New bunk bed and a kids room makover

  I am so super excited to share my finally-finished kids room! For a good long while I had been planning, dreaming, and wishing to get the kids room to be to a place I was happy with decor and storage. I wanted a place that felt thought-out and intentional instead of looking like crowded mis-matched furniture from the side of the road (witch is pretty much what it looked like before).

    Getting the kids room to this point has been a long journey of slowly collecting things from thrift stores and yard sales. The black trunk was from the local thrift store as well as most of the toys. The ottoman under the window (also from the thrift store) is so great for reading books and nursing the baby. The wall-mounted doll house is something I love! Trent made it for Lizzy for Christmas last year. It's great for storing all her doll stuff and I really love how it looks in the room. I am a sucker for doll houses and dolls (as evidenced by my doll house and dolls pin boards). Can you spot three more doll houses in the photos above? I realized the other day that I have bought so many doll houses through the years that it is kind of silly. A while ago I decided to donate my least favorite ones to local thrift stores because they took up so much room. What can I say, when I see cute dolls or doll houses I honestly want every single one! Maybe someday when I'm rich I can own a doll house museum.
   Something I had wanted for a while was a room with enough room to play while simultaneously sleeping three kids. A few weeks before the baby was due, Everett, our third, was still sleeping in his crib in our master bedroom and we knew we had to figure something else out. With two twin beds filling the room, there was barely enough room to play on the floor, so there was absolutely no way a third bed would fit into the room. Thus the triple bunk bed was born! Trent built it in the closet space. He knocked the back of the closet out to take advantage of some unused closet space behind it (from the bedroom-turned-living-room remodel from several years ago).

    One of my favorite parts of the room is the apple crates we mounted on the wall (25 cents each at a yard sale!) They are a really fun way to store and display all the trinkets the kids collect. The metal basket has an awesome DIY story: while at the thrift store we found two stacks of six square metal grates; I decided to buy them and used cable ties to make two baskets with lids on them. The finishing piece was the dresser we got last week (we got it for $15 from some friends who were moving). We are so happy to finally have a place to put the kids clothes away. Ever since the closet was turned into a bunk bed we had no place for the clothes, so we had been shoving them in the colored crates and the toys were never really put away. It was kind of a disaster! Now that everything has a place, and when everything actually is in its place, the room is a dream come true for me and the kids!!

P.S. Right after this photo shoot things literally came crashing down! The tripod leg gave, the camera fell, and the lens broke! :(  It was only yesterday when the camera broke but I miss it already! Waah! Today is Evangeline's two month mark and I was planning on taking photos to document. My needs are nothing to Trent's though, he needs the camera to take photos of his paintings to send to galleries, collectors, for his website, and for prints. Nothing that important though, he just needs it to make a living!  Hopefully we can get a new lens at a good price. I'm OK with getting a nicer one though. :) We'll see, but for now I'll have to post using photos I took previously or really crappy ones taken with the kids camera or the camcorder. Sadness.

blogging about...

I have always admired bloggers that share real aspects of life. I guess I feel a connection with them because I can relate to them personally. Here is the real life version of our house right now. Trent just took down a show and we haven't gotten around to putting the paintings in the art shed yet. There are stacks of library books that are probably over due. (I think our family's over due fees provide the majority of the library's revenue. Seriously, almost every time we go we pay $10 in fees!) My craft table is drowning under a pile of baby girl clothes I've accumulated in the last 5 months. ( I can't believe I have three weeks left!) What you don't see pictured is; the huge beyond huge pile of kids clothes that my kids either don't fit or don't wear, that I am donating to the local DI, a cluttered kitchen, a homeschooling desk covered in papers and books, and toys littering almost every room! :)  Real life for us is often messy, cluttered, and disorganized but it is also filled with art, dancing, friendship, learning, music and, LOVE!

recovering stools

 Lately I have been bored of our decorating in the living room and dining room and I have been thinking of ways to add a bit of fun to those spaces. Somehow our collection of antiques has grown so much that our home really needs to be balanced out with something colorful and fun to keep the space fresh and young.  We really love old timeless things that have a history or connection to the past, but we are young and fun loving and our home didn't reflect that side of us. We needed an element that says "we don't take ourselves too seriously". So in an effort to bring whimsey to our dining room I recovered our bar stools. They were dirty and boring, & needed a face lift bad!

I recovered them with vintage fabric I had purchased a year ago at a local thrift store. I love how they look in the space! They really added that missing element of fun. And I love that they look a little like toad stools.

