A Tree Has Grown

After looking at kid’s room on HGTV’s Rate My Space I saw quite a few rooms with tree or flower silhouettes on their walls. I really wanted to copy the idea for Madison’s wall  to break up some of the purple. I found a tree picture online, printed it out and sketched it onto the wall in pencil. It took awhile because I kept going back and changing a little here and adding a little there. When I thought I was happy I started painting it in with leftover white paint. Well the idea looked better in my head than it did on the wall. After one coat of paint I wasn’t sure if I wanted add a second probably third coat in hopes it would look better or scrap the whole idea and repaint the purple.

Then I saw this post on It’s the Little Things That Make a House A Home.

LOOK at that tree! The whiteboard idea is great but for my tree I’ll stick with regular white paint since the tree is behind her bed and just for decorate purposes. This would be a much easier idea and much easier to paint. And it was…

I cut leaves and a bird out of leftover fabric from when I made her crib bedding and ragamuffin garland and curtains (which are now in McKenna’s room) then I stiffened them with “Stiffy” and glued them on the wall. I love how it’s 3D (although kinda hard to tell from the picture)

$24 Wall Art

When I saw some starfish in one of my new favorite stores (check that post out later this week) I knew I wanted to use some in my new/future bedroom. They were $1.75 a piece. While I was visiting my parents house I saw a bunch of frames they had bought on clearance at Michael’s. They were just my style, black with a distressed finish so I bought them from her.  The smaller ones (holds an 8x8 piece of paper) were $4.99 and the bigger one (holds an 11x14 piece of paper) was $6.99! So I decided to frame the starfish in them but instead of just using a blank piece of paper I printed out a few of my favorite quotes on cardstock then just cut the paper to size and glued on the starfish.

“Each day when you awake know that you have one more day to make a difference in someone’s life.”

- James Mann

"Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain."

- Anonymous

“It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

- Ursula K. Le Guin

I have my priorities straight…I made art for a wall in my bedroom before I even started tearing off the wallpaper! So this is the direction I’m going in modern coastal….Is that a style?

My Challenge

Ok, so I have a million unfinished projects around here and I’m thinking of starting another….

Our bedroom is the only room we haven’t touched since moving in and it’s been killing me everyday to look at the ugly wallpaper. Hubby is out of town for 4 more weeks so I was thinking about starting AND finishing the bedroom while he’s gone. You think I should take on the task??? It involves taking down the wall paper, patching the walls and sanding, painting the walls and I really want to do the board and batten technique.

Our Suburban Cottage 

Then there is furniture to redo and accessorizing…Hmm, when you put it all out there I’m not so sure 4 weeks is enough time.

 

P.S…Camera update: I tried the troubleshooting I found online and the outcome is I need to send it in to be serviced. :-( Now the question is do I send it in and spend probably at least $200 or buy a new body of an updated version? My rebel is over 4 years old.

Cheap Finds

I hopped into HomeGoods the other day and came out with a couple good deals from the clearance section.

I found this cute piggy bank for my youngest to replace her other cute one that had a little run in with the floor.

The one is the best deal I’ve ever gotten from HomeGoods…

 

It’s a little (about 16”) metal angel for my oldest’s room and it was…wait…ready…70 cents! Regular price $9.99!

A 5 Min. Makeover

My sister has one of those machines that makes the wall decals…I am sooo jealous. It would probably be a really bad thing if I had my own though (walls covered with decals from floor to ceiling.) So for now I’ll just give her my list…

(notice the ugly wallpaper that has yet to be taken care of!)

This is my headboard. I’ve had it for over 10 years and got it free when I saw it sitting in the basement of the house my father-in-law moved into. It’s been painted many times and many colors but I’ve settled on black for awhile now and I think the black is going to stay. It has a raised medallion in the center and since I love monograms and decals I had my sister make me a “B” for the center.

A Work In Progress

I’m wondering if I’m every going to get to a point where this house is finished and I can just sit and relax, hopefully for awhile before it’s time to move onto a different house. This past weekend we made a few small steps.

We changed out a few light fixtures. Let me tell you a couple of things about our lighting situation. Our house is old and has old wiring and until we get loads of money to change out the wiring we’re stuck with what we have. I thought that meant being stuck with the old ugly light fixtures too but I was wrong. Our living room, dining room and bathroom have wall switches so I knew those could be replaced but the rest of the rooms have pull chains and if you’ve ever wandered through the lighting section the only pull chain lights they have are the ugly ones that are already in my house. So here is the solution…I came across lampsplus.com and saw beautiful light kits for ceiling fans. They even had chandeliers for them with pull chains. The only problem was I didn’t want a ceiling fan in every room. I purchased this one and was determined to make it work without the fan because it was perfect for my 3 year olds room.

Before

After

It worked! Hubby just took off the old light but kept the box thing that was attached to the ceiling and screwed in the chandelier instead! I’m thinking about buying this one for my little ones room now.

