My Home ~ Daughter's Bedroom Redo Part 1

It has been a few years since we moved my daughter into this room. 

The story is this: we have three bedrooms in this house that can be used for kids's rooms. (Until the basement is finished, which will be in a few years...) One bedroom has it's own bathroom. The other two bedrooms share a Jack-and-Jill bathroom. When we first moved into our house, we only had 2 boys and one girl. The boys had the room with the attached bathroom. The girl had one of the Jack-and-Jill bedrooms. My sewing room was the other Jack-and-Jill bedroom. It was great for a while.

Then I had a few more kids. And I moved my sewing room downstairs because the older boys needed that room. Add my last child...and I now have a grand total of 5 boys and 1 girl. It made more sense now to have all the boys sharing the Jack-and-Jill bedrooms and the only girl to have the room attached to it's own bathroom. Right?

I decided to move her into that room. By then, she had outgrown her toddler furniture and had more space in that room for more furniture. I also wanted that room to double as a guest room. In order for her to get her own special bathroom and make the room change, the deal was she'd have to be able to give up her room when we had guests. Then she got the good furniture (it used to be our master bedroom furniture).

But I was not ready to do any painting or redoing of anything yet. I still had other rooms to finish - my master bedroom still has not ever been painted - we have been in this house for almost ten years now...but that is coming sooner than ever now :).  So all we did was make the move.

  

 

We did strip the boys' "construction trucks" wallpaper border down though at least.  We left the blue paint above and the brown paint below, though.  Ugly for a girl I know and so did she,  but we were just making progress getting her moved.  Baby steps toward the goal. 

{I wish for real though that I could have kept this room a little longer for my other small boys now (not that they were not ripping the border to shreds in their beds...boys!) but it looked really cool with everything in there.  And my daughter's old room was really beautiful too - I had painted a garden mural with a big tree and everything (I think I will post this later).  If I had had the foresight, I would have arranged the rooms this way from the beginning and saved a lot of work but I have learned that we do not always GET that kind of insight...5 boys and 1 girl!!!!?!!!!}  Moving on...

  

So she put her own stuff up on the walls and tried to cover the boyness of it all with her cute girl things.  It was not the same of course, but progress was being made, it was a step toward a goal.  Plus it gave us time to really figure out what we could do to make this room HERS.  We bought paint about a year ago but it sat in her closet forever...

 Well, this last weekend, my husband went with my son to 11-year old scout camp and my daughter did not have plans so we decided to bust out the paint and at least get the main color on.  We just shoved all the furniture into the middle of the room and went for it.  

It was a great time - I taught her how to roll the paint on, and after I did the taping and caulking, she did some cutting in with the brush while I rolled.  

 Ooh, that was fun covering up the old stuff and seeing that beautiful color come into view.

 So here are the beginnings of the new room...

 We have lots of fun new fabric treatments planned:

 bedding, pillows, curtains, etc. 

 So stay tuned for all the fun stuff to come...

 

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St. Patrick's Day - LUCKY ME!

I am not Irish. Though sometimes I wish I was - so that I could have a cool accent and explain my red hair a little better...

Sigh, but I do have a little Luck O' the Irish, you might say. Which means I can celebrate St. Patrick's Day in my own way.

See what I mean? I feel pretty Lucky.



I have a friend who has an incredible blog. Landee See Landee Do. She is very inspiring to me and will soon be celebrating her first "blogiversary". Go visit her - you will not be sorry!

So I got an idea from this post of hers, I even had it pinned.

But then...
long story short...
the computer and I had issues and I could sadly not get her "so cute!" printable to work for me. So, determined not to give up, I had to create my own.

It's the same, but not, you know?

Anyway, it works for me. And I really do hear that song (I especially enjoy the Glee version) every time I walk by my "Lucky" sign and it makes me smile and sometimes my heart flutters a little...

You can copy mine or hers over at LandeeSeeLandeeDo. I like both.

Are you feeling Lucky this St. Patty's Day?




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HAPPY DAY AFTER-VALENTINES DAY!

This is my favorite part of Valentine's Day: sharing a special date (or two) with my sweetheart. And recognizing our love for each other.

He is so smart - first thing Valentine's morning started out with him handing me a giant box of these favorite treats. He is so lovely - he knows I love them and gives them to me even though my diet is "starting soon".

We went to dinner here because we LOVE this place!
Then we came home (because there were no tables left - it was very very busy - which made it fun to watch all the couples kissing to get their free entree!) and ate our dinner at home while watching our DVR'ed SNL episodes.

Earlier, my sweet sweetheart surprised me by buying theatre tickets at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

We will be going to these shows:

This one is our OFFICIAL Valentine's Date, later this month.

This one in March - for no particular occasion.

This one in May - for our 17th anniversary!

So yes it was a great Valentine's Day - not that it had to be February 14th to celebrate our love...right?

