52 Weeks Project :: Week 5

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For week 5 I decided to keep going with my to-do list for Miss Hazel, because the reading nook was VERY enthusiastically received and has been in constant use. Next up was her desk space, and I already had several parts of this project ready to go.

For awhile now her desk space hasn’t been completely suiting her – it’s overflowing with artwork and “letters” and sticker sheets with one remaining sticker, etc., not to mention toys and “projects”. It has been months since I sat down with all of her craft stuff and put things at her desk that she can now do by herself (when did my child get big enough to paint and glitter-glue unsupervised?) The little shelf is from last year – never underestimate what you can get done with zero power tools / by just asking the workers at Lowe’s to make a few cuts for you – and so is the color wheel above her desk. It has always bugged me a little bit, and I’ve been wanting to fill more vertical space to balance the whole room – difficult, as most of that wall is a bricked-over fireplace.

After enough evenings spent staring at her little craft space, inspiration finally struck. I scoured the woods at my mom’s for a suitable stick, stripped the bark and let it sit on my back porch for weeks and weeks. When it warmed up a few weekends ago it was in the pile of things to spray paint, and then sat propped in the corner of the living room, waiting for whatever I decided to hang from it.

When Hazel all of a sudden started trying to read anything in sight, my decade-old Energy Express days reminded me to create for her a print-rich environment. To the dollar store for classroom word strips I went. I picked out some good, short words, and strung them from the stick with glittery pompoms chosen by the crafter herself.

The bare wooden shelf has always seemed, well… bare. I paint every third thing that enters this house and fear that it may some day begin to resemble Willy Wonka’s factory in here, so I started thinking about other ways to more subtly color wood. I remembered seeing a pin about using Rit dye on clothespins, so I went with that, hoping it would turn out as more of a wash that would let the wood grain show through. The effect is perfect – the green is a little too dark for me, but it all works well together and I will most definitely be dyeing wood again! I’m thinking koolaid might make a less saturated version that’ll end up more how I pictured this, but I’m happy with it for now and Hazel likes it :) I just taped off the empty shelf and painted the dye on while it was mounted on the wall – no soaking.

All together it is a much better space for her, and she’s been sitting there working the entire time I’ve been writing this blog entry (minus solo dance parties whenever pandora spits out some Cure.) Mama is also breathing much easier post-declutter.