Summer projects have become a tradition in our household. Previous years, have included make your own longboard, and paint your own skateboard deck. Most recently we gave my younger son’s room a complete makeover. Elliot graciously let me choose the design, and looking for a way to incorporate all the photos we take on our family adventures we decided on a travel photography theme.
He’s a tween, so we wanted something that would take him through the next few years, and still feel “cool” or at least until he decides to move into his older brother’s room, when he leaves for college in (sob) 2 short years. We gave it the full Do-it-yourself treatment. We made own shelves, painted the walls, created a mural, and applied decals, photographs and a DIY bulletin board.
I should mention that Elliot’s room is tall and narrow with the sleeping area below and the hang out space above, (which makes it difficult to get great photos). The upper portion of the room has a long narrow walkway, and that seemed like the perfect spot for our world map mural.
Where in the World Photo Mural
Having done years of extensive travel both separately and as a family we were looking for a fun way to display where we’ve been. Unable to find exactly what we had in mind we created our own.
Deciding which photos to hang up was probably the most difficult task. My family takes bets on how many photos I’ll take in any given location, so you can imagine that narrowing it down to just one per destination was near impossible, but I almost did it.
Tip: Order the photos before you start the painting process as they will both take a few days to be ready. My favorite online photo company is: MPix.
Elliot chose the paint color, mega blue, a perfect representation of oceans, but I swear I didn’t influence this choice. Here are the before and after photos of the wall:
Tip: Prime the wall first, and wait until the paint is completely dry before the next steps. Depending on the time of year, and the weather, this could be days, we waited four.
Once the wall is completely dry its time to hang up or apply your map. Although any map, or even paper cut outs would work, we chose a vinyl world map from Wall Need Love. In our case we planned to add a lot of photos, so I really like the simplicity of the map silhouette*.
Again your photos can be any size and mounted directly to the wall. I mounted ours to 1/4 foam board, which gives them a little punch and allows me to remove and replace easily, should we change our mind.
Your chosen destinations might seem obvious to you, after all you took the photos, but I thought it would be fun to have the location printed onto each photo.
Tip: Use photo mount to apply your photos to foam boards. Use double sided foam tape to apply them to the wall.
Tip: Practice your layout using scrap paper and painters tape.
We opted not to string lines between the photos and their corresponding locations, but we did use map pins. We assigned a color to each family member, which we stuck directly into all the destination photos that each individual had personally visited. Red pins representing the countries and cities we stuck directly into the map.
Would you like to make a world map photo mural? Here’s what you’ll need:
World Map Photo Mural Supplies:
- Blank wall
- Indoor Wall Paint
- vinyl map decal (or any map)
- String (we opted not to use string)
- Map pins
- Photos
- Foam board
- Photo mount
- Double sided foam tape
- Exacto knife
Graffiti Prints
Because Elliot’s room is two stories tall we needed some fairly large prints. This time we chose street art and graffiti photos from around the world. We had them printed 20 x 20 and mounted onto 1/4 foam board.
Tip: Use double sided foam tape to hang your prints.
Pipe Shelving
Because the room is narrow it was difficult to find furniture that fit between the bed and the wall, so we made shelving that works as both night table and storage.
This next project does require some power tools, and an outdoor space to work in. We purchased the wood, the pipes and all the supplies at a local hardware store. If you don’t have power tools you can have the hardware store cut and drill the wood for you, and finish the project at home. Here are photo directions to the DIY Pipe Shelves:
Pipe Shelf Supplies:
- Wood
- sandpaper
- stain
- rags
- gloves
- pumping pipes
- acetone
I used a plastic wire tie to attach the charging cords to the shelving, as this seems to be an item that is easily lost. The lower bar, started out as nightlight storage, but has since become a place to hang headphones, and I’m sure it will evolve again over time.
We finalized everything with a custom bulletin board and some “graffiti style” vinyl murals.
You might also be interested in:
DIY: Union Jack Play Table! Part 1…
DIY: Play Table Part 2… The Chairs
DIY: 10 Steps to Building Your Own Longboard
DIY: Skateboard Decks
*Ireland was missing from my map, but was sent along later.
Pin for later:
As my kids have gotten older they’re less interested in large elaborate birthday parties. However, even if the event itself has gotten much simpler, that doesn’t mean we don’t love a good celebration, and a fancy cake to go with it!
You can purchase fondant in every color of the rainbow, however, if you can also color the fondant yourself, which is what I did. Divide the fondant up based on how many colors you’ll be using.
First you’ll need to gather some decks! They can be used or new. We ordered our decks new from an 
This is a great project for all ages! My younger son was able to design and paint his board with minimal help from me.
I helped him finish the board off with a UV protective varnish.
My older son has fully embraced the SoCal culture, and regularly enjoys both skateboarding and surfing, which is what inpsired my design. In order to get the clean crisp look I was after I would need to use stencils.
