Friday, October 5, 2012

Decorating a Room with Stamps or Digital Images


Hello!  Today I have special post to show you of what I do in my spare time, which I actually have very little of since I work full time.  About a year ago my Pastor's Wife asked me to redecorate all the Sunday School rooms (I'm in charge of decorating of church).  At first I was like 'WHAT??? I don't have time for that!!!' and I really didn't want to tackle that huge job.  The Sunday School rooms were in really bad shape about that time.  The room I'm showing you today I actually completed last winter, and this year I've finished another two rooms which I will show in later posts.  

This room is a pre-school room.  It already was painted blue and had clouds on it (sorry no 'before' pictures) and it had this little plastic fence stapled to the bottom of the wall all the way around the room with fake silk flowers stuck in them and a few of those fake butterflies you see in the floral dept of a craft store.  It had a good start, I could see the 'nature' element, but I felt the theme wasn't completely pulled off and the fake flowers and insects weren't working because the little kids were continually pulling them off.  So I decided to use their 'nature' element but take it to the next level, and this is what I came up with.

I started with a tree in the corner.  It's the first thing you see when you walk in the room.  The trunk and limbs are hand drawn, and the leaves are sponged in several shades of green.  From there I used Heather Ellis Digital Image "Pure Innocence O23" (you may recognize them from MFT as stamps from  the Pure Innocence line), and printed it on an overhead projector sheet. Using an overhead projector I projected the image onto the wall,  traced it with a pencil and simply colored it in with Acrylic Paints.  Now I used digital images, but you can also use stamps.  You simply stamp the image onto the overhead projector sheet with Stazon.  The sentiment was created on my computer, again printed on the projector sheet.  Now, obviously I could probably just 'sketch' these images/sentiments on the wall, but the reason I like to use a projector is this:  I GET TO SEE EXACTLY WHAT THE WALL WILL LOOK LIKE BEFORE I PAINT.  It helps me to get the scale right, because I can adjust the scale with the projector.  If you are a really good artist, you could probably even sketch a design onto a projector sheet and then shoot it on the wall.

 Here is a close up of "The Boy and the Dog 004".  I did not shade any of the characters because I wanted them to appear cartoon-like, but everything else in the room is shaded.  All the flowers were hand drawn by my friend JoAnne.
 JoAnne came up with a great idea of 'hiding' little insects in the flowers and grass.  The kids love searching the wall and 'finding' all the bugs.
 Here is a close up of the little girl on the swing.  I shaded the butterfly.
 JoAnne hand drew the birds.
 Sorry this picture is flipped.  I turned it right side up before I posted it but for some reason it flipped back again.  I just wanted to show you the tree that I shaded.  JoAnne and I make a great team, because she is a fabulous sketch artist but doesn't paint, whereas I am very skilled at blending paint.  So she sketches with a pencil, and I follow behind her and paint/shade.  I have to admit, I used all my coloring skills that I learned from making cards with Copic Markers to color/shade these walls.  It's the same concept...but with paint!
 Here is the other side of the room.  The girl is another Heather Ellis image 'Pure Innocence 009', and the bird and flowers are hand drawn.
 I chose to use this scripture with the image.
 Aren't those little ants so cute?

 The hummingbird is a digi called 'lil hummer' and it's from Doodle Pantry.  The rabbit image is from Angel's Landing.
 Here's a close up of the rabbit and pansy image.  Isn't that inch worm adorable?
 The birdhouse is on the fourth wall by the door.  It's from Meljen's Designs
 And my last image is a little squirrel from Digital Stamp Oasis.  He is sitting right under the tree.
Now I know most of you don't have to decorate  Church Sunday School Rooms, but you could use these same ideas to decorate any child's room.  Oh, and if your wondering how long it took me to do this, it took about a month and a half working on my two days off, probably around 8 hours per day.  So, yes, it was very labor intensive and I hope no one paints over it for a very long time!

Have a great day!

12 comments:

  1. WOWZER!! Amy, this is totally amazing!! No idea that this was possible!! What an amazing room and so fun for the children as well!! :) Thanks for sharing this! HUGS

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  2. Wow!! These are amazing Amy!!! I love it!!

    Now I see the birdie house that you've been looking for! ;)

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  3. Wow wow ! This is fantastic, you're an artist Amy ! My God, so beautiful work ! Congrats !
    xxx

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  4. I'm breathless...speechless....WOW. This is incredible, Amy. First...oh, my goodness that is so much WORK!!! What a blessing you have to be to your church!! Secondly, this is gorgeous artwork. Surely teachers and children alike LOVE to come here. You have made it a whimsy wonderland! Jaw-dropping wonderful!!!

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  5. Oh my goodness, Amy - be still my heart! I'm nearly in tears looking at this! What a blessing for those sweet youngsters! You are a wonderful witness to them all! Thanks for sharing with us - can't wait to see the other rooms!

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  6. Um, WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Never would have thought of doing that. SO cute!

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  7. this is sooooo cool, Amy!!!! so very clever to enlarge the images with projector! amazing work. WOW! love it! hope you have a lovely weekend! =)

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  8. Awesome work Amy, wherever do you get the energy!! Wherever it comes from you certainly outdid yourself on this, it is simply gorgeous!
    hugs
    glenda

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  9. This is amazing, Amy!! Your church is blessed to have you and your friend to use their talents for the Lord like this!!
    Wanna come visit me and my church??? :)

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  10. You are extremely creative and inspiring! A beautiful room for the kids. Good job.

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  11. OMG Amy!!!!! This is simply stunning!! You are sooo creative, I am speechless!! Love all the digis you combined here to create this scene. If I had to actually have sunday school in that room, my eyes would constantly wander off to the wall so I could look at everything. I can imagine the little kids trying to count how many bugs they find. Your friend JoAnne is a really amazing artist too. Love all the little bugs she drew and the birds in the birdhouse. I will have to show this to my husband, he is going to be so excited to see his little susie squirrel too. Thanks so much for this post, and for the inspiration, I might have to put my husband to work to paint the kids rooms with some fabulous designs.

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