Before

After

We also added crown moulding to the dining room.

 

Now I’m in the process of Layla-izing some of my kitchen cabinets.

Eye Candy

Excuse me while I wipe the drool from my chin…I just finished looking at the new Restoration Hardware catalog…

These are some of my favorites…

 

Ah, now to win the lottery!

Toilerrific

I’m sharing my love of toile!

I’ve figured out I don’t have nearly enough toile in my home. It’s pretty much limited to my girl’s rooms.

I had made a crib bedding set using Central Park toile for my oldest and when she moved into a big girl bed I turned the bumper into a couple pillows.

This ragamuffin garland has touches of toile and I tied strips on to her name letters.

I think toile is the perfect touch to a shabby chic room. These are curtains in my little ones room that I made using Central Park toile.

Sorry the pic is dark but she was sleeping.

Lastly, I got this great bedding for when my little one moves out of a crib.

Thanks for stopping by on the toile tour!

Check out all the other toile fans over at the Pretty Organized Palace.

I Am Happy

Don't you just love it when things fall into place??

I went into HomeGoods awhile ago and spotted a pink toile comforter that would be perfect for my little ones room when she moves into a big girl bed but it was $100 and I didn't have the money at the time to buy something that I'm going to have to hold onto for probably another year. They only had one of them so I cast it off as something that would never be in my home.

A few weeks later I went into the same HomeGoods and saw it still sitting there but $100 is more than I have ever spent on bedding so I stayed and drooled over it, feeling the sample of fabric they had on the outside of the package (it's a really soft microplusg) then walked away.

So this week I went into a different HomeGoods with my tax refund in hand to look at dining room chairs. While I was there I browsed through the kids department and was surprised when I saw my pink toile comforter but at this store it was $69.99! It was calling my name and I couldn't say no.

Here she is...

Taming Kid Clutter

I'm joining in on my first Linky Party! Wendy at The Shabby Nest and Pretty Organizer are hosting a taming kid's clutter linky party. Kid clutter is definitely something I have a lot of! Right now I'm buried...with Christmas and then both their birthdays a month later, we have an abundance of toys! Our house is small, so no separate playroom, our living room is where they spend most of their time (Ok now I'm singing the Fresh Prince of Bel Air Theme).

We have this storage unit that I bought at Target in the living room.




This wall storage from Ikea holds diapers, lotion, Hair accessories, Etc. for the living room.




This Ottoman from Target was a great purchase!

Both girls have a hanging storage organizer (Ikea) and a basket for stuffed animals (Target) in their room.

I picked up this cute box at Michael's yesterday ($5.39 with a 40% coupon).

I love this bookcase I bought at Target.

My oldest has this door organizer from Babies R Us that we used to hold pull ups after we got rid of her changing table.

Hmm, can I get paid for every time I mentioned Target??? Hope you got some good ideas!

Shopaholic

I went to my favorite store, White Home Collections today. I just get all warm and fuzzy every time I walk through the door and yet I hate myself every time I go there because I find so many things I want to take home. I was looking for night tables and a new dresser for my bedroom. I've very excited that I found tables and I saw a few dressers that I like but I don't think were quite big enough and of course found a few things that weren't on my list.

My new nightstand, exact finish as my bed. ($39)

I'm going to put this cute vase on my new nightstand. ($14)

I've been wanting a locker basket for awhile so of course had to buy this one when I saw it. ($16)

Hubby's nightstand is still at the store. I also saw a vintage kitchen scale that I think I'm going to have to get when I go back.

Genius

I saw the most genius thing on HGTV's Color Correction. They were redoing a purple bedroom and gave her a tufted headboard with gorgeous white satin fabric. I've seen them make tufted headboards before, normally they take a piece of plywood, drill holes for the needle to go through, cover it with foam and wrap it with fabric, then tuft. This time instead of plywood they used a piece of pegboard, no need to drill holes! I've always wanted to make a tufted headboard and I have a piece of pegboard in the basement. Unfortunately no room needs a headboard, but maybe tufted wall art??

Rate My Space

I love Rate My Space! Anytime I need motivation to work on my own house all it takes is looking at a few pages of RMS. Today I'm tackling my bedroom. It has become a dumping ground for everything that doesn't have a place and we desperately need a storage solution to our clothing situation. I'm not an infomercial person but I will definitely be buying these. I already have my bedding and pillows and curtains but I need new furniture. I'll be on the lookout for anything I can turn into a trash to treasure project. I can't decide on the furniture or wall color. the bedding and curtains are white and I have accent pillows and a throw that's a pretty grey/green/blue (not sure what the actual color is called). I'm thinking I'll take that color and maybe just do the bed wall with it and the rest white? Currently the bed is black, I'm not sure if I want to keep it that way or go with white furniture. Oh, the choices!! I just can't wait to get to the accessorizing! HomeGoods I'll be there soon...