Tiny Nursery: Ready & Waiting

Once the main components of the nursery were in place, I was gradually able to organize and decorate the space.  I've used a combination of Craig's List purchases (the red chest of drawers), Ikea items (crib, shelves, curtain wire), hand-me-downs and neighborhood listserv finds (most of the clothes, a few toys), and quite a few things from my own childhood (crib quilt, many toys, odds and ends) to pull this little room together.

I hung a couple of my own paintings and moved my great grandmother's rocker into the room.

Closet full of little clothes.

The chest is stocked with diapers and covers (thank you, Modern Diaper Service early delivery!), socks and hats, bedding and blankets, with a changing area on top.

Some of my childhood toys, all well loved and well remembered.

 Other items I'm excited about:

Moses basket, found on the neighborhood listserv, for portable sleeping.

Beautiful receiving blanket knitted by Mr. MJ's mother.

Two paintings on paper by my friend Mike Dowley, to hang above the crib.  Need to get these framed!

There are still one or two things this little room lacks, like a lamp and a mobile, but they will arrive from Little Rock sooner or later.  For now, the nursery is ready and waiting for Baby MJ!

Fun With an Extension Ladder: One Last Thing

Just before returning our friend Extension Ladder to his home at Frager's Hardware, we decided to complete one more project: hanging some art in the stairwell.

I've had this huge lovely work on paper, by my friend and fellow Arkie Kim Kwee, since finishing grad school in 2006. Now I finally have a perfect spot to hang it. After a great deal of measuring, stretching, and shifting back and forth, we got it hung up on the brick wall in the stairwell.





Three projects is a pretty good tally for one week with a rented extension ladder, don't you think?

Office Details 2

After letting the wall paint dry and removing the painter's tape, I set to work on some small wall drawings/murals of me and Mr. MJ. For this project, I used my overhead projector, a couple of transparencies.....



some acrylic paints, small brushes, and some little paint dish/jar lid things to hold a small amount of paint while I was working.



To get the image onto the transparency, I taped it to my computer screen and traced a digital photo onto it using a permanent marker. This has often been my quick-and-dirty method for enlarging drawings or photos in art making, and it works well here too.



The biggest problem I faced was getting the image projected onto the wall like I wanted it. This arrangement is probably not one the overhead project or ladder folks would recommend...but here I am using it anyway.



My mom thought that I had portrayed us doing some yoga asanas to create a sense of calm in the room. Even though that's not at all what we were doing in my source photos, it's still a nice thought. Namaste!

Let there be Art!

We finally got some art out of storage and up on the wall a few days ago.



It's so nice to see this painting again after over 6 months apart. Seeing it makes me anxious to find homes for the rest of our "collection." It's by Susanna Bluhm, a great painter I was lucky enough to go to grad school with.