 Here is what they looked like before  :(

 

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greatest form of flattery

Today we woke up to find that the delivery man had dropped off a great big package filled with yarn from my mom and sister-in-law (it was part of a family fund-raiser). In the package of yarn were a few after-Christmas presents, including a cute little toy digital camera. Lizzy immediately seized the opportunity, and continued taking photos for at least an hour; these are a few of the photos she shot. Without any prompting or suggestions, she took some very familiar-looking photos of things in my craft room. (Interestingly, the lower quality of the images kind of makes for a neat vintage-y Polaroid-esque feel).

Getting organized

My guest bedroom / craft room has just received a much needed cleaning and reorganizing. Maybe it's because I spent every night in there during the week leading up to Christmas. I practically sewed my fingers off in that room and got frustrated when I couldn't find something I really needed time after time.
 I probably should have taken some before pictures to show what this room looked like. It always looks the worst when I'm in the middle of a project, and I was working on at least 5 Christmas sewing projects simultaneously, and don't get me started on how many presents I wrapped in there! The shelving unit was a mess, the floor was covered with thread, wrapping paper and a little of this and that strewn about everywhere! Now I feel at peace when I'm in there, and I can actually find and reach everything I need! :)

My craft room has moved around a-lot through the years. Lets hop in a time machine and look at all its different stages.

In 2006 it was in a little corner of the TV room 

 Then in 2008 when we moved the kids room upstairs I moved my craft stuff into its own room.

 

In 2010, when Trent was getting ready for a big show and our house was quite literally overflowing with frames and shipping boxes, I donated my craft room to storing his paintings and frames, and my craft space was back in the corner of the TV room again. But I tried to make it feel new by adding an inspiration board. This desk is still there but is now used only for homeschooling and computer time (AKA netflix).

This spring Trent built a shed to store his frames and such, so I had my craft room back! It was a big mess and was pretty much begging to get reorganized.

I don't know if its nesting or the starting of a new year but I have spent the past weekend cleaning and organizing this room and I am determined to get my whole house organized and de-cluttered before this baby girl comes in March!

Here's to a new year full of clean organized spaces!

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my christmas mantle

So we put up our Christmas trees this past weekend but I have a confession, we decorated our mantle the day after Halloween! :) :) The felt trees are from my glittered felt Christmas tree tutorial that I posted last year. I'm thinking of making more in different sizes and covering the entire mantle with them. I don't know if I really will, the silver pots and candle sticks are usually a permanent mantle decoration. What do you think?

We need a little Christmas

We put our Christmas trees up this weekend! :) (Yes you read that right.) We are strong believers in making Christmas last as long as possible!  Why not make the spirit of joy and giving last longer than one month a year. :) We all need a little Christmas sometimes.

Haunted house

On Sunday night we realized that our house is haunted!! ;) We even have photographic proof take a look.

 I was trying to snap photos of the kids with their jack-o-lanterns and the settings on the camera were wrong (the exposure was super long). The first photo I took looked was blurry and when Everett walked into the shot he looked like a white ghostly blur. I shot more and realized I could make the kids look more like ghosts if I got out the tripod. I had the kids walk around slowly and then stay in one spot at the end of a long exposure. We were having so much fun that even Trent joined in with the candelabra to see what that did. The bottom photo with light shooting out of Lizzy's chest is the result. Spooky and awesome right? Hope you all have a slightly spooky but super safe Halloween tonight! :) Happy haunting!

halloween decorations

This year it was really hard to get our decorations to look like a pretty display instead of an ugly junk collection. I re-arranged all our figurines and things a million times and couldn't figure it out. Finally I remembered how one of my favorite local boutiques arranged their Halloween displays. By color! When I tried it on our stuff our home transformed! It no-longer looked like a junk shop, It looked cute and intentional. I have to say that the black paper spikes I added to the mantle added that final touch. I got that idea from All Sorts. I remembered seeing and loving her Halloween mantle years ago. My Halloween letters were inspired by her as well I think.

Into the halloween spirit!

I have to tell you all the secret I have been keeping... I'm pregnant!! I am about three months along now and we're so happy! This is one of the reasons I have not been blogging much. I just feel so blah! (The other reason being that I am now homeschooling two kids instead of one and it takes most of my time up.) I have to say that Halloween has me crafting again though!! Trent and I just finished painting the two vintage inspired pumpkin treat buckets last night!  We really love how they turned out!! September is totally a Halloween month for us! Wanna see our Halloweens past? Take a look here, here, and here!

