for the past couple of weeks, and the prep work is almost done.

I decided to leave the walls the same color that they've been- a soothing hyacinth blue. The trim was a light brown color, and I decided to use Fresh Aire (no VOCs) paint and make the trim a darker brown. This paint is great because I can use it without worrying about the health impact, but here's a warning for anyone thinking about buying it: the color on the swatch is at least 2-3 shades darker than the paint itself.

An exciting discovery I made is that the hardwood floors in the bedroom were in great shape underneath some dingy old carpeting:



We pulled up the carpeting and I'm now working on pulling up all of the little staples from the floor. Fun times, but at least Meowzle and Mochi are helping me (see below):




Many thanks to Sarah and Ryan for their help with painting the stuff I can't do, and for taking all the carpeting out to the trash!

Finding the Right Fabric: Not There Yet

I recently renovated my kitchen. This involved a bunch of steps, some of which I've blogged about already. I painted the ceiling and window and door trim, painted the walls, painted the cupboards, replaced the cupboard hardware, replaced the ceiling light/fan, installed new curtain rods, and got my countertops replaced. I wanted to make the kitchen, which is small, really vibrant and fun. I therefore painted it a bright green color called Tart Apple. I got black, white and grey solid surface acrylic countertops. The new light/fan is a funky retro design. The new artwork I created (from rice paper purchased in Toronto's Chinatown and wooden frames that Ginny and I painted grey) adds a graphic punch without being too loud.





So all of that is great. Here's the rub: I can't find fabric to match my vision for curtains. I'm imagining something that's mostly black and white, in a mod/sunburst-inspired pattern like the fabric above, with maybe a splash of green and a bit of grey. I have searched and searched, online and in person, in the U.S. and Canada, and have yet to find fabric that corresponds with what's in my head. I have confidence that I'll get there, and until then my plain white sheers will have to do, but I'm kind of surprised at how hard it is to find what I'm looking for. If all else fails, I think I'll make my husband really happy by making curtains out of this fabric:

Uncle Tom: Getting Into the Crafty Holiday Spirit

My Uncle Tom was a true craft buff this holiday. Not only did he participate in our annual Christmas ornament crafting extravaganza this year (see photo below of my brother Adam, cousin Alex, cousin Mariah, mother-in-law Barbara and me painting wooden ornaments on Christmas day), he also brought his own craft (a wreath he decorated with little Christmas figures) to my parents' house. And yes, he is mocking my Craft Buff profile picture in the photo shown above! But really, with his skills and enthusiasm, don't you think Uncle Tom should start his own craft blog?





Oh, and one other thing: in the group photo above, my cousin Mariah is painting glitter on a gift she asked for (and received for) Christmas- pepper spray. As she was leaving the house that evening, my dad said to her, "Oh, Mariah, did you decorate that thing you're holding? Is it an ornament?" She very sweetly replied, "No, that's my pepper spray. I decorated it with glitter paint." My dad quickly backed away.