Um, not the show Jersey Shore that I refuse to watch for fear I’d have three brain cells left.  Or even the geographic location of the Jersey shore.  I’m talking about a little painting project the boys and I did yesterday that vaguely resembles modern sports jerseys.  Back when we still lived at our first house, I made magazine ad artwork for the boys’ bedroom.

Great colors, fun animals, and free, in a word, love.  But neither of my boys are babies anymore.  Vincent is Rubik’s cube loving, movie quoting, bike riding five-year old.  And Everett’s a jump on/off/to everything, dirt digging, Matchbox car racing two and a half-year old.  The baby-ish artwork didn’t match their personalities anymore.  Five cluttered looking frames weren’t working for me either, so I set out to make free, personalized art involving the kids.

I found two still in the package 16 by 20 inch canvases in the basement, begging to be used.  Then I opened Photoshop and typed 21 and 25, Vincent and Everett’s birth dates and changed the fonts until I found one I liked best.  Museo Slab, if you’re wondering.  To make the art look less like a jersey, I decided to overlap the number slightly for a more artistic look.

I considered tracing the numbers, taping off everything and letting the boys paint, but that seemed like too much work.  Instead, I flipped the numbers to make a mirror image, printed on card stock, and cut them out.

The boys each painted their number using acrylic paints.

Once the paint dried, I flipped the numbers over and stuck plenty of rolled tape on.  In another attempt to make these look less like sports attire, I placed the numbers in the bottom left corner, rather than the center.

V stuck with greens and yellow for his.

Then went color crazy by adding various blues to the mix on E’s number.

I like that these are personal and were as easy as printing, cutting, and painting numbers.  And we can just as easily pull the numbers off and paint something on the canvases if we get bored.

I might use stronger tape though because the thick card stock is kind of warped from the paint.

If not for my free goal, I would have preferred square canvases, perhaps 24 by 24 inches.

Like I said, we can easily change this down the line.  For now, I’m really happy with the white space versus painted design.  And fonts/numbers are always good in my book.

Now I’m curious, what do you have as art over beds?  Whether kids, yours, or a guest bed.  Do you prefer single larger pieces?  Or a grouping of smaller ones?  Perhaps, you’re a font/number geek?  Let’s unite!

P.S.  In response to our recent survey (which you can still fill out here), several commenters suggested bigger, brighter pictures.  For larger pictures, click on the photo.  Are these brighter/bright enough/too bright?