one room challenge - week 6

We have arrived at week 6 of the One Room Challenge (see week 1 - 5 here) and I'm ready to put everything together. Mostly. I've only got a few things left to do and then there is that whole putting the room together thing. I'll be busy this weekend. That's for sure.

But enough about what I still have to do, let's see what I got done. I warn you it's not much, but maybe if I talk about it in a really up beat way, it will seem like a bigger deal. Smoke and mirrors people.

The dresser is finally finished and he's been moved in to the room. He was a lesson in patience and has earned his own post. Soon enough dresser. You will get your day.

I also finished the silhouettes to go above the girls' beds which was refreshingly easy. (that passive agressive comment is for you dresser) The hardest part was trying to get Eve to sit still long enough to take the picture. (bribery and a doughnut works wonders)

To get as high contrast in the pictures I set the girls in front of a window and snapped away. Take a look at those yummy cheeks.

I printed them off in black and white, which again helps with the contrast, and then cut my child's sweet little head. Thanks to the contrast, it is very easy to follow the lines.

Then I centered the black and white silhouette on top of the colored paper (pink for Eve and yellow for Amelia) and traced the black and white silhouette with my x-acto knife, leaving me with a simple and colorful silhouette. But when I pulled the finished silhouette away from the paper, I decided I liked the silhouette void even better than the silhouette itself. It acts like a mat and gives the silhouette a bit more presence. Voila. Happy silhouettes. (I'm going to call Guinness as soon as I'm done writing this post to see if I've broken the world record for number of times using 'silhouette' in a single paragraph. Fingers crossed)

And finally, I picked up the cherry on top of two very happy beds.

Now to put it all together. I've only got three items left on the list and #5 has me stumped. Should I go with grosgrain, pom poms or some awesome new trim I don't even know about? What say you?

1. Come up with functional floor plan
2. Paint walls/ceiling/trim
3. Paint dresser (new hardware too) 
4. Update vanity (maybe some fun color or hardware)
5. Find curtains and add trim
6. Add a rug and new bedding 
7. Hang art and create some personalized pieces PROGRESS
8. Find/Install new light fixture (buh bye ceiling fan)
9. Reupholster chair and possibly add comfy floor cushions 
10. Find/Make lampshade(s) 

I don't know about you, but I'm excited to see how this will turn out. Let's check and see if anyone else will be doing some last minute cramming.

Chattafabulous 

Chinoiserie Chic 

Classic Casual Home 

the Cottage Mix 

Cottage & Vine 

Design Indulgence 

Design Manifest 

Everything LEB 

Hodge Podge 

Kim Macumber Interiors 

Matters of Style 

My Crafty Home Life 

Nicole Scott Designs 

Pacific Family Homes 

Pawleys Island Posh 

the Peak of Tres Chic 

the Pink Pagoda 

Powell Brower Home 

Simple Details 

pom pom heart art

It was pointed out to me by Amelia (my 5 year old) that we don't have any Valentine's Day decorations. Now unless it is Christmas I've never really gotten into many decorations, but I'm not one to ever deny the wee ones some beauty. And what better excuse for afternoon crafts with the girls than Valentine's Day prep.

I loved the pom pom pillow that Camila created (inspired by the always wonderful Anna Spiro) and thought it would be a great chance to use up the left over pom poms I had from Christmas. But to involve the girls in the project I decided to include some finger painting.

This canvas has been in the basement for quite some time. I can't remember what this project was for but obviously it didn't turn out very well. No sense in letting it go to waste.

The girls were given a choice between blue, pink or yellow.

They chose blue.

As with any good finger painting project, it didn't take long at all to get the canvas covered. My little artists did quite a fine job of creating layers and depth of color I think.

Next we created a heart to cut out

and positioned it on the canvas. I traced the heart with a blue pen so we would have a line to follow

while Amelia laid out the colors in a pattern. (which isn't really a pattern at all but a word she loves to use)

the can kept the paper from moving

Making sure to follow the outline, we put the glue gun to work.

We made ourselves a fine little heart and the girls LOVED bossing telling me which pom pom to put where.

There was the last minute addition of a pink border around the frame after it was decided that there wasn't enough pink. And really, when is there ever enough pink, right?

It is a hit with the girls and has been featured in about every room in the house. I might not be able to limit it to Valentine's Day.