Our tree this year

This year we took our origami advent and hung it all over the tree. Inside are four candies for each of us ,except the baby, to eat as we countdown to Christmas. I think next year I will put scriptures and service projects in each box for a more spiritual Christmas advent. 

The snow on the tree is just one of those"snow blankets" you get in the Christmas section. We ripped it up and I put a little piece on each branch. You might notice that the snow looks worse at the bottom, that is my almost-one year old's doing. :)

My all time favorite ornaments are the scrolls with scriptures on them.  I made these seven years ago for our first Christmas after we got married, when we had no money. Seriously, all we had on the tree that year was a home made popcorn garland, one box of dollar store candy canes, because you get like ten for a dollar, and these scripture scrolls.

All I did was roll some parchment paper and wrote some scriptures in fancy handwriting. Super cheap! It's not even the affordability that makes these my favorite, it is the message they share and the spirit they bring.

Merry Christmas!

Halloween decorations

Welcome! Come on in, have a sip of cider, and take a look around at this years Halloween decorations.

My Halloween banner in the entryway greets all guests. The feather wreath I purchased at Christmas time last year is a perfect touch. I say perfect because is is perfect for this spot and also because it was 50 cents.
 Notice the hand crocheted spiderweb and the accumulation of figurines.  I had no idea I had so many.  Good thing I have a nook with exactly five spots. :)

 

The pedestal bowl filled with pumpkins and gourds is a favorite of mine. The mantle was unfinished till I added that. The masked busts are ready for a spooky party to be sure. Black beads adorn the chandelier and a dollar store crow makes it its perch.

Lastly I share the haunted mansion that my super talented girlfriend created from cereal boxes and masking tape. What a treasure.  I am so lucky to have it.

 

 Happy Halloween!!

My Alice in Wonderland tea party

Ever since Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland came out this spring I have been so inspired by all things Alice. At first I thought I would throw my daughter an Alice party but she was set on having a Harry Potter birthday (I'll blog about that soon, it turned out great!) So, I decided to give myself a party. My birthday was about a week ago & I am now 28.

I made the doily garland by simply folding oval doilies in half and hanging them on crochet thread I had strung up. The doilies are from the dollar store.

I went to many thrift stores and antique stores searching for the right "Drink Me" bottle and I finally found the perfect one at an antique store while on vacation in Loveland, Colorado. I bought tags on Etsy from Caramelos artful supplies and hand wrote "drink me" and "eat me" on them with a brown colored pencil.

Check out this amazing glass box that I found at the same antique store in CO. Inside is a fake chocolate petite fours(Is that how you spell it?) made from salt dough. Later my girlfriend made me a super yummy Chocolate cake with Oreos crumbled all over it! Thanks Emily!

The place settings are super simple but they turned out looking so cute. The plates are pink paper plates by Martha Stewart. I found them in packs of 8 at the dollar store a year and a half ago so I stocked up. Then I put tea cups on each plate with tags that said "eat me".

In the middle of the table are book pages, old door hardware with key holes, an old tea set, and antique keys to keep the Alice in Wonderland theme going.

Hope you enjoyed my little tea party and I wish you a very merry un-birthday! :)

Chalkboard paint on the dining room table

Our table was black before this, but not nearly so exciting. I foresee a lot of fun homeschooling going on at this table.

three blues

Here we have the three blues all on one wall. The bright one, is the first color. The white looking one is the one we went out to buy last night. And the gray little blob is actually a color my husband mixed himself using the too white color we bought. We went with the gray blob color.

Before (left) : the ugly bright baby blue

After (right) : the gray blue my husband mixed

We love how it tuned out!
It helps having a husband who, as an artist, mixes colors for a living :)

collection

I just wanted to share my collection of thrift-ed milk glass.

the wrong blue

Remember this room? It used to be red. My husband and I were ready for a lighter more airy color so we went with a blue. We were wanting slate gray blue and it ended up being bright baby blue. Yuck! We lived with it for two days, couldn't stand it and just bought another lighter grayer color, hopefully it will be better. I'll keep you posted.

lace and doillies table setting

What a fun time I had setting and photographing this Valentines table spread. I'm noticing that recently I have been a little obsessed with lace and doilies. :)I made origami boxes out of grocery bags for the favors on each plate and hand cut/hole punched the larger doilies under each place setting. It turned out great, in fact I love it so much we eat at the bar now so as not to ruin all the "prettyness".

Winter wonderland dining room

The tree in the dining room is our Santa tree I guess because when you enter the room it feels like the north pole. We love it! The table is decorated with felt trees and paperclay snowmen we made ourselves .