September 9, 2010

Fun with New Stuff

Evelyn has, it seems, started in early on the grand women's tradition of hogging the closet. Except since my kids use their closet as a playhouse and not a closet, she's doing it with hooks.

Shortly after we moved into the house, Briton decided he wanted to be a skateboarder and wanted skateboard things in his room. I had lots of plans for that. I made a skateboard pillow for his bed, started hunting out old skateboards to make a shelf and found a nifty skateboard hook to hang on his wall. I got the hooks up and the pillow on his bed before he decided he was more of a golf kind of guy, so the shelves never materialized, but the hooks remained, because he "sort of is still a skateboarder" because he owns a skate board, apparently. Not that it does much besides sit in the basement.

The problem was that Evie did not have a set of hooks. I didn't really think she needed any. She didn't even know how to hang things up. But pretty soon the skateboard hook was filled with flower hats and fluffy cardigans and little purses and Briton's things ended up on the floor below. Now he's a good brother and kindly let his sister hog the hooks (of course, he was able to say "I couldn't hang my hoodie up, there's no room!") but I decided it was time that they each had a place to hang their things. Plus, I really wanted to try out Modge Podge Dimensional Magic. Because, you know, it was sitting there in the store, looking all shiny and new and fun.


I had a set of hooks that used to hang in the playroom both here and at our old house. Once upon a time I'd decoupaged some green paper to them to brighten them up. But after three years of being loaded down with dress up clothes, it was looking pretty sad. So I stripped off the paper and started over.



The green paper was replaced with an orangy red print from an Amy Butler pad of scrap booking paper and trimmed (love my bone folder, it's so useful...when I can find it that is) and then I went at it with the Dimensional Magic. I have to say this stuff is kind of weird. Unless you really glop it on it stays where you put it. I used a brush to push it to the very edge of paper and was a little amazed when it didn't go tumbling off the sides. It did make the paper look more orange than red, but there's a lot of red in their room already, so I'm not too concerned about that. It's now got a nice, thick layer of gloss which will, hopefully, hold up to little backpacks and coats being flung onto and ripped off of it.


After it dried, well, ok, it has been dry a while and sitting up on a table at the top of the stairs waiting for me to drag out the drill, I hung it today. Evie and I cleared her stuff off of Briton's hooks and hung them on hers. A month ago it probably would have been more exciting but since she now has, not only a hook but a cubby at school, well, a hook at home was just so passe. At least the skateboard hook is now flower free.