I am nothing, if not stubborn. I got a bee in my bonnet about having a tree on Firework’s wall. Which was going to be simple, as I could just order a nice wall decal (i.e. sticker). After much searching and deciding and comparing and pintresting and getting over the $100+ price, hubby and I decided to go for it. Alas, the new home has textured walls and decals won’t stay up. So I decided to stencil one on. Hubby was skeptical and very unenthusiastic, until he saw my canvases. So, we decided to go for it… except we could not find the tree I wanted. So, I decided I would just draw a tree o the wall! Yeah! How hard could it be? I mean, we’ve all been drawing trees since we were – like – 2, right? Green lollipop with a brown stick.

Little bit of my, ahem, artistic ‘talent’. I went to a super competitive school where we were drummed to be successes and basically forced to be so: the school would do whatever it took to get you to pass their end of year exams. Except, it would seem, actually pass me in Art. Seriously, I tried, but I remain the only girl to fail an internal LEH art exam. Sigh. And, really, quite fairly so. Years later, as a special ed teacher, my ‘art’ was the mirth of my friends, and the despair of my assistants. Lucy politely and in a roundabout way, basically asked if she could redo all my displays, as they were so dire. I said yes *hangs head*

But. Hormones. Age. Memory loss. Stubbornness. Whatever. I decided to make one for FW. Here is how it went:

1. Draw pic on giant paper:

2. Spend three days redrawing and refining pic:

3. Paint in proposed colours:

4. Cut out pic:

5: Tape on wall:

6: Draw around outline in chalk

7: Paint around outline

8: Fill in (painstakingly and boringly. Twice):

9: Paint accents:

10: Outline in black, adding detail:

11: Finally: add name in wooden letters ($1.99 each from Hobby Lobby), you have painted white.

Voila! I am actually pretty pleased. No Picasso, or Monet, but I like it. It’ll probably be the bane of the kid’s life.Now we have to decide on cot (US: crib) colour. I say: white, he says: black. We’ll see.

If *I* can do it, trust me, anyone can. Here’s hoping some of you are inspired to give it a go…