Do you do much decorating for Valentine's Day? Do you even celebrate Valentine's Day? Do you have a babysitter you can send over on Thursday?

Bower Power

child's play - the christmas mantel

Last year, the Christmas mantel was all about the ribbon. This year however, I wanted to do something like...I had no idea. I never know when it comes to the mantel. I've accepted the fact that I will have chronic paralysis in this area- especially at the holidays. So I just thought I'd wait for inspiration to strike. And then I saw this.

My 5-year-old, Amelia, took it upon herself one day to delicately remove everything from the coffee table and do her own decorations. "Mommy I made you a centerpiece. Isn't it beautiful?" She comes by it honestly.

I am an encourager (and the enforcer, but that's a different post) so if she's got the styling bug, who am I to deny her the pleasure. So I decided that this year's Christmas mantel would be all about crafts ala Amelia. Eve would offer all the moral support that 20-month olds can provide.

I had pinned this last year and thought it would be a great jumping off point.

The Wool Acorn via Pinterest

We went the speedy route and opted for pre-made little pom poms from Hobby Lobby instead of making our own. And we raided my mom's Christmas supply for a bunch of pinecones.

Amelia picked out the color schemes and decided on the placement.

She would hand me a ball and say, "put that one there." I was merely the hot glue gun operator. The whole thing went really fast. I think we were done in about 4 Christmas songs (love Pandora). A perfect craft with little ones who don't have very long attention spans.

She did a great job I think. This girl has got some mad color dispersing skills. And she practiced great restraint  I would have been gluing balls all over those things. That sounded weird.

Of course, I had to get into the mix a little bit. My contribution - an pink ombre pinecone.

So with our pinecone Christmas tree village ready, we made some garland. And what kind of garland do you make when your husband works for Dunder Mifflin? A paper chain of course.

Again, Amelia was in charge of picking out the colors. We talked about red and green but she wanted her favorite color - rainbow. She's learning about creating patterns at school, so this was a perfect activity.

 An afternoon of quality girl time produced one colorful Christmas mantel.

The jewel votives work really well with the colors in the trees and garland.

Birds eye view.

Christmas is the ultimate kid holiday, so I thought this was rather fitting. And since I get free reign of the house the rest of the year, I thought the girls should have some input into how our living room should look for Santa's arrival. As Amelia pointed out, the fireplace is like Santa's front door to our house.

So, welcome Santa.

How about you? Ever put the holiday decorations into someone else's hands? Any good holiday crafts you recommend for kids?  Have you ever tried to explain to a 5-year-old that rainbow is not a color, but rather a whole group of different colors? Don't bother, it is a loosing battle.

I linked up to Clean & Scentsible and A Thoughtful Place.

paint a rug party - week 3 reveal

Happy Paint a Rug Party Reveal Day! Did you get the day off work? Just you wait, next year it will be a national holiday.

I've had three weeks to put this sucker together (catch up on week 1 and week 2 if you missed it) so let's see what we've got.

First, to answer the question from last week. The votes were a lot tighter than I thought (thanks to everyone who shared their opinion), with Navy/White squeaking out a win. However, I forgot about one important voter - the hubs. He came home that night and said 'yeah, I don't want a pink rug.' I was so impressed that he actually read it, that I gave him the deciding vote. So Navy/White it is. (Don't worry, you'll be seeing the raspberry somewhere else soon)

As I mentioned in week 1 I read thru a few tutorials and decided what I would need to make this happen. With the kids in bed and a nice cocktail in hand. I got started.

The rug was brand new ($9 from HomeGoods) so no cleaning was needed. If you were doing this with an existing rug, I would make sure you vacuum the crap out of that sucker before painting.
The first coat of paint needs to be the color under the tape (remember that whole negative space thing) so the white paint went on first. I just used some Kilz (in white) I had on hand and mixed it with one bottle of fabric medium. But I didn't measure it out exactly. I guess I'm more of a chef than a baker. Anyone who watches Top Chef knows this difference.

The first coat went on and I wasn't encouraged. The paint did not spread. At all. It basically just stays wherever you pour it. It took a lot of muscle to get that paint to spread at all. I tried both a brush and a roller and found that the brush is best to begin with to get in all the little crevasses. (with a sisal rug)  Then, finish off with the roller.

