creating room for baby

So apparently a week turned in to 3... my apologies on the delay in getting this update out! I know you are all anxiously awaiting details on how Camille of styLe handLer and I implemented our final nursery proposal in our dear friend Sarah's nursery, so wait no longer! All the details on this DIY project are below:

Once we had the design and color palette finalized and Sarah and Dan's approval to proceed, Camille and I blocked off a Friday and Saturday to execute the design.

Based on feedback from Sarah on the design of the tree, I brought the image in to Adobe Illustrator and did a live trace using the image of the simple tree with owls that we had identified from my first blog post. With the image in Illustrator, I was able to expand the image to 1:1 scale (for those of you unfamiliar with archi-speak, this mean that I expanded the file to life size). Just to put it in to perspective, Sarah's tree is almost 7 1/2' tall by 6' wide, which meant that the file I created was set on a virtual canvas of the same size!

Once I had the tree at 1:1 scale, I converted the file to Photoshop format, which allowed me make some more precise editions to the design. Sarah didn't want the owls on the tree, so I removed them and created new branches to fill out the blank spots. I also change the proportions a bit to work with the size of the nursery wall.

The ultimate goal in all of this prep work in Illustrator and Photoshop was to create live-size stencils to allow Camille and I to most accurately reproduce the tree on the nursery wall. Since the large format plotter I used maxed out at a paper size of 34" x 44" sheets, I had to section off the artwork to fit on the paper. The tree ended up filling five 34" x 44" sheets of paper!

The image below shows two of the five plots that were created. You can see that I put a border 1" into each of the sheets with numbered corners. This helped me piece the sections together in the end. The image within the 1 inch border was actually overlap from one sheet to the next, ensuring that none of the image would be cropped out due to printing margins.

After the plots were complete, the next step was to use an utility knife to cut out the tree form. The image below shows my progress on one of these sections... this was probably the most time consuming (although essential) part of the process!

Once I had completed cutting out the stencils, Camille and I methodically taped the pieces of paper to the wall. Imagine 3' by 4' paper snowflakes... this is how delicate some of the sheets ended up being! We had to very carefully line up the sections and tape them to the wall while keeping each sheet square so as not to distort the design.

A Helpful Hint: If you try this at home, start with the bottom piece to make sure you have the correct placement of the artwork. Then begin placing the sheets taping from the top first and then straightening downward.

The image below shows our progress. You will also notice that we taped over some of the more delicate leaves and branches. The purpose of the stencil was to allow us to trace the image on the wall accurately; it would not have been a good idea to paint directly over this paper stencil.

After we had traced the stencil with pencil, the paper came down and the paint started to go up! This was the fun part... I would, however, recommend purchasing some high quality brushes that come in smaller sizes (1/4" up to 2"). The edging can be difficult if you want nice crisp lines without these smaller brushes.

The final mural turned out amazingly! Camille and I were both pleased with the outcome and, more importantly, Sarah and Dan loved the final product.

I also must commend Sarah on her excellent foresight into the selection of the color palette for this room. The gray and cream, although atypical for a nursery, turned out perfectly. I love this space and cannot wait to see 'baby b' sleeping under this tree!