The Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Play Room

We have been having a lot of fun around here decorating our new house... probably too much fun.

One of our most recent projects was our "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Play Room".  For anyone who doesn't know, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom is a must read for children.  It has a catchy rhyme about the alphabet and colorful pictures that make it so much fun to read.  It has been a favorite for all of my kids, so we decided it would be a fun theme for our playroom.

In the story all of the letters race to the top of a tree.  I found this sticker tree on e-bay and it fit our theme so well, I had to have it!

However, I wanted some sort of a colorful numbers canvas for our other wall, a throwback to the sequel, "Chicka Chicka 1,2,3".  But I couldn't find what I wanted anywhere :(  So I decided to make my own :)

We found canvas EXTREMELY cheap at a home fabrics store in town.  Zac built me a frame and stapled the canvas on it... It looked like this:

It cost us roughly $14 for the frame, canvas, and Gesso (a thick paint that you cover the canvas with before you can paint it).  The craft store wanted $100 for the same size (3.5 ft. by 5 ft. roughly).  It was all very easy until the part where we were smearing Gesso on the canvas and Bronson snuck up behind us, grabbed the bowl full of the paint and threw it on the floor.... BOO!

Next we bought a packet of Avery sticker sheets and printed a number on each 8.5 x 11 sheet as big as we could (in reverse of course) and then cut them out.  We also bought a set of foam number stickers.

Before we affixed the stickers to the canvas, we painted swatches of colors where each sticker would go and let them dry.

Then it was time to spray paint that bad boy.  Zac insisted that he be the man for the job because he is most "experienced" with spray paint.  I think he really just has too much fun with it to share.

Time to dry

Or not... the kids couldn't wait that long and we ended up peeling the stickers off 2 minutes later.

Ta Da!

We found a place to display our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom books under a beautiful wooden collage of two trees and a house made by Zac when he was a boy. 

The kids wanted to paint canvases too, so we had them each paint a tree in a different season.  Charlotte and I painted Winter, Ashlyn did Spring, Tanner did Summer, and Ian was Fall.

And Charlotte resented the fact that I helped her too much and so she made her own canvas to hang in the play room.

Zac built me this book shelf out of spare parts from the house.  He is so handy... swoon...

And now we have a fun little Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Room at the bottom of the stairs :)