One of my biggest hang up's with scrapbooking is that you spend so much time, money and effort on a page and then you hide it in an album. When I create something, I want to see it.I was thoroughly intrigued when the book "Scrapbooking on the Wall" was published by Design Originals. The canvas layouts were beautiful and really looked like a work of art.
Mariah has been begging me for about 3 years now to re-do her bedroom into a teen-agery theme. Originally she wanted a beach theme. With soft muted beach colors. We used the colors from a scrapbooking layout that we found in one of the magazines. She really liked the Beachy theme and the colors were perfect. With that layout in hand, we went to WalMart and matched all the colors.
Her room originally was a khaki color and the closet door area you see in the picture was a hunter green gingham wallpaper - way out dated - and so not...in her words...."teenagery". We painted the room a color called Water Dance. Originally we intended on painting the walls by the closet a creamy white with the doors and the inset a sandy color.....which we did....and which we didnt like. We walked into the room and BOOM...the color hit you ...it was NOT this bright at WalMart!!! I kept telling myself..." It will all calm down once we get it all decorated" ...But to me in my creative mind...I just couldnt stop until it was right.
Day 2: We didn't want to spend any more money...so...we thought..."how can we fix this creatively without any cost?" The answer was on the next page of the scrapbooking magazine... The page had been whitewashed. So.... we dry brushed the creamy white over some of the areas on the wall....ahhhh...now it's looking better..... But the inset, we still didnt like. So we decided to go to the much darker grungy color that you see now . While rubbing the glaze over the sand colored inset to make it darker, I happened to go a little crazy and get some on the front area by the closet, so I wiped it off......that was it! Grunge the whole thing!!! So after I finished the inset, I rubbed a brown grunge glaze over the entire surface of the walls in the bedroom. (Oh my aching arms!) Perfect!! It knocked the color down to just the right tone...and we did it with products that we already had.
Day 3: We made another trip to Walmart and while in the scrapbooking section, Mariah noticed some rubber stamps by Autumn leaves which featured flourish designs . She didn't want to spend any more money...nor did I.....so we came home without them. The scrapbook page that now became our inspiration also had flourishes on it. (LIGHTBULB FLASH!!!) I said, "Mariah, we can design our own flourishes and paint them on the wall". That's what we did, we penciled in the design and used a foam stamp for the flower. She loved it. Then we decopauged the dream wooden letters and hung them over the window. Alas...Scrapbooking the wall was finished!!!! I wish the photo would show up the colors better, this is so much better in person when you see the whole thing.
So the room is still a work in progress. It's gone from a beach theme to more of a Friends theme. She intends on making scrapbooking canvases of her friends and her teenage years to hang on the wall and closet doors. A sheer curtain will go up over the window (haven't gotten that far yet) and the trunk will turn into a window seat - we'll cover the bottom pillows and create matching ones all around the window. She has a beautiful view from her room that over looks our little acreage. She loves her room and I think it has become a real retreat for her - so personally hers!
I would love for it to be "completely" finished....but then what would we do with our free time???
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