But I do not usually get caught up in the decorations and everything of this holiday. HOWEVER. Pinterest has entered my life and I cannot help myself with all of the CUTE and irresistible crafty things to make and do for every holiday under the sun. (Note: I have always been crafty - mostly "sew"-y - but have managed to filter out a lot of it based on time constraints or whatever other reason I come up with at the time). But this year...

My Pinterest to-do list was very lengthy, as I believe it will be for years to come now. And I'm OK with that. Now. I don't want anyone to start thinking I have become a sucker and am now at the mercy of Pinterest's siren call...but I do have to say that this renewed desire to craft and create beyond my normal things is a beautiful thing. Because it makes me happy. And it makes me awesome!

I did get few things created that I had "pinned":

I sewed Heart Chains with my sewing students.

I made and taught a class to make Hearts & Pompoms Garland.

{Crayon Hearts}I made these delightful melted crayon art hearts.

Here's our version of Martha Stewart's craft. We did not hang ours up yet though - next year we will figure out a cool way to do it.

For now, they are stuck to the sliding glass door, against our snowy backdrop.

The process of making these was actually pretty cool, though labor intensive (peeling crayons, shaving them into bits, melting them with the iron between waxed paper, trying to get the stain off the table because we did not follow the directions explicitly - they really mean it when they say put layers of craft paper underneath your ironing)

I think they're pretty and can't wait to pull them out of the bin next year and hang them properly.

{Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies}
Don't these look amazingly delicious? I made them for my kids for V-day. But I adapted a little bit...

I added pink "cherry"-flavored frosting instead of the chocolate. I love chocolate and cherry (almond, really) flavors together. And it looks Valentine-y with the pink.

Some got more frosting than others. Still so yummy!

{Red Velvet Crepes}
I made these for my kids' dinner last night before Tyler and I left for Qdoba.



Here's a few of the Pins that never got done but I do, thankfully, have the peace that I can do them "next year":

{Heart Wreath}

{Conversation Hearts}

{Wood Grain}

{Faux Patchwork Heart}

{Ice Art}

{Love Note Pillows}

{Cinnamon Cookie Crunch Popcorn}

{Ruffled Heart Shirt Dress}

{Stuffed Hearts}I love this because it uses red snowflakes from the previous season...Christmas. Nice transition.



A few more Things Valentine:

I got "Heart Attacked" by my church class. Nice heartwarming surprise!

My kindergartener brought home this wreath he had made at his school Valentine's day party. I love it!

It looks like an easy craft, made from a paper plate with a circle cut out of the middle and hearts glued to it.

I keep these things for next year too. {LOVE}

My daughter made this darling lollipop flower for me in her Home Ec class. {LOVE}



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Valentine Table Setting Ideas

I have this empty basket that I received as a gift basket one year - it is so darling but I cannot figure out what to put in it now. So I tried to come up with an idea. It really was an experiment but it turned out to be quite fun and a good craft with a few of my kiddos.

First thing I did was get out my trusty red felt (Holy COW! I have used this a lot for my Valentine crafts this year!) I embroidered the names of each family member that I love (I guess that's all of them - 8 total in the house). I left lots of space on the felt so I could cut it into hearts later.

Then I traced around each name with my largest heart cookie cutter. I always use soap chips for marking.

Then I cut around each heart leaving more than 1/2" around the tracing.

Then I cut another layer similar in size and put it underneath. This will be the back of my heart.

Sew around the heart, starting to the right of the bottom point, just above the point, going all the way around (clockwise), leaving a hole to stuff it. Use pinking shears to cut close to the sewn edge, about 1/4" or a little more.

Then stuff the heart with polyfill or small batting scraps. I told my 6-year-old helper: "Stuff the bumps first, then stuff the point". He was eager to stuff. (Less eager to clip his nails. Sorry. He's a boy and couldn't care less. I'll get right on that...)

Then sew that last section shut, with your needle to the left. Be sure to backstitch.

Then I filled my basket with my family hearts. Pretty cute. I could use this for a centerpiece. At least on Valentine's Day. (Until then, the boys just walk around with it and play with the "stuffed name hearts".)

There sure is a lot of us...maybe I need a larger basket for these. Oh well, it will do for now.

Ooh, I just thought of another idea I could use them for...

Sorry they are a little wrinkly - just pulled then out of the bin and they will flatten when the plates get on them...yeah that was lazy).

I had made these placemats for my family several years ago. I still need to make one more - there have been 8 of us for a few years and now the "baby" permanently eats at the table...

Inspired by Conversation Hearts candy

(I also did this set for a client in totally different colorways. Different than traditional but still cute!)

This is how my table is set for tonight's dinner (for the kids). I am using these stuffed hearts for placecards! I put clear glass dinner plates so everyone can see their placemats!

Totally cute - they are excited to be "served dinner" on Valentine's Day. Then I get to go out with MY VALENTINE...heehee!



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