3.09.2023

Crafting for the Big Boy Room

Between getting things together for Soren's big move into a new room and a mild obsession with reading my college creative writing teacher's book, The Passage, I haven't been posting much in the last week or so.

We're anticipating the arrival of the bed today, and my mom brought up my brother's old dresser yesterday.  I'm not looking forward to the painting part (psst, Izabela, you and Jeff up for it?), but we're slowly getting the room ready for it's newest occupant.

I succumbed to the wooden letter craze of 2010 and bought some letters to decoupage Soren's name for his room.
In his nursery, we had some vinyl letters with his name, however I'm not going to meticulously peel them off and restick them.  I thought adding some funky patterns and colors to his name would be fun too.

It was very simple.  I just painted the letters on the edges (no need to paint the entire thing, since the back is hidden against the wall and the front is hidden under the paper.  Then I traced each letter, carefully cut it out, and decoupaged it on top.
I added a few layers of gloss medium (you could use Mod Podge) to the top to seal the letters, smoothing out the bubbles as they came up.
Now to figure out how to hang them, since these letters didn't have tabs on the back (you might want to splurge on the fancier letters from the craft store).

An now a completely off-topic aside about The Passage.   Have you read it?
While I can't say it's the most uplifting book (it's pretty bleak, and I can't bear to inhabit its story for more than an hour or so at a time, and never before bed), it's very well written.  The author was one of my favorite professors, when I was an undergrad in English many years ago, and it's hard for me to believe that he wrote this book.  His short stories and other novels are so different from this one, which is essentially a vampire story--though that is a really simplistic description of this apocalyptic novel. 

I'm thrilled for him that the book (and the other 2 upcoming books in the trilogy) will be made into a movie eventually.  The plot and characters are really engaging, and the writing moves between succinct and lyrical, depending on what's happening.  I'm really not sure how the author lived with these characters and the story during the writing of the book--it scares the blood out of me just reading it.  I'd definitely recommend it, even if, like me, you're not typically a fan of vampire novels.  It's a heavy book, literally, at nearly 800 pages, so strengthen those reading muscles before hefting this onto your nightstand.


5 comments:

Ammie said...

The letters look joyful. :) I've never actually decorated a nursery or child's room, since we've been renting. Decorating an already crowded space hasn't seemed worth the effort, but seeing other people's lovely rooms makes me happy!

I haven't read Justin Cronin's work, but I may pick up the passage, although like you, I only take bleakness in small doses.

It's so exciting to see people you know publish books. After I had Kidoodle and my teaching career began a long hiatus, I read a few collections of essays by one of my favorite professors, Susan Swetnam. They were charming, and the hard parts were painful, since I know her so well. I also know Brandon Sanderson. He was once a colleague of mine. But he wouldn't remember me. He was very busy getting his first novel published back then. I'm happy for all of his successes now! :)

blueviolet said...

I can't believe the author is someone you knew. That's pretty darn cool. And the letters for Soren's room are awesome!!!!

Amy W said...

The letters turned out just great! I'm a big fan of decoupage - so are my girls. :) I can't "do" the scary/bleak books or movies. It just isn't in me. I can't imagine what that would do to your mind while pregnant. I had the worst hormonal nightmares when I was in that state.

•´.¸¸.•¨¯`♥.Mrs. Cox.♥´¯¨•.¸¸.´• said...

I love how the letters turned out :) {I'd hang 'em with command strips!}

I'll have to look for this book - how cool that you knew him :)

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