There was a wonderful idea in the Shoebox today sent in to us by Mary Lambeth of Cary, N.C. Mary wrote that she had been asked to be in charge of redecorating the infant nursery at her church and though at first she didn’t have a clue as to what to do, the project turned out to be such a rewarding and wonderful experience that she wanted to share it with us (figure A). When it came to deciding on the color of the walls, there was no difficulty. Apparently everyone was in accord, but when it came to actually adding some art work that was a different story. It wasn’t that folks weren’t willing to help, but that nobody felt they were accomplished enough to be painting on the walls.
And then Mary had an idea. She came across some old cross stitch patterns that illustrated well-known Bible stories, and she suddenly saw the walls as a large cross stitch canvas. She went to the garden store and got some 1/2-inch-square stakes which she had cut into 5-inch lengths, and then glued a 1/2-inch-square cut from a pop-up sponge on each end, giving her two brushes (figure B). Then after dipping the sponges in water so they popped up and wringing them out and using the patterns as a guide and the sponges as paint brushes, the ladies "cross stitched" the illustrations on the wall (figure C)! Every dab of the brush represented a stitch in the pattern. Mary sent photographs and the pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Noah on the ark (figure D) and all of the animals were immediately recognized, as was Joseph and his coat of many colors (figure E) and Jonah and the whale, etc. (figure F). Mary said it was such a wonderful experience because not only did all of the women who participated enjoy themselves, but several who had absolutely no confidence whatsoever when they started ended up not only enthusiastically participating but one of the ladies went on to not only make two squirrels but figured out that by changing the colors she could make skunks as well as another animal. The completed mural was a great success. Note: We tried the same technique to make a picture of a little girl in her sunbonnet (figure G). The pattern was 30 squares high (figure H), so it was easy to figure that if every square was 1/2 inch, the finished girl would be 15 inches. We found 1/2-inch-square bass wood stakes at the local craft store and cut them into 5-inch lengths and used heavy duty white glue to attach the sponge squares to the end (figure I). Mary used rubber cement. It turned out to be as easy and as much fun as Mary indicated and seemed to us this would be a delightful way to decorate any child’s room.
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