A couple of catalysts:
- I’m turning 30 this year (in about two weeks, in fact).
- I want to start supporting something. A charity, an organization, a cause… I want to do some right for the world (if that makes sense…). We’re blessed and I want to give back a little.

One or two months ago, I thought a small birthday-fundraiser would start me off well. The way these works, is requesting that people give donations instead of gifts/stuff. Charity:Water has a great goal and looks like it’s doing great things, so I would have gone with them. Their website is setup nicely, too.

A couple of things changed my plans:

First, cynics (that I love and trust…!) brought to my attention that not all charities are well managed. That’s likely. I browsed for reviews/ratings on Charity:Water and didn’t find anything worthwhile, so I’m now looking at various charities, trying to find well-rated charities/organizations that support good causes.

I like environment/sustainable world organizations, but I’m having trouble figuring out tangible actions they are taking (I registered on WWF.ca, but I still don’t know what they are doing, exactly, except marketing and attending summits). I also looked into sponsoring a child; it feels like something I would like to do. I’m not a religious person, so Christian sponsoring (such as World Vision and Compassion) is not a good fit for me, but I found “Plan“, which offers child sponsoring — I didn’t find many reviews of them, but what I saw was good enough. “Water for People“, which has objectives similar to Charity:Water, seems like a good one, too.

If you have opinions and sources on good charities/organizations — and validating websites (ex. charitynavigator.org) — I would love to read them. Thank you.

Now, for the other thing: I’m turning 30 in two weeks, I want to make it special (ie. drown out nostalgia and general grumpiness about piling on a new decade). I’m not really a party animal, although I like to hang out with friends; I enjoy explorations and visits/activities. Ideas?

And with his best buddy:

That’s it! Have a great week, everyone!

This is it: Orly has now completed two whole years of life! Today was the birthday party; we combined a few classics — balloons, games, cake — with a few new experiences.

First, some friends:

Then a game of television inspiration: DORA (yes, Dora!) called us to warn that Swipper the Fox had swipped the birthday balloons!! The kids, with some help from Backpack, had to go on an adventure to find the missing balloons.

They started by asking the Map for directions, then Backpack gave them some horns to go into the musical tunnel (made of sheets around our bed, hehe):

Then, a stop by the lake, to do some fishing:

Finally, Backpack gave out flashlights to the kiddos, who said “Open” to enter the dark bedroom:

The balloons were found!

Add in some games…

Some cries… (see Xavier, ouch!)

Cake…

…and there you have it, Orléane is all partied up! Congratulations, my big girlie!

PS. Here’s a last one we took during the week, on her anniversary day:

I started on the computer, because that’s where I’m comfortable. I used the wall’s dimensions and planned an image:

Right away, I have to say I can’t take any credit for the illustration. This is a composition of elements and illustrations that charmed me; they were pulled from children’s books and the web, mostly — they were all created by talented artists. I just poorly re-drew those and placed them together, probably stepping over a couple of copyrights along the way. (I’m so sorry, talented artists. You’re just so… talented! Your imaginations will fuel my kid’s one so wonderfully. Thank you.)

Ok, back to business. I made my own composition, but you could use any drawing or image you like.

I didn’t have a projector handy and was eager to start, so I just traced grid lines over my printed image and then traced those same grid lines over my wall.

Once that was done, I reproduced, square for square, the illustration on the wall. It was fun to do.
(Sorry about the next two pictures… not enough contrast for a good photo…)

Now for the fun part: colours!

I used leftover latex paint for the green grass, acrylic for the other colours. With the image all traced, it was only a matter of colouring in each area.

I started with the grass:
(I know, this part looks boring, but it was exciting just to see some colours on the wall already, so I recommend starting with the boring parts!)

Each colour took TWO COATS. Latex AND acrylic. It took very long. Like, 2.5 weeks of devoting 2-3 hours per day (aka “whole evenings”) to this project. (I’m glad I didn’t know about this, because I would have had less ambition to start with! lol)

For many colours, I used original colours — pure blue, magenta, pre-mixed brown for the trees. I got to mix some colours for the detail work and the flowers, though; I loved doing this!

I painted those mountains about 6 times each before getting the right shades… (You’ll see the back ones change again later on in the pictures.)

There’s at least one evening’s work between each picture.

Honestly, it was easy enough to paint. I wasn’t going for realism.

I did try to add some shading, though, but found the acrylic was drying too fast on the wall: the area would get sticky in seconds and the other shade of colour wouldn’t blend well with the first one. Of course, that’s probably because I have no knowledge or training in working with acrylic. Hehe.

However much I loved doing this project and trying a new art, at some point during the second week I got a little fed up of spending evenings on end painting a vertical wall. That’s when I got to the (–censured–) leaves.

Let’s not talk about those. (Seriously, not a word, you.) I know the kids will let me off the hook about them.

Some detailing — and many hours — later…

I’m done!

I’m done!!

Now let me just note some of my favourite details:

Someone lovely created this sleeping fairy. My version is crudely simple, but I’m still proud of her skirt’s detail:

This little house came out of a story book. The shape is charming! It doesn’t show from the picture, but I painted it with metallic paint:

Oops, I’m telling you: I don’t know how that last one got in there… (This is the duvet I got for Orly’s bed. It’s from Ikea and it’s SO pretty!) Erm, ok…

Some specifications about materials and cost for the mural (as opposed to my Ikea bill, erm…):

My wall was already blue, so I saved on that. I also saved on the green latex paint I used for the grass, since it was leftover paint.

I had some acrylic already, but bought new colours for most of it. I bought 30$ of acrylic, but ran out of white and spent another 10$ for that. I still have lots of leftover paint, however, which I will use in future projects — and for when the kiddos paint!

I also spent about 8$ on two “quality” brushes (from de Serre) after cursing my old ones from the dollar store. Those were SO worth it.

In total, close to 50$ in art supplies — but with leftover material.

To finish this off…

For the room, we inherited an old twin bed and dresser from Frank’s family. Frank sanded them, I primed and painted them in white (this was less fun than the mural…), along with another matching twin bed that my boy already had.

To echo the mural, I painted two of the same flowers on the dresser’s drawers. I like how they turned out.

And then, I finally drew my own quick illustration: it’s a well hidden little rodent in the dresser…

Yup, it’s hidden on the side of a drawer. My girl loves to pull it out to ask the mouse what she should wear today.

Speaking of which, have you noticed the wallpaper covering the inside of those drawers? I instantly hearted the run-down dresser once we pulled those out. It’s such a girlie piece of furniture!

Here’s my girl. She’s just waiting for us to move out to our new room so she can acquire the space.

…but I’m going off-topic, so let’s wrap this up. Paint a mural! It’s fun and you won’t regret it!

Xavier, after meeting the clipper:

I know!! It’s real short. But oh well, we have to experiment. I like, however, how much it brings out his eyes:

It’s even more overwhelming in person. What’s more, well, it’ll buy him a break from all the haircutting he hates.

As for Orly, it’s quite the opposite: at long last, her hair is starting to grow a little! Now I can fix two pigtails on her.