So last summer, my project was to create Henryland : a place where Henry could roam free while we babyproofed the rest of the house. It also became a wonderful no-dog zone where we could stash all of Henry's toys without worrying about them becoming beagle bait.
I only ended up posting on two of the crafts for Henryland, because, well, life got away from me, as it tends to do. And I did in fact finish the play yard and coordinating crafts with the help of my dear mom, who always jumps in when my motivation for a project starts to wane.
I suppose it has taken me so long to snap pictures and post because we lost the handmade light fixture from craft 1 and I was quite stuck with a replacement for it. Finally, after a serendipitous visit to a local shop called Quarter Moon imports, I found a unique paper lantern to stand in for the unsuccessful project.
And the other delay is that while I am in the academic year, I can really only manage work and a few other essentials like non-breakfast dinners most nights and clean laundry to wear straight from the dryer. But it's summer! So I was able to organize all of Henry's toys and sweep up dust bunnies the size of globes and finally take a couple of pictures. Here it is:
I know-- it's a LOT and a LOUD. Not my usual style of decorating. Admittedly, when I first started thinking about the project, I had a conceived a plan of oatmeal and mocha carpet squares to keep the décor consistent with the rest of the living room--understated, adult. Yep, you heard me--adult. Then I got over myself and remembered that it was for a tot. Tots like color and they also do things like drag spoons filled with yogurt on the floor. So I knew I had to revise my plan and come up with something more age-appropriate.
Part of the craziness in the above pictures is due to the fact that I didn't photograph it with empty boards. Sort of like if you went to Home Depot to by a fridge and there was rotting Chinese food inside the model. Real life, people. This is how it looks.
It's all a little less overwhelming when you are inside of it. Let's go in, shall we?
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| One of the most necessary design elements: a place for all of the art and pics and correspondence. And there will be much more art where that came from. To make them cheaply, I went to Lowes and found one huge slab of pegboard (in white because the brown would have shown through the light fabric) and they made all of the cuts for me for free. I ended up having to abandon my initial measurements once I realized I could get all six boards out of one slab. I did some quick recalculations and the peeps at Lowes helped a sister out by not charging me for the three million cuts. We used superglue to adhere the fabric to the pegboard and then stapled grosgrain ribbon as tightly as we could so the tension would keep the paper goods attached to the board. |
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| Check out the bicycle fabric in royal, aqua and orange--could it be any more sweet? Michael Miller from fabric.com. |
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| Here's the beagle table I made him (link to craft at the top of the page). Red chair from Ikea |
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| Lots of storage and boy do we need it. I even purged his toy collection and put at least 1/3 away in a closet. Where do all of the toys come from?! |
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| Here's the star lantern I mentioned from Quarter Moon Imports |
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| We found oversized foam mats online for cheap, and obviously I went with an unusual pairing of colors. They only really had bold, bright colors and I didn't want anything predictable like blue and brown. The best part? I ordered many extras so if one gets really nasty, I can just pop in a new one. I actually don't love my zigzag design here, so a change may be on the horizon. |
The gate enclosing the area is called a Superyard. I really, really wanted the wooden one, but it was unavailable on every site I tried-- Amazon through Overstock. Or something even further in the alphabet-- Zoverstock. Love using fragments outside of work. Another one.
The fabric-wrapped H was another craft I didn't get a chance to blog about. I found an H in a shape I liked and used superglue to adhere the fabric. The frame was a thrift store find that had some really creepy dark angel print inside. A little spraypaint and that is that--easy peasy (LS).
Boom--blog has been posted. It just got Mitchelled.
