Project Playroom: A Family Portrait of Sorts

Let the new house posts commence!

I have decided to start sharing some of my design ideas/projects that I have been working on lately. I am starting small for now (new nightstands, an accent wall, etc.), but have other big things in the mix (recovering chairs, wallpapering and designing the formal living room) that I will happily share with you all, and more importantly ask for your opinion! I have lots of great ideas, but seem to be having a hard time picking exactly which one I like the most in some cases. But for now I wanted to share with you my first project to be hung on the wall.

Behold, our family portrait, of sorts:

From the left it is Marlo the unicorn, Dada J the elephant, Val the deer and Mama J the giraffe.

I remember a few years back my husband said that he had only one opinion about the decorating of our new house - no antlers or animal heads of any kind. So my antler chandelier was out, but I was dying to put some sort of animal head (not real of course) or some sort of antlers somewhere in the house. Shortly after this discussion, I came across these cardboard animal busts, made by Cardboard Safari, on a site called Darby Smart a fabulous website full of ingenious DIY crafty projects. I purchased them last summer before we moved out of our old house, and not until almost a year later did I actually start this project.

I let the girls assign who got what animal, and also let them (help) pick the colors as they come in plain brown cardboard. I took it upon myself to spray paint the front and back of every little piece. After two coats on each side of the pieces, I then assembled them into their bust form (which was not as easy with the extra layers of paint - it took a little extra muscle, but a friend later recommended I should have used an exact-o knife to make the slots larger - doh!).

They all now hang proudly in our playroom for all to see. I couldn't be happier with the way they turned out.

Here is a shot to get some perspective as to how big they are on the wall. They are approximately 11 inches in height. 

More photos to come of the rest of the playroom!