The shelf project

J came up with the idea of having a shelf in his room for his special things and the idea stuck.  It took me a week or so, but we did get to Michael's to buy a shelf for him and E to paint.  (R and P already have one in their rooms, although of course they didn't paint them)  We also bought some tempera paints and new paint brushes.

Then of course it took me another few days before we had time to start the process.  J had decided he wanted a camouflage shelf so I drew on the lines and he set to work.  E knew she wanted pink and purple but did not set her sights on a specific theme.  She started out painting the whole shelf purple.  Of course the painting took a few days as we had to let parts dry before painting other sides.  I suggested flowers on E's which she seemed to like so on top of the purple paint, I drew a flower for her to paint in.  The next thing I knew, her shelf had become an abstract work of art.  :)

We let them dry and after another week or so, we went to Lowe's and bought some varnish.  I spent a day painting several coats of that on each shelf and voila!  Masterpieces.  Big J hung them up that evening and the kids are quite proud of their shelves.

 

Notice the kids' souvenirs from our family vacation to Galveston (discussed here on my brother's blog and our pictures here).