I enjoyed this process so much I made another deck, this one featuring one of our family’s favorite snacks, popcorn!
Our final technique was image transfer. Simon wanted to transfer an image he created previously, but didn’t want to recreate it, so we used acrylic 
I also wanted to try this technique, so I created a deck using an image I took at the tamago stand in Tsukiji fish market during our 
One solution to all these “problems” has been to find new ways to display and store my photos off the computer. In my quest to do so I’ve sent, displayed, framed, published and gifted photos. With as many photo companies to choose from as there are photos on my hard drive it can be hard to know which one to use.
Moving cards: Don’t forget to send moving cards. I know its better to give than to receive, but… There are many great websites and designs to choose from and I usually go with the one having the best sale! This year I used Minted to print my holiday cards and Tiny Prints for our moving announcement.
Creating an album of people or memories is the best way to get those files off your computer and they make wonderful gifts too. I’ve been trying out a number of different photo book companies in all different price ranges and skill levels. Here is some of what I’ve learned so far:
It was too late for our 
This year Tim and Simon went to the grocery store to get pumpkins, while Elliot and I stayed home, it was great! I absolutely didn’t miss wandering around in the pumpkin patch looking for just the right one. Very liberating! I did miss out on the cute photo tho…
If you decide to decorate your pumpkin with paint and sharpie pens, it’s a good idea to dull the tip of your Sharpie prior to using it on the painted surface or it might scrape off the paint.
As long as I’ve had kids I’ve been baking sugar cookies for Halloween, but we’ve been 
Doughnuts are the new cupcakes, which in turn were the new bagel or were they the new frozen yogurt? It’s hard to keep track, because very much like fashion, food fads come and go.
These days with gourmet donut shops popping up on just about every corner it’s getting harder to resist. I’m not usually one to jump on the bandwagon, but, Hey… I’m jumping on! Of course the kids and Tim will need to assist! Care to join us? Keep reading…
This list will be our version of a best of, and as we currently reside in SoCal, many of our donuts will be located here, however as this fad seems to have taken the world by storm, I’ve included a few places worth mentioning from two of my other favorite cities. The more the merrier!
We discovered District 2 years ago and when I’m not in NOLA, I drool over their daily donut creations on Instagram. They’re not beignets, but these guys sure know how to make a donut! Not to mention their sliders and brew (coffee) are pretty great too!
I must admit my first impression of Dks wasn’t the best. It wasn’t super clean, but it was super popular. That says something… doesn’t it? There were many donut choices ranging from strange and unusual (Ube, anyone?) to the classics. We sampled a strawberry crueler, red velvet oreo, peanut butter chocolate, a cronut and a cinnamon twist. The donuts were fresh and we all agreed the peanut butter and chocolate was the best!
Swooping in at the last second to claim the number one spot is Cafe Dulce in Downtown Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo. Though technically not a donut shop, donuts dominated their pastry case and after tasting one I can see why! We shared the strawberry cream though I would have loved to try the Fruity Pebbles donut or the Chocolate Creamy donut…The dough was the lightest, fluffiest dough we’ve had yet and the flavor was delicious. I am thankful this place isn’t near my house, but I’m sure we will find our way back!
To make your longboard you’ll need the following supplies:
Now that you’ve got your deck design onto the wood its time to cut it out. This is the one part I didn’t do. I don’t have a lot of experience with power tools and decided to let Tim handle this step. If you don’t have a home saw, or an experienced adult available to cut out your deck consider taking it to your local hardware store. Simon and friends discovered they could have their decks cut out for around $1 per cut. See what I mean, how resourceful!
My first board is for Elliot and because it’s almost as big as he is, we thought it might be fun if we could hang it on the wall in his new room (until he gets a little older), so we chose a Union Jack design for the top of the board and put his name on the bottom. The other board is for myself and I’ve chosen to decorate it with the Batman symbol!
Now that I’ve refinished the 
As I mentioned in a recent post, we’ll be moving to a 
Choosing a table top design was a no brainer! It’s no secret I’m an anglophile! A lover of Cadbury, Mini Cooper, English Breakfast Tea, Penhaligons, rainy days & wellies, and of course the Union Jack. It doesn’t hurt that my favorite color is red with blue coming in a close second! Lucky for me Elliot agrees!
Now that I’d finished painting it was time to remove the blue tape. It looked great! I used a small flat brush to touch up a few spots and again let them dry overnight.
I was worried my inexperience with waxing would destroy the design I had worked so hard to create. Not only that, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to put that much muscle into three more chairs and a table. Tim mentioned that spraying the table with polyurethane would be my best option, and after quite a bit of research I decided he was right! This would not only seal the paint, but also provide a more forgiving surface. It is a play table after all!
