T's Bedroom

I said I would show some better photos of T's bedroom so I thought I would just make this post focus on his room.

I love how T's room came out. I think there are some really great touches that make it unique. T loves the water, loves aquariums and looking at fish; and so I think this room is really him. We painted waves at the top of the walls...


And then I wanted a growth chart...but I couldn't find any that went with the colors and the decor so I decided I would make one. I bought 1 ft. wood boards from Michael's, along with unpainted wooden shapes, enlisted my mother's help (she painted the lighthouse, the dolphin, the whale and the anchor), and hot glued the pieces on after painting the wooden boards. The sailboat at top is actually a photo frame that now has a photo of T in it. It is stuck on with velcro so I can take the boat off to change T's photo as he grows.

He's grown since this photo was taken!

Another neat feature of T's room is that hubby and I painted magnetic areas in three large areas of his room before we painted the walls blue. Then I enlisted the help of my friend Elena to cut out fish from felt, glue on wiggly eyes, glue on magnetic strips, and use fabric paint to paint letters and numbers on the fish. It decorates the walls with lots of colorful schools of fish, and the fish are educational. Right now I use the fish to teach T his colors, and numbers, and they can also be used later to teach him the alphabet and how to spell. Oh and of course I decorated one fish to look like Nemo...which brings me to the painting I painted for T before he was born.

Since he first came home this painting has hung over him at night. These photos don't quite do the painting justice, since I used glittery paint to give the "water" a shimmer to it that isn't visible here. But you can see that Nemo, Marlin, Dory, Crush, Squirt, Gil, and some other fish from "Finding Nemo," along with Flounder and Sebastian from "The Little Mermaid," "The Rainbow Fish," and "The Incredible Mr. Limpet", are all featured in the painting. There are lots of other things that bring special meaning to T's room, like the pretend aquarium from Grandma North, the seashell collection I made from shells from my Great Aunt Frieda (one of the shells was from a creature that is now extinct), a fishie bank from his Northern grandparents, books galore, and so many other things that have been lovingly chosen for him. It really is a special place to sit and enjoy him while he plays. I should probably mention though that T's room creates a chicken and the egg type question because his room was decorated with the fishie theme long before we met him. We waited until the birth to learn whether we would have a son or daughter and as a fan of the ocean myself I thought the ocean theme would be great for a boy or a girl. I guess we'll never know if T would have loved the water and fishies as much if he hadn't been surrounded by them from the beginning. But I know I wouldn't change a thing.