Nursery/ Toddler Artwork

Harrison is no longer the "baby" of the house....just don't tell him that!  To honor his big boy status we have decided to redo his bedroom.  We are keeping it clean and simple, my favorite way to decorate.  His current artwork, which is a series of 4 Beatrix Potter prints will be going to Knox's room- not that Knoxis even in his room yet!  And Harrison will be getting 4 new pictures.

Now Harrison is currently obsessed with dinosaurs.  No, he is INFACTUATED with them.  Everything is dinosaurs from morning to night.  He just loves them!  (OK he actually really likes trains to, but stay with me here....).  So I am going to be using the dinosaur theme for the pictures.  Now I really dislike themed rooms.  I think they are tacky and predictable.  However, I don't mind a series of pictures, so that is what we are going for. 

Being an avid blog reader I know that girls in the know without too much dough like to go to Ikea and get their cheapo frames.  Look great, don't put too much of a dent in the ol'wallet perfect-o!  I looked at the ribba which almost everyone seems to be fond of but ended up going with the virserum, which has a little more "frame" for your money; somewhat more traditional and less modern.  The idea is frames with change-out art.  As his tastes change (and they will every few months!) I can change out the pictures.

Seeing as how I like to encourage grass roots businesses, I looked through Etsy to find a print that was boyish, not too babyish, dino centric and incorporated both pastel and primary colors.  I hit gold when I discovered these:

From trendypeas on Etsy, there is a series of 4 (yay!) dinos, all in this manner.  Well I was in heaven, great, done and done!  WRONG!  The caveat when buying an Ikea frame (any and all at Ikea) is that they are all weird sizes.  Even when using the matte that comes with the frame. the sizes are strange and not at all standard making any print or picture you put in it problematic.  Great.
So contacted trendypeas who agreed to make these prints in my weird-o sizes....at weird-o prices.  No go.  This was supposed to be a quick, cheap. clever way to do artwork and not worry about changing it out every few months.  I needed my prints to be low cost in order to work this out.

So off to the computer, word document, print the dino names, print out in "close enough" sizes at Staples, and draw the darn dinos myself!  Best yet, Harrison and I BOTH colored the dinos in.  Sure, they may look like an amateur drew them and a toddler scribbled all over them (that's exactly what happened here after all), but there is a certain amount of cuteness inherent in that!  A real  fridge artwork quality. 

           Harrison points to them and says, "I did it, mommy!"

Enough said.  I love them, he loves them.  We are happy with the result.  Perfect?  No way.  But perfectly imperfect, one of a kind, and they fit with us!

I will post pictures of the room when it is done, no where NEAR completion yet, so a while still!