Monday, April 18, 2011

some finishing touches.

*edited to add {slightly} better pictures, just for cb's eemo. love you, sis. ;)

before choi boy came home, i started a project that was to become some of the wall art in cb's room. i purposely started it prior to leaving for korea knowing that i'd need a head start in order to have it completed within some sort of reasonable time frame.

aaaaaand, four months later, i just finished. :)

wanna see?

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i wanted something that tied in with choi boy's loosely alphabet themed room. one of my favorite activities to do when building a literate environment in my classroom is to make a classroom alphabet with my students. choosing a personal, meaningful word association for each letter makes the alphabet something the children can connect with and have ownership over. using that idea, i made six canvases, one for each letter from A to F, to represent important parts of choi boy's journey and story.

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here are some close ups of each canvas:
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A for airplane, with a picture of the pretty blue plane we rode home as new family of three.

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B for baby B (cb's korean/middle name), with cb's referral picture, taken in the famous red chair.

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C for C (cb's first name). this is probably my absolute favorite picture of cb. thanks again to jojo and gabe for the hat! :)

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D for dog, with a picture of piper, cb's furry big sister.

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E for everyone, with a collage of everyone on both sides of our immediate family (or are they extended family now and the three of us are just immediate family? i get so confused by that!)

and
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F for family, with one of our first family pictures. :)

it's far from perfect. i wish i had taken the time to actually center the letters and words. i also should have used a thinner paint marker to write the words. the modge podge is really gloppy and not smooth, as you can probably tell (i have *never* been able to use modge podge well!!). and the canvases are definitely not hanging as straight as they could be and i'm thinking they should also be a little lower. but, it'll do. at this point, i'm just glad they're done and up!

i also have an ABC book in the works that will follow a similar theme and i hope it will serve as a first lifebook of sorts. and, um, i still have the actual lifebook in the works, too. hopefully, they'll be done before choi boy enters kindergarten. or graduates high school. ;)

and what did little cb think of his new decor?

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he enjoyed checking out the pictures...

and, as i hoped,
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he loved picking out and saying the names of the people (and animals!) he recognized. :)

i have a few more things i'd like to get up on the walls of cb's room...but, i'm giving myself to the end of summer vacation.

baby steps! ;)

35 comments:

  1. I love this and how CB is checking it out!! You are so creative & talented..great idea!

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  2. That is truly awesome. Meaningful, love how it tells his story, goes well with the room, and best of all, it is made by you! And in terms of being too high - higher is better when over the crib! Those kids get tall and like to pull things off the wall...

    And the idea of using the alphabet for an early lifebook is great! Love it! And the lifebook itself - my eldest is turning 5 this week and I'm just about to order his shutterfly lifebook. It takes awhile. That's okay.

    Great job, mama!

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  3. Super creative! Nice work!!!

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  4. So super cute! I know when he's older he'll realize how much love and effort went into this beautiful project.
    Adam's parents actually had a really cute idea to do an alphabet photo book that includes photos of the family and Olive and Ingrid doing things that coincide with the letter on that page. It's such a cool idea.
    Lifebook? Um... I don't want to talk about it.

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  5. Love, love, love it! Again, I'm playing catch up on your blog moving from this backward, but what a great start! Great idea - you're so creative. Choi boy is getting so big, but cute as ever.

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  6. Great idea! Very nice outcome =) It looks like Choi Boy is really enjoying your handiwork.

    Thanks for stopping by my blog and answering my language questions. No Konglish? wha? I tried to order food for a friend from a Korean caterer and was NOT successful at all. I better get crackin' on the Korean lessons for myself! I'm like you, I learned Korean from the grandma (with a little help from Korean school). But I lost so much of it....I lost the part where I could speak full sentences in Korean. hah.

    Lifebook huh? Wow! So many things to think about! I feel like I've been twiddling my thumbs for so long and now there's a huge to do list!

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  7. What a cute idea! I'm glad we even made the wall in a small way :)

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  8. I love, love, love this!!! What a meaningful (and very cute) way to decorate cb's room!

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  9. LOVE it! You are so talented, my friend. :D

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  10. What a great idea and I think they're perfect they way they are. I also like "everyone", I never would have thought of that for "e"!!

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  11. This is so cute!! I love the colors.

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  12. Great job! My favorite is F is for family!

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  13. Love it! How creative. You did a fantastic job mama!

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  14. this is such an awesome idea grace! i love it! the best part is you made it!! so cute to see cb looking at momma's artwork!! i am making something for oliver right now..hopefully it will turn out..we will see. :)

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  15. I loooove it! but, I wish you wouldn't have used flash :( it's so hard to see the photos. I bet it looks 100 times better in real life! can't wait to see it!

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  16. What a beautiful meaningful project! Amen from this high school literacy coach!!

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  17. Beautiful! What an amazing job you did! Looks like CB loves it! :)

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  18. I love these!! What a great idea, and so meaningful for Choi Boy. And if it makes you feel any better, I still have things I haven't put on Joel's walls yet...and it's been almost two years. :)

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  19. Totally love these, Grace. And I think Choi Boy's face tells all...amazing and so worth the time and effort!

    Nice work!

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  20. Oh my goodness... I LOOOOOOOVVVEEEEE this!!! LOVE.

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  21. You hung them up! Way to go. They look awesome and you did such a great job coming up with meaningful words.

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  22. Sooo cute!!

    Much love,
    Future Mama
    http://expectingablessing.blogspot.com/

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  23. Oooooooo, this is very unique and fun and special! Perfect touch to CB's room!!

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  24. what a great idea! and i think it looks just great! ( and LOVE the Beatles tee by the way. :)

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  25. this is a wonderful idea grace! i think they look awesome! cb obviously approves!

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  26. Grace! This is such a creative idea!! I love it. I especially love seeing cb taking it all in.

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  27. I absolutely love this idea! It looks great! You are so creative, it's just awesome! Oh and lifebook? Yeah, Max doesn't have one yet either. He will ... eventually ....

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  28. thanks for the update!!! The photos are so much clearer...and now you can see the strawb photo that we all LURRRVE.

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  29. I love it! I can see CB does too.
    I haven't done a life book for D yet, but did just put together a photo book of our trip to Korea, meeting D, visting Seoul, and coming home as a family of 3. So...I guess sort of a "mini" life book, but not as much as I had wanted to do. I was actually losing sleep over it, so finally just put one together last weekend on Snapfish and ordered it. I cannot wait to sit down and read it with D. He loves books SO much and loves looking at photos of himself, especially when he was a baby ("Baby Dee-Dee!" he yells). I hope he likes it.

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  30. Great work! Don't be so hard on yourself. I have a million and one projects that I need to tackle, and at least you have finished this. I don't even want to admit that I don't have an updated photo hanging or sitting in our home yet that includes Ben, and he's 18 months old. That's what I would call pathetic. (:

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  31. LOVE THIS!!!!! I used to make a classroom alphabet when I taught K - what a great idea to make CB's first lifebook an ABC book. I think it is a wonderful idea and want to do one for Kyle. Thank you for sharing:-)

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why, hello there! do you have something to say? 'cause i'd so love to hear it!