Craft: transforming traditional crafts

Debbie Schoop-Wilson, our friend and colleague over in the accounting department, shared with us some photos and the story of how she transformed her plain old bathroom into a fabulous I Dream of Jeannie-themed room, inspired by Jeannie's plush retreat inside her bottle. Tramaine de Senna, a MAKE/CRAFT alum and talented artist, helped Debbie bring her idea to life by painting the walls with a pattern, palm trees, and Jeannie's bottle.

My husband and I love everything vintage. We have vintage cars, clothes, collectibles, and we've decorated our house 50's style. So it stands to reason that we also love older TV shows. One of our favorites growing up was I Dream of Jeannie.

I love the scenes that show the inside of Jeannie's bottle. It's beautiful and yet comfy. I turned to my husband one night and said, "Wouldn't it be great to have a room decorated like the inside of Jeannie's bottle?" Several weeks later it came to me - why not decorate the bathroom to look like that?

I have a co-worker who is an amazing artist, and just knew that she would be able to make that vision come to life. I knew in my head what I wanted it to look like, and after one meeting with her, I knew that she understood it. She made a template out of cardboard from an empty cereal box and used it to make the designs on the "jeweled wall." Everything else was painted freehand, including the wall with the sandy beach, palm tree complete with a washed up Jeannie bottle, and two little black palm trees in the distance.

My husband used the cardboard templates that were used for the jeweled wall to make shelves out of 1/4" plywood. I painted them gold. Groupings of Jeannie-type bottles that I have collected sit on the shelves. I also painted a wooden frame gold to frame the picture of Barbara Eden. The finishing touch was to hot glue vintage jewels onto the purple wall. I already had several pieces and found some broken vintage jewelry to add to the wall. The wall is not complete, as I am still searching for more pieces.

I made curtains out of gold fabric and some purple braid. I am going to hang a mini chandelier from the wooden valance above the window. Some great purple and pink towels, and my vision is complete! My husband and I love it and think it looks tasteful and whimsical.

Tramaine, busy painting!