Under the Big Top!

I was at the thrift store last week and found a roll of orange perforated event tickets. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with them - but I knew I could find a fun way to use them in the house. When I got home I wandered around the house brainstorming about how I could re-purpose them and ended up in our youngest son's room. Gideon's room has a circus theme and I spied the perfect place that I could use the tickets to revamp the room.

Gideon loves books and we are lucky enough to have a built in bookshelf in his room. On close inspection the tickets were the perfect size to glue onto the front edges of each shelf. I brushed on Modge Podge on each edge and pressed the tickets down. Then - since I love to color coordinate - I couldn't help organizing the books by color as well - alternating each shelf. Once I had the books organized I had two whole shelves left for displaying some of our vintage circus treasures. In addition to using a page from a 3-D circus book, I dug up a retro Fisher Price Roly Poly Bear, a fun Little People clown, a plastic candy holding weiner dog, a colorful stuffed Humpty Dumpty and a vintage magnetic monkey puzzle. See below for before and after.

Gideon's room has been a labor of love and I am absolutely thrilled with how colorful and fun it has turned out to be. For the ceiling Mike and I wanted it to feel like we were under the Big Top - so we created our own stencil and painted the ceiling a vibrant blue. Around the light fixture Mike painted a star pattern using gold metallic paint. Gideon's bedspread and circus wall canopy are from Ikea. I found the curtain valances at the thrift store and scoured the fabric district for gold/white striped fabric to make the drapes with.

It took me several months to find all the art and other decorating items for Gideon's room. My crafty neighbor Cathie Filian http://cathiefilian.blogspot.com/ gave me a vintage book full of amazing circus illustrations. Using a thrift store frame, Mike and I finally chose this incredible tiger to hang on Gideon's wall.

I love Helen Dardik's art and on her Etsy store (http://www.etsy.com/shop/helendardik) I found the perfect print! Gideon is a Leo and so what more could I ask for then the Mr. Leo colorful circus art she created (on the right). A friend made the fun collage on the left and I attached the clown feet to it from a toy the boys no longer play with. Add a fearsome lion head, a cymbal playing monkey, a circus train on parade and wallah THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN!