When the girls first arrived at our house (a year ago yesterday!) we set them up in one bedroom; a crib on one side of the room, a toddler bed on the other. It quickly became evident that they would not be able to sleep in the same room. In the meantime, we opted to have a pack-in-play in our bedroom for a while for Babybee and then eventually I caved (cause I knew it was coming) and we moved her into my office and moved me out to share the loft office with The Professor. Admittedly it was an emotional weekend for me. I knew I’d lose that space to a kiddo someday, but I hadn’t thought it would happen so quickly. I loved my office, it was my space.
But Babybee needed her own room so we got down to coming up with a decorating scheme. Like most kiddos her age, she’s a big fan of Sesame Street – well, the characters at least because we actually don’t watch it all that often. So when I came across wall decals at Target that were the SS characters, I snatched them up. My mom found some bedding that’s super cute with a big face of Elmo and Oscar on it. So we set up the furniture and put the decals on the wall, but something was missing. We looked all over for wall art to add to it, but couldn’t find anything with Sesame Street peeps on it. And well, when all else fails, I just make it myself so here are the pictures I made for Babybee’s room.
Okay so I’ve had some questions from friends and family as to how I put these little babies together and really the answer is pretty simple, I actually had almost everything I needed already in my house. So here are the supplies you’ll need and you can make any kind of paper art you want:
*Coloring book (preferably one with large up close pictures)
*colored card stock
*adhesive (either a glue stick or scrapbook picture adhesive)
*good sharp scissors
*pencil
*tracing paper (optional, but helps!)
I took pics as I went with one of them for step-by-step directions though admittedly I wish I would have picked a different character considering he actually turned out to be my least favorite. But here we go, let’s put Ernie together.
Okay so step one is to pick your page from your coloring book, then you simply trace it onto the tracing paper. Next you cut out each individual element that will make up the picture, you’ll want to start larger and go smaller so like with my muppets here I started with the head, cut out the corresponding paper, and then cut down the other elements like the nose and eyes, etc. Then you just start piecing everything together, building your picture using your adhesive until you get everything glued together onto a solid piece of card stock. Now you might think you’re done here but this last step is important. You want to take your sharpie and just outline each element so that you give your picture dimension and make it come alive. Easy-peasie. Really it is. Granted all the scissor work can give you finger cramps, but it’s really a simple and fun craft. And Babybee loves all her wall buddies. She talks to them all the time which is totally charming.
So you start with a picture from a coloring book
- then you trace it onto tracing paper
- cut out the individual elements out of the tracing paper
then use those pieces to cut out the colored card stock
- keep building each piece
finally you have everything put together
finally using a Sharpie, outline each element to bring it all together
So that’s pretty much it. Sorry for so many pictures. Next time I’ll share the princess dresses I had to make for Busybee once she saw the artwork I’d made for her little sister.
Do you do crafts for your kiddos or with your kiddos? What’s your favorite type of craft or project to work on?
I’m Robyn DeHart, AKA Basket-Case Mama, but not because I’m crazy (though really, what mom isn’t?) but because I have a slight obsession with baskets, well containers really. I’m a bit of an organization nut and I love to containerize stuff. And yes, I’m authorized to use words like that because I am also a writer. But back to the kids, so I’m mom to two ridiculously beautiful little girls and I can say that without bragging because I didn’t actually make them. Last year my husband, The Professor, and I adopted said little lovelies from the foster-care system here in Texas and now we’re a big happy forever family. Busybee is three and so full of joy it just oozes from her. Babybee is a walking-talking toddler who has a heck of a temper but is so cute, it almost keeps her out of trouble. Though neither of my girls are newborns, I’m fairly new to motherhood compared to the other peanut butter moms, but we’ve settled in as a family as if we’ve always been together. When I’m not trying to keep up with my two bundles of energy, you can usually find me on my laptop on Pinterest, no, that’s not right, um…you can find me writing, yes, that’s it, writing my latest historical romance. www.robyndehart.com
Um, I do NO crafts. I don’t even think I could do this. Easy-peasy? Um, maybe for you! I can’t even cut wrapping paper in a straight line. But those pictures do look really, really awesome. You could sell them. The cool thing is that Babybee will be able to keep them and pass them on. I still have pictures and paintings my mom did for my room when I was a baby.
That’s so cool, Robyn! But yeah…I’m with Shana! Not sure it would be super easy-peasy for me! You’re just amazing, I suppose!
Seriously, I’m not amazing. If you could see them up close you’d see all my little slips. But I think they came out pretty cute. Thanks, y’all.
Wow. That’s all I can say, lol. I’m a want-to-be-crafty Mama. To be honest, I thought dyeing Easter eggs was hard.
But I’m going to keep this as a bookmark for the day that I have more courage. Thanks, Robyn!