THREE coats later (2 coats with a brush and 1 with a roller), here is where the night ended.

With Step 1 complete, I let it dry overnight.

Next up. Tape.

I made my two base lines, making sure that the tape met right in the middle of the rug (the only measuring I did.)

I thought I'd have to measure out each piece of tape to make sure everything was consistant. But to my great pleasure, once I had the middle taped and knew that it was in the center of the rug, I realized I just needed to tape from that center outward in each section and they would all work out to be even.


So using my level as my spacer I taped out the first section.

It spaced out perfectly. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

It can get a bit confusing to keep track of which lines should go which way so it is best to think by section. The lines of each section should go the opposite way of the lines from the previous section. Clear as mud?

With the rug taped out, I pressed the hell out of that tape working to get it as tight as possible to limit bleed.

Then, I poured out my paint and fabric medium to mix together. Hmm, I could have sworn the paint chip I gave to Home Depot was Navy. This looks awfully...royal.

Worried about the color, I went ahead with the first coat. It covered only slightly better than the other paint, probably because there was already 3 coats of paint that had filled in some of the gaps in the rug. However, you still gotta put some muscle into it.

After the first coat it still looked more royal than navy. I tried not to freak out and hoped it would get darker once it was dry.

No dice. Not blue enough and not the color on the chip. Mistint. Not cool Home Depot. Not cool. Luckily my brilliant hubs suggested we add some left over Farrow&Ball black to darken it up a bit. Extra birthday present for you my dear. So I mixed in some black and arrived at a color I think I want to market. I will call it Midnight in St. Louis. It will sell like hot cakes.

Much better. Just like with the white, I went ahead and did three coats of the blue as well. I let it dry, again, over night. Then pulled off the tape to discover this.

Wahoo! I was actually really impressed with how well the tape did to prevent bleed. There are a few spots that could use some touch ups, but I've decided I kind of like the imperfections. And I'm not at all saying this because I'm tired of painting this sucker.

It looked so good I decided it was the perfect addition to the kitchen.  It's happy and does a great job of hiding all of the things that someone seems to drop in front of the sink.

It also feels a lot better under foot than I had anticipated. Not sticky and maybe even a little less scratchy that plain old sisal.

I'm glad I did this and I'm happy with how it turned out. I say give it a try. It's much easier than you would have thought. Thanks Linda for thinking this fun up!

Now let's go check out how all the other ladies did!

Chinoiserie Chic

Design du Monde

Design Post Interiors

The Junk House

My Best Friend Craig

My Crafty Home Life

Pawleys Island Posh

The Pink Pagoda

Room Rx

Seekers Bazaar

Simple Details

Trapped In North Jersey

the souvenir treatment

As you might have guessed, I like to do a little bit of shopping on vacation. (last vacation related post, promise) But I never really gravitate toward souvenir type things. We've already got enough crap at home, we don't need any additional t-shirts or koozie holders.

But there is one exception. Sea shells. For some weird reason I'm wicked psycho about seashells. It is physically not possible for me to walk down the beach without bending over every two steps to pick up a shell. It's great cardio. I even have a type of shell that I look for each year - this year was sand dollars. (told you - psycho much?!)

This means however that each year, at the end of our annual beach trip, I have a huge basket of seashells that I can't bring myself to leave behind. So I also pick up these old glass canisters from the local architectural salvage thinking I'll store all my shells like some awesome organized person.

And each year they sit in the garage of some awesome unorganized person.

So this year, damn it, I was going to get these things cleaned and put in their place.

First things first, I followed these steps to clean the shells. I had to do them in batches and they took forever to dry, but otherwise not hard at all.

I wanted to add a label to mark each year but I didn't want to stick or spray anything on the canisters. So I went to Michael's and picked up some labels Martha made some for me, and grabbed the twine from the garage. (which ironically was right next the the shells on the shelf)

I didn't want anything to precious or perfect but rather relaxed and easy - just like vacation. So I just wrote the year on each label and tied them around the top of the jar with the twine.

Voila.

Each year lined up and ready to go.

For now they are living on the bookshelves in the family room so I can look at them while I watch TV and remember good times. (the trips, not the tv show) Dynomite!

btw - I HATE taking pictures in the basement. Crap lighting.

What do you bring back from vacation? Does it end up in the closet? Have you found a special place for it?