Playroom Art Gallery and Whale Wall Art

With the help of my husband, I was able to recently complete not one, but 2 projects that have been on my mind.
One: a cute whale art project for the baby's room and
Two: a mini art gallery for the playroom (well, partially)

The whale idea came from a collection from Architecture Art Design.


Mine was a bit modified...

I used wood instead of canvas.  And my art skills are not as good as this artist (who is not mentioned in the article), but I do love whales and used to draw this image a lot as a kid.
First, I drew my whale and spout with a pencil.  It took two attempts for the whale to be the size I wanted.  Again, I'm so not an artist.  The paints I already had.  Dark blue from the dresser in Ryder's room, teal from the end tables in the living room and turquoise from the kitchen wall.  I think any animal outline would work.  You could do owls in a tree with pinks for a girl or an alligator horizontally in greens for a surprise gender.  Lots of cute ideas.  Lowe's and Home Depot offer small paint samples for about 3 dollars and the piece of wood I used was just under $7.  My hubs cut it in threes for me, but I think the guys/girls and the hardware store will do it for you, too.  Point is it can be an inexpensive alternative to the pricey art that is out there.

I painted an off white tinted glaze, just to add a bit to the plain wood texture.  I used kids paint brushes, but I would recommend buying something a tad more quality to make easier work.

Saw toothed hanging hardware went on the back.

Anytime I can add some interest and color to a room without spending crazy money, I am happy. 
Which leads to the playroom gallery art....
Now, this project is only partially done, we (when I say we, I mean my hubs) needs to make two more frames, so there will be a total of three.
This first one was spawned from some new toys (saw and nail gun thing) he got this year.
He was toying (pun intended) with the idea of making picture frames.  I still haven't been able to find a place that gives deals on framing.  It is so ridiculously expensive! 
He wanted to test his tools and he created a frame.  Since I didn't have anything to perfectly fit, it stayed in the garage sadly hanging empty on the wall. 
I had been wanting to create something for the art that comes home from school and future art from the baby.  I like the string and clothes pin idea, but I feel like you need a good space for that or it will look like clutter.  I already have lots of clutter on my fridge and all over the playroom floor, so I needed something else.   Randomly, I thought of the empty frame in the garage and a light bulb went off.  Perfect.  Playing off the string idea, I hot glued two clothes pins to hold the art.  and. Voila!  Gallery Art.

I love this!!  Just in time for some Fall trees that came home.  I can't wait for two more.  Pictures to come!!