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30 August 2010

Fruity Art

I love this project. It might just be my favorite thing that I've shared on the blog, to date.

Do you have kids in your home? We have one small person living in our house, and I've made it somewhat of a quest to make our home fun, quirky, and child-friendly without having it look like an explosion of Toys 'R Us clutter.

As a baby gift, my incredibly talented and creative cousin, Jodi, painted a kid-sized table for us. Now that Maren is old enough to sit at this pint-sized table, it's become a semi-permanent fixture of our kitchen. There was a perfect blank space above the table for a kid-friendly piece of art. I love fruit, and this idea quickly popped into my mind.

*QUESTION: I typically don't reveal any 'finished' pictures until the end of the post...would you prefer to see one up front instead? Do tell...

My husband picked up some large scrap shelving pieces a while back, and I had him cut me four 6 1/4 in. squares. Since he's handy, I also had him add a little border using his router. {I know there are ladies out there who can handle power tools with the best of 'em. I tip my hat to you, and thank the Lord for a husband who is willing to do my sawing. Ha!} This wood is nothing fancy, people. It's just a heavier-duty press board of some type. No need for anything pricey for this project.

Next, I applied two coats of black spray paint, being sure to get the edges extra-good. You can see that the middle of the boards get a little faint. Since that part will be covered with paper, there's no great need to have it perfectly painted.

I cut 5 in. squares out of some funky scrapbook paper I had on hand. It looks like dictionary pages. I only had enough to do 2 each of the black and white backgrounds, but I didn't mind the contrast at all on the finished product. I wanted to keep this project free, so I used what I had on hand. I applied the dictionary paper to the dry black boards with a thin coat of Mod Podge, being careful to smooth out all the bubbles.

Next, I cut out fruit shapes from paper I had in my scrap box. I knew what colors I wanted, and I chose my fruits accordingly. I also picked fruit that I like and that my daughter likes and would recognize. This art is for her, after all!

I arranged my fruit on the boards after the first coat of Mod Podge was completely dry. Don't skip the completely dry part, or you'll be sorry!

Since my fruits were all assembled in a layered way, I stripped them down to the first layer, and applied that layer with another thin coat of Mod Podge. Here's what they looked like as they were drying:

When that coat was dry, I applied another coat and stuck on the second layer of detail for the fruit. When that layer was dry, I applied 2 more good coats of Mod Podge to the entire piece. The pictures are hanging over a kid table, and I wanted them to stand a chance at survival against various inevitable spills and splatters.

Here's the fruit in it's new home:

I get so many compliments on these little pieces, and I love how they look over the table. Isn't that the most amazing table? I've got the best cousin. Someday I'll tell you more about her. We've had some fun together. (Hi, Jodi!) P.S. Please ignore the phone jack smack dab in the middle of the wall...who's idea was it to put that there anyways, and how on earth can I disguise it? Argh...
Do you have any child-level art in your home? This is my first installment, but I plan to implement more in the coming months.

I'll be linking to these places throughout the week:

Visit thecsiproject.com
The DIY Show Off
giveaways
Join us Saturdays at tatertotsandjello.com for the weekend wrap up party!UndertheTableandDreaming

24 comments:

  1. I love the little table and the bits of fruity art in four evenly spaced squares. I considered using newspaper for the background of mine when I made art prints for my kitchen in a simular way using origami paper.

    Your colorful fruits and whimsical table go perfect together, good job keeping it classy and not "kiddy" (spew)

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  2. You can paint the phone jack if you don't intend to use it! We have four plastic plates that cover outlets that could be used for surround sound should we so choose - we called them "white zits" for awhile. Then I realized they are way up high on our wall and would stick out much less if I painted them the same color as the wall!

    Worked great, now we hardly notice they're there. The paint scratches off the plastic easily, so it's not a great idea if the plates get bumped a lot, but it might work for your phone jack!

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  3. Thanks for the kind words!

    Carrie...I think that painting could be a solution for us. Since we'll never use this, I wonder if we could even pick up a plain plastic plate to paint. It would be even less obvious than the one with 2 (!?) phone jacks. I'll keep you posted when we 'fix' it!

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  4. The table is so cute in that little nook. Love the pictures that you made.
    A cute spot to do fun things.

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  5. I love the artwork! It came out so cute and it's even better that you used things you already had on hand! We don't have any kid-level art hanging, but I'm trying to find a map to hang at kid-level. Maybe I should hang some art, too!

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  6. It looks great Kate! I love it. Are you for hire :) Love you!

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  7. What a sweet project! I love that the fruits are all made up of different patterns. :) I took a peek at your Etsy shop--you have the cutest notecards!! :) Visiting from The CSI Project today. Hope you'll stop by my blog and say hi. :)

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  8. Those are adorable! And I love your kids table!

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  9. Love the look! You did a great job!

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  10. I love it, fruit motifs are my favorite and how my kitchen is decorated. The deigns are so graphic looking! Would love you to join me at A Crafty Soiree, every Thursday.

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  11. I can see why you love this project so much - it is absolutely adorable! The banana is my favorite. :)

    Stopping by from TT&J. Have a terrific Labor Day!

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  12. coming over from csi... this is so cute! I love it! I want to do something like this for our kids down "their" hallway to their rooms!

    Maybe animals? or their names?

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  13. so cute! and, i love that you created it at child level!

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  14. Those look fabulous and you have inspired me to make some for my dining room!!!

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  15. These are precious! I'm adding it to my list right now, and dying to go to the scrapbook store, even though I have a room full of scraps! So glad you shared!

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  16. So cute and fun!

    I'd love for you to link up to Scraptastic Saturday! (If you want of course)

    Hannah @ http://youngancrafty.blogspot.com/2010/09/scraptastic-saturday-and-new-winner.html

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  17. This is such a cute idea. I really like the colors on top of the black, it makes a nice contrast. Since you mentioned it: I always put an "after" photo 1st, before the text even because I want it to "grab" people who are either on FB or have the blog lists on their side bar.

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  18. What a fun and frugal idea! I love that you're also inspiring your daughter by doing special projects like this. Super! Pam @ Sallygoodin

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  19. Since you were the one who inspired me, I'm sending you the link to my blog post on my version of the fruit art :) Thanks for inspiring me!!!

    http://knittingandkaraoke.blogspot.com/2010/09/modge-podge.html

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  20. I just wanted to stop by and let you know that I linked to this post today from the new Home & Garden channel at Craft Gossip. :) My hope is to share many of the fabulous projects I see everyday with the vast CG audience. I hope you will not only stop by and subscribe to CG, but will tell your friends about the new category! Hope you see some traffic from it!

    Your feature will appear in the main Craft Gossip RSS feed, on the main home page and can be found directly here
    http://homeandgarden.craftgossip.com/fruity-decoupage-art/

    If you would like a "featured by" button, you can grab one here!
    http://homeandgarden.craftgossip.com/grab-a-craft-gossip-button/

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  21. gave you an award at my blog

    kimboscrafts.blogspot.com

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  22. Adorable and Clever! I love this idea. Thank you for sharing your creativity. :)

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  23. Tried out your collage, and linked back. I just LOVE this, and have had tons of compliments in my house. :O) thanks again for sharing such a cute project!~

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