Lilli's Forest

When we decided that we actually were going to need a bigger home a little sooner than we originally thought, I was sad and also excited. It was stressful, to say the least, to be selling a home at "the bottom" but we just trusted our agent and did what was best for our family. It was going to be nice to have a real yard and a bedroom with a door, even though it meant leaving behind the little house that we had carefully made into a home over the course of a couple of years.


I was lucky enough to quickly find a great home for rent very close to our then current location. Just across the big park that is close to us. Obviously, this was fantastic because we love our neighborhood and the friends that live close to us, and also our P-Patch would still be walking distance (though not in the optimally placed location of just up the block). But the house came with hideous khaki walls throughout. Well, except where the walls were lime green or sunflower yellow instead. I would rather have just plain old white. Normally I would have decided to paint everything, but my time is so limited now for projects, so I decided just to make do with what I had and do some crafting instead.


For Lilli's room I envisioned a kind of woodland theme. There is a painting of a bunny that my dad painted, for me I guess, when I was a girl and had a bunny for a pet. And I got some green rugs that sort of made the floor look mossy. And a pretty pink lampshade with a grassy border. 


I wanted to put in a wall mural or decals, but the walls have too much texture and nothing will stick. I got the idea from somewhere to hang handkerchiefs from twine strung across where the bed would be. I had those up for a while before it really started to get on my nerves how unfinished it looked. Then I saw this idea. I ran with it. I was dyeing a shirt for Joe for a costume anyway, so I decided to dye them pink like little cherry or apple blossoms. I twisted those into the ropes and left a few of the hankies up for a while, and then added the butterflies, but it still looked kind of off. And then: Eureka! Felt leaves! I love the look of leaves that are silvery on the underside and just barely green on the tops, and I happened to have a bunch of light gray felt sitting around that was leftover from wedding crafts, so I got some olive green fabric paint and that is when the seeds for the forest got planted.