Mural for my cousins nursery

My cousin is expecting her first baby in about August time, she found out she's going to have a little baby girl ...so planning has begun!

All the nappies and little outfits are piling up, next thing was to start planning the nursery. As she's expecting a little girl of the course the colour theme has to be pink!

My cousin decided she'd like to decorate the room with a pink blossom tree, I thought it was a lovely idea as its suitable for years as she grows up. Being the artistic one in the family I obviously offered to help.

I began with sketching the tree freehand on the bedroom wall

That's me sketching away, photo courtesy of my cousin

Whilst I was preparing to get started on the blossom flowers her cat (who had been around our feet the whole time, very interested in the commotion) seemed to think the tree was real and sat considering a way to climb up it! At least it shown I can draw a good realistic tree!

After drawing the blossoms cascading on the tree I started painting them one by one, I had a helping hand as the blossoms ended up taking an entire day!

 Day 1 of painting complete, all the blossoms are painted nicely using an array of hand mixed paints, I think it looks great! Just the tree to paint next!

Revamped my old desk

I decided to have a decorate and revamp my old "office" desk; yes I'm a ceramicist and spend half my like in my workshop, but the other half is spent at my desk ...doing the boring stuff - accounts, online shop etc. And who wants to spend their time sitting in an ugly workspace? So I indulged ... it's amazing what a transformation you can get with a coat of paint! What do you think? :)

Heres how I revamped this desk- - I removed the handles using a screwdriver - so I wouldn't paint them! - I painted 3 layers of plain white over the entire desk as a base coat to cover the wood colour - letting each layer dry between coats. - I painted 3 coats of cream paint over the entire desk - again letting each layer dry between coats. - Once dry I could start adding colour, I painted the first coat of the lighter brown on the upper and lower drawer front. - Then a dark chocolate brown on the middle drawer. - Each drawer front had 3 coats. - I let it dry for 24 hours before the next step, I applied lots of coats of clear lacquer spray to the desks top, this gave it a nice glossy shine; it also makes it easier to wipe clean for those tea spillages! - Last step was to reattach the handles. And Voila! If you have a go and revamp your furniture using these steps I'd love to see!