Kate's shelves (and some art)

Kate's room is full of little things that she's made or collected--things like Shopkins and Littlest Pet Shop figures, and her various Sculpey creations, which are myriad and tiny.  Her bookcase headboard has gotten very full.  I've had the idea for a while to make some narrow shelves above her bed where she can display all these things more comfortably.   It took some time but we finally got it done.  We made a Saturday excursion to McLendon and picked out some wood and some brackets, and when we got home I started sanding and painting.  Kate was running in and out playing with her friend Tavah all afternoon, and every time she came in she would ask, "Are my shelves up yet?"  They took a little longer than that.

We discussed colors and thought these sounded good, and I was able to mix them up with my cheap craft paints.  I got a little roller which I think worked much better than brushing.  As I was working I realized they're the same colors that Lorne Elliot mentions in his song "The League of Lawn Art Lovers" (a favorite of ours since we were in Newfoundland).  Here's the relevant bit:

Thirty Javex bottle windmills, 
Colored some fluorescent hue.
And if they're not to your liking,
Maybe our house will look more striking
If we paint it in three colors,
Pink and green, and electric blue.

(Kate is a big fan of electric blue.)



Each shelf got two coats of paint and then a coat of polyurethane (which I ended up regretting--should have just left it off).  Mounting them on the wall was a bit of a pain, too. The whole process took a couple of days. 



They look good!  We should have realized, though, that any sort of storage solution we come up with for Kate does not get used for storage, it gets used for playing.  She immediately invented a complicated game with different biomes and levels, and started making more little Sculpey creations to enhance her game. 

(She says she wants more shelves.  I indicated that this was unlikely to happen very soon.)



Here's a recent Sculpey creation--Kate made this Marcel the Shell for me.  He sits on my plant shelf over the kitchen sink.  Isn't he cute?



Kate wanted to share this drawing, too. She calls it "Fox of the Forest."She's really been developing her drawing skills lately.