Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Frozen Inspired Painted Door. Elsa's Bedroom Door.

Hey everyone!  Today we are smack in the middle of spring break.  All of my kids have been home for a few days and we have had absolutely nothing planned.  We have literally done...nothing.  I have slept in until 10 every day this week.  I feel like I'm in high school...haha.  My oldest is finally old enough to watch the youngest when she wakes up, so I don't have to.  They are currently having "game day" (board games) on the kitchen table right now....and my two little girls have been assigned the cleverly chosen job of "cheerleader."  My son is quite crafty when it comes to both appeasing and deflecting his little sisters.  I did miss my Monday post because we were SUPER busy over the weekend, so sorry for that.  I'm trying so hard to stick to a schedule.  I am going to do a post on Friday and I'll tell you about our awesome weekend.

Today, I have an awesome post to share with you.  This, my friends, is all the proof you need that I am the coolest mom ever!  Ha! Well, at least my kids think so, and that's all that counts...but let me tell you, I scored some major brownie points with this one.  We have been watching quite a bit of Disney's Frozen since it came out.  My little girls are obsessed. (along with the rest of the girls in this country it seems) They know every word to every song (which means so do I) and they have already decided that they will be Elsa and Anna for Halloween this year.  For me, although I do really like the music, the best part of that movie was the lavish, gorgeous detail on EVERYTHING.  It was such eye candy to me.  Every time I watched it, I noticed something new and I would just gawk.  I really loved all of the beautiful hand painted details all over.  I believe they call it rosemaling.  I had never heard of it before this, but I'm well versed now, I tell ya.  One of my favorite things from the movie was Elsa's blue bedroom door...I was just stunned.  I think it's BEAUTIFUL.  I also think it's one of the most recognizable features from the movie as well.  Every little girl that sees it, knows exactly where it is from.  After watching the movie, I kept thinking that I needed to paint some kind of Norwegian style rosemaling on one of our doors somewhere.... but then I though that it wouldn't really "go" with the style I've got going on in here....but I still love it so much! Then one night when I was sitting in my girls' bedroom putting them to sleep, I had the thought to paint Elsa's bedroom door....on their closet! I couldn't hold myself back after that.  It was on.... like Donkey Kong.

I started by looking for pictures of the door.....which were incredibly hard to find! You can find little snap shots, but not full door pictures that were close enough to tell what was painted on it.  I ended up pulling up the video clip of Do You Want To Build a Snowman and freezing the shots where you could see good detail of the door.  You're welcome for doing that for you if you want to recreate this.  It was a big pain it the behind.  Seriously.


Here's the video.







Then I sketched the design on my closet door.  I copied the design exactly, but I changed the scale of it in some places, so that it would fit on my door. It's mostly just squished to be skinnier.  My door is not a "palace door."  I also added a few little design elements of my own for balance.  


This took a lot of patience and quite a lot of erasing, but I eventually got it down.  I think I could draw this in my sleep now.  In hind sight, I think I would have benefited from a ruler or tape measure, but I was impatient and free-handed the whole thing.  


Next I started adding the royal blue paint.  I just used regular craft paint and a tiny paintbrush. 


There were quite a lot of dark eraser smudges.  I ended up finding a big white eraser to get those off.  The darkness came from using one that was on the end of a pencil, instead of a decent one.  



After the royal blue, I added some dark violet purple in a few places and then a light ice blue/lavender in a few others.  It was hard to pinpoint the exact colors of the secondary colors from the video, so I went with what I though would suite the room best, while trying to be as true to the original as possible.  When I was done, I went back with white paint, and covered any smudges or mistakes or wavy, wonky lines to make it all look crisp.  

Here's the finished product.  




I had to paint it over the indentions on the door,so at some angles the lines don't look strait, but they are....it's just an optical illusion.  





I added the design at the top out of my own imagination.  I just needed something to fill that space, proportionately.  


The paint did give a little bit of a painterly effect, although, it's kind of exaggerated a little in this picture.  I like it though.  You can tell it's hand painted and that's ok.  



I wanted to do four of the boxed in patterns like it is in the movie, but it just really wouldn't fit, so I ended up just repeating the flower pattern all the way down instead. 

Sorry about the crazy shadows....I really stink at taking pictures. 


I also added the parts shown above and below to it.  The middle just needed "something" and this is what I came up with. 



I painted the knobs with a little flower pattern as well....not sure if I like it though...



My girls LOVE this....and so do I!  I think whenever we move, this door is coming with us!  

I still have a couple of touch ups to do, and I've thought about giving it a clear coat of poly, so that I can scrub it and keep it clean without having to worry about scrubbing the craft paint off.  I'll let you know how that goes.  For now....I'm totally happy with it!  

Now.....to work up the courage to take care of what's on the other side of that door....it's scary y'all. 

xoxo! 
Anna




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25 comments:

  1. It's absolutely stunning! Amazing job as always. Your post's make me want to get into my own crafts. Great job!

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    1. Thanks Brittany! I appreciate that! I know I always feel the same way when people post things they've done. Inspiration goes a long way :)

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  2. Wow! I'm impressed! It turned out great, and I'm sure you daughters love it. I know my little girl would freak out. Thanks for sharing with us at The Makers. :)

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  3. wow, Anna, you really did a nice job with this. You are so creative and such a good artist. Keep up the great work... just think what your kids are learning from you as well. XO mom

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  4. Wow! You are such an awesome mom! My daughter would LOVE this, not that I'd want to hear the snowman song any more than I currently do, but it would bring such a smile to her face! Amazing job!

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    1. My whole house STILL is constantly singing "let it go"....even my boys! lol....but I don't think the door has had any affect on that at least. Thanks so much for the sweet comment.

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  5. Wonderful idea Anna, your a hero mom! I may just steal your idea, thanks for the still shots!

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    1. Thanks! I hope you do! I want to see pictures if/when you do.

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  6. Darling idea. I love the way you improvised the pattern. Your girls really have something special here! Visiting from SITS

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    1. thank you so much! I hope they think so too!

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  7. You did a great job! That looks very nice.

    SitsShareFest

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  8. This is so cute! My daughter loves Frozen and would go nuts over this. I agree-if you move I would totally bring it along with me!

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  9. haha....that's an idea....That would be totally fun too. Now, if only I could survive with no sleep...

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  10. Stopping by to thank you for sharing at Share it One More Time at One More Time Events and to let you know you have been featured this week….looking forward to seeing what you have to share this week…Tammy

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    1. Thank you! I'm so glad someone featured this! I put it out to a lot of blogs and nobody did. I think everyone is tired of Frozen already, lol

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  11. You are definitely the coolest mom ever! My girls would love this on their door!
    Thank you for sharing your ultra-cool mom project on Project Inspire{d}! Hope to see you again at the next one!

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  12. Oh wow you did such an amazing job - thanks for sharing on the Kids Co-op.

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  13. I love this and, more importantly, I'm so glad your girls do, too! And would take that door with me, also! PS - what is that in the upper right corner? Are those massive pompoms? If so, I think I'm in love.

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    1. Those are tissue paper pom poms. I have made a couple for different birthday parties for the past few years and the girls wanted to keep them so I've been adding them to that corner every year.

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