Saudi Gazette Salwa Alkaff and her sisters are skilled in sketching, drawing, painting, wood work, and crafts. Alkaff was daring enough to enter the world of business. She took distance learning courses in home design, with an emphasis on children's décor. She works with her sisters and a team of carpenters to make furniture for children and decorate children's rooms. The sisters' business is called Pure Crafts and is located in Jeddah. “My very first customer wanted me to design a crib for her baby's nursery. I wanted to give her something above the ordinary. Instead of the usual rectangular-shaped crib, we made her a circular, white crib with tall pillars and hand-painted flowers on it. It looked like a small castle. The mother was so impressed that she asked us to furnish the entire nursery with matching drawers, curtains, wall painting, and bedding for the crib,” Alkaff told the Saudi Gazette. “We like to be authentic and pay attention to detail. Our customers may complain that we take too long in our work, but that is because I insist that our final product is perfect,” she says. “We take a bare room that is like a skeleton. We then add the flesh and bring it to life. We are responsible for everything, we choose the floors: ceramic tiles or wooden floor or marble or carpet and rugs. We design and build the furniture, including the bed, closet, dresser, shelves, and desk. We transform the walls by coloring them and painting murals. We install the chandeliers, ceiling lighting, and bedside lamps. Finally, we dress the room up with attractive accessories. The entire room must be coherent and pertain to a single theme.” Alkaff added. The most popular themes for boys' rooms, according to Alkaff, are sports, athletics, racing cars, and sailing. Girls are asking for rooms that look like a small abode for a princess or ballerina or Alice in Wonderland, or a garden of flowers and butterflies. One exceptional room that Alkaff sisters designed was a candy room: painted and decorated with lollipops, cupcakes, jelly beans, ice cream, and candy canes. The room looked beautiful and delicious! Alkaff said: “I always tell the parents to bring the child in so I can meet him/her. I want to know the child's name, her favorite colors, and her interests and hobbies. I usually make a creative sign with the letters of the child's name. Some families are unaware of the influence of colors on our emotions and behavior. I refuse to paint the walls of a child's bedroom red. Red causes hyperactivity and alertness so I use red for children's playrooms but not bedrooms. I recommend soft, soothing colors for bedrooms, such as pink, lavender, sky blue, or pistachio green. Playrooms can have brighter and bolder colors.” These amazing women are involved in every step of creating your dream room. They come to your house to get a feel of the place, talk to your kids, take measurements, and visualize the final result. They paint the walls in person if you had requested a complicated pattern or a mural. The sisters actually go to the carpenter's workshop to paint on your wooden furniture. So when you buy from Pure Crafts you can honestly brag that what you have is truly one of a kind. “The project that we most enjoy working on is decorating and setting up playrooms. We install activity areas, depending on the children's hobbies. In one home we designed an art corner and made colorful desks and plenty of storage spaces for all their utensils. We also made an adorable kitchen corner with a miniature dining table. But the pride of our work here was a small stage with microphones, a speaker system, and long, pink stage curtains. The girls in this family loved performing and acting so they were thrilled when they saw their stage,” she said. Although they started out with a small capital, their taste for art and brilliant ideas made the business take off and now they can barely keep up with customers' orders. The sisters are being asked to custom-make and decorate dining tables and living rooms. They even make and deliver rooms to Makkah and Riyadh. They are currently working on a children's waiting room in a clinic. Their next plan is to offer art classes for kids. __
