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.

announcment

We went to the doctor this Tuesday and found out that we're having a girl!! We are all so excited, even the boys wanted a girl! Immediately after leaving the doctors we all went to the thrift store to celebrate! I had given almost all my girl clothes away during my last pregnancy when I found out I was having another boy. I am not regretting giving them away because most of them were not that awesome any way. I kept all the best ones, but that wasn't very much. I have to say the pink dress is my most fave! I bought it a month ago hoping I was having a girl. I figured if I had a boy I would turn it into doll clothes or give it as a gift. All the other outfits I bought at the thrift store Tuesday. The pink bonnet is something I crocheted for Lizzy when she was a baby and I am still in love with the colors and design. I'll have to throw a pattern together sometime. It is super easy to make. I found all the quilt fabrics at thrift stores throughout the past year. I went through all the fabrics and put together a girly collection.  The color pallet kind of evolved and I really like how it turned out. :) I am so excited to be having a girl! I have so many ideas for sewing and crocheting her clothes! I'll be sure and share them as they come to be. Take care!

vintage school books

I have a collection of vintage school books that my daughter uses to practice reading.  The illustrations in some are so incredible.  I thought I would share a few. :)

 Thanks for stopping by! :) Come back soon because I have some ruffles up my sleeve for See Kate Sew's Ruffle event!

Thrifty Thursday : typewriter, tablecloth, crochet baby blanket, and vintge fabrics

 

I have a serious addiction to thrift stores.  My home is filled with thrift-ed finds. The mirror, metal tray, antique book, glass bottles, and wrought iron candle sconces, were all thrift-ed at different times throughout the past six years. (I am currently hunting for the perfect entry table. This stand in particle board shelf isn't doing the trick for me.) My most recent purchases are probably some of my most favorite though.  Just last week I found the Tiffany blue typewriter. I have another typewriter (beige) that looks really similar that is also thrift-ed. they will look great together. I also found this hand embroidered table cloth.

   The other thing I found was this hand crocheted baby blanket with cross stitched animals.  I love this blanket the most I think. I love to sit and stare at it while I'm nursing the baby. I am so inspired by the combination of crochet and cross stitch. I now have crochet/cross stitch ideas added to my ever accumulating list of craft projects.

The top photo of fabrics is my collection of vintage sheets. A collection of three! Ha ha! :) I hope to create a collection as awesome as Rachel's someday. The purple gingham is not sheets just a piece of fabric, also thrift-ed. In the second picture of fabrics you see my collection of non thrift-ed gingham. It is already outdated since just last night at Joe-Ann's I found some tiny mint colored gingham and a medium turquoise ,and a black gingham. I have plans for using these in kids clothes and quilting. I am looking for some giant orange gingham ever since I saw this. The last photo is a close up of the hand embroidered tablecloth. Isn't it lovely? :) Thanks for stopping by and thanks for all the crochet gnome hat love! You're all so awesome! What are you thrift-ing these days? :)

antique babies

Every year my husband Trent has a Christmas gift theme. Last year was "cooking" and he got me recipe books and cooking gadgets. This years' theme was "vintage".

He got me two beautiful antique dolls.

The small one is from the 1930's (?) and the bigger one is from the 1920's.

About a week before Christmas I got on Etsy to look for a vintage doll for my daughter and found some of the most beautiful composition baby dolls. I was about to buy this one for myself. ( I still might.) Trent noticed me swooning and sighing whenever I saw one. He convinced me not to buy any of them though.  He later sneaked out to the local antique store and bought these two lovelies for me, and I remained clueless the whole time ;) Both my dolls are made out of composition, which is super awesome. 
The bigger one cries when you lean it forward and closes it's eyes when you lean it back. All this time when I would look at this exact doll at the antique store I never picked it up, and on Christmas morning when I leaned it forward I almost died from adorable overload when it cried out!  I can't believe it's mine!
They're soooo sweet and I love them so much. Thanks honey!