A few months ago, Natalie told me her next Real Living shoot was a kids bedroom shopping one. I volunteered myself for the shoot day to help out for fun and experience. But Nat put me to work beforehand, slave driver. But I was secretly thrilled to be a part of it – it was great getting to see some of her inspiration, her plans and ideas all come together. She asked me if I’d like to make a pom pom garland and fabric height chart for the shoot. Um, yes! So, I did. Happily it made the cut and is featured in the girl’s pastel princess nursery on page 60-61, below.
And so, just to celebrate this fact and to give potential customers another look at it, I attempted to photograph it with my children measuring each other. Things didn’t quite pan out the way I wanted it to. The old “never work with children” rule is a golden one for a reason. Zak refused to wear anything other than bright green undies and kept running away. Then I tried to get Layla out of the tutu and into a cute little skirt with leggings and puffy-sleeved shirt. She screamed the house down, smacked me across the face and also ran away. I finally gave up and let her wear the tutu and managed to get her surf shirt off but she refused to let me put a different one her – only the surf shirt. Finally I got a singlet on her while distracting her with the bird marker. It was fun…
I wanted Layla to be standing on the stool measuring Zak with the bird marker. Zak finally got in place – dressed – and decided he wanted to be standing on the stool and promptly broke it. So then no one was allowed to stand on it – only sitting – and even with bribes of chocolate and threats of no ice cream after dinner, I didn’t get a smile. This is what I did get.
The last image pretty much sums up the whole day…
Back to the chart… Nat and I debated about whether or not to make it a project or sell them via an Etsy store. In the end, we decided to credit my blog and I’ll guage interest in it before deciding whether or not to pursue opening a store. And so… I have a couple more in the works – a few variations on this idea in different colours and fabrics, so if you’re interested, please email me on belinda@thehappyhomeblog.com and I’ll keep you posted on what I’ll do. The price for this particular one is $49.95, plus postage and handling (approx $5). It comes with a bird marker to mark your height (it pins on) or you can use the chart as a ruler and mark on the wall behind it if you want a permanent record. The back is a dark grey and the edges are deliberately raw and slightly frayed to rough up the girliness a little! You can hang on a coat hanger as I have or like a traditional wall hanging with a piece of dowel.
Come back tomorrow – I’ll share a little behind the scenes of the kids room shoot. It was lots of fun – possibly because there were no children in it!
{scan courtesy Real Living mag; all images by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home}
Why don’t you have your own etsy/made it store!?!?!?!
Love that last pic.
Alison