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African Safari Baby Room Mural - Other Details
Tree of Life Canopy
To make the leaves that make up the canopy of the main tree, I used a sea sponge
that I bought at the local Home Depot. You soak the sponge and then squeeze it out
the best you can. Dip just a little bit into the paint and then begin to "dab" it on.
The natural "random" pattern in the sponge really does the trick for these leaves!
When you stand in the entryway, the tree canopy makes you feel like you're really
standing under a tree! What fun!
Water, Water, Water
The waterfall and watering hole were pretty easy to do. I used masking tape to make the
sides of the waterfall straight. The stream and watering hole I just free-handed and
I used just a little white paint when I was done to make some water highlights. I also used
the sponge with the white paint to make the mist at the bottom of the waterfall.
Palm Trees
The Palm trees weren't very tough, but they did take quite a bit of time. I couldn't use the
sponge to do the leaves because they didn't look right. I ended up hand-painting each
branch on each Palm tree, but the effect was worth the effort. I purposely left most of this
wall empty since this is where the crib was going to be.
Knarly Trees
While studying pictures of Africa and African Safaris, I continually came across pictures of these
fabulous trees that looked like they had been around for centuries. The first few I drew, I admit
I traced them... but once I started seeing what the pattern was, I was free-handing my own
trees in no time. This picture shows a short stretch of wall where the tall bureau is going to be. I
didn't want to waste any time painting on the wall below, so I decided to make a mini-jungle of trees
along this wall. I first painted all the trunks, then went back a few hours later and added the leaves
using my sponge.
Cool Curtains!
I know I probably threaten my manhood by saying this.. but these curtains are COOL! .. let me explain.
First, we wanted to continue the sky/grass theme around the entire room, even though we had a
huge window here. My Mom was in town visiting and she helped out to make these very unique curtains.
We bought 3 different color fabrics: light blue, light green and bright yellow. God bless my Mom for
doing MOST of the hard work on these things. Getting the horizon to match up with the paint job was not
easy.
Sun Rise
Oh yeah, the cool part... The curtain liner we used was called "black out", which means that there
will be NO sun getting through these suckers.. even Phoenix, AZ sun! So my idea to have a yellow sun
sewed into the curtain was kinda silly if the sun was dark. Solution: We cut the "black out" away
from behind the sun. Result: in the morning, the "sun" glows bright yellow and lights up the entire room,
and still provides perfect privacy. This picture does not do justice to the effect!
The Grass Hut
While my Mom was working hard on the curtains, my Dad and I worked on the roof of the closet
"grass hut." We made a simple sub-structure out of some cheap pieces of wood.
You can see the sub-structure on the inset picture. The "grass" is actually
Raffia which can be purchased at your local craft store. After a little bit of trial-and-error, we figured
out that the best way to attach the grass was to use a staple-gun. Then we used a but of hot glue to hold down
some tough areas like the ends. After we had it all assembled, we lifted the new "roof" into place and
secured it to the wall using some anchors, screws and L brackets.
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