Instant art

Today was a P.D. day for the kids, so I stayed home from work with them. Since it was such a beautiful, sunny day we decided to take Tessa for a walk over to the off-leash area of our local park (a.k.a. the Doggy Bowl). I had a couple of errands I wanted to run along the way, so the four of us set off with the promise of hot chocolate if I didn't hear any complaints.


One of the stops that I wanted to make was at The Paper Place down on Queen West. I could poke around in that store for hours. I'm planning to make the kids some shelves to house their trophies using old wooden drawers that I found on one of my morning runs.  Like these ones.

Source

Right now mine look like this

I know it's hard to imagine looking at this picture, but they have good bones. They're solid wood, and are really clean inside. I plan to stain and varathane the sides and bottom, and paint the drawer faces. Probably red for Cal and blue for Matthew.

So the trip to The Paper Place was to find some paper to line what will be the back of the shelves. We found some amazing sheets of nice, thick wrapping paper that would work. The kids each picked out a map of the world, and I chose one that had a bunch of butterflies as they were colourful and interesting.

On the way home I remembered that I had some Ikea frames hanging around in a corner in our bedroom.

 
I think I bought them for Matthew's "new" room when Cal was born (almost 7 years ago!). They've been kicking around unused for so long - it's a miracle that I hadn't tossed them out at some point. I rediscovered them while clearing out the third floor bedroom when we moved back into the house in September, and have been keeping an eye out for posters or other art to put in them. They're a bit of an unusual size, and I hadn't been able to find a poster to fit.

When we got home I decided to try them out for fun and see if they were close to fitting the frames. They fit perfectly, without any trimming. 

I love the butterflies. The colours in the maps are a little subdued, but the kids are really happy with them.

I feel like I accomplished a couple of things today. I got rid of some junk that was hanging around next to my dresser getting in the way, and the kids have some new art for their walls. And the best part of all is that the paper was only $5 per sheet. A little pricey for wrapping, but really cheap for art. And if they get tired of the maps or I find something that I like more, I'll just recycle it by wrapping a present!

I guess I'll have to trot back down to The Paper Place again tomorrow to get something so that I can do the shelves for their rooms. I think something with a small pattern will work the best. I'll go sans children next time as they poo-poo'd the choices that I thought would look best for the shelves. I think that I'll make the executive decision and then just put them in their rooms. I'm not running a democracy here!