Confession

It's finished!!

Remember the armoire that I found on Craigslist??

It's now painted white & shabby chic!!

I LOVE how it turned out! A few of you have asked me for tips on painting, sanding, etc., and here's the best advise I'm qualified to give...

have an expert paint it for you!!

That's right. I TOTALLY cheated on this one. And it was worth every penny! I realized, after spending an hour on just the drawers, that I may never finish it. So I had Jeff at Facelift Furniture paint it for me, and he did an awesome job. If you're a BCS local, check out his website. He has some great pieces for sale, or he can custom paint something for you.

I'm off to another project, one that I will not be cheating on :)

Our First Build {Complete!}

WAY back in April I shared with you the beginning stages of my first build of any kind. We finally have it complete! It sat in our garage until we moved in to the new place in mid-June. It has taken me a while to get the room ready for any kind of photo-op. It's still not complete but at least the bed area is in decent enough shape that I can show you how it turned out.

We painted the bed black and held off on making the side rails...mainly because those have to be built in place. Frankly, we were also WORN out from getting the house ready for move-in and just didn't have the time or energy to get them built and painted. Remember, we built 3 of these. The girls beds will be shown in another post later. I would have preferred to have the rails but these work just fine... and maybe one day we can do that and sell the rails on Craigslist.

I just got a $15 white dust ruffle to cover the metal rails.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. It's a feeling of accomplishment to have it done. Remember the plans can be found on Ana White's website. They really aren't that hard to build and I think we probably spent between $80-100 for the bed. $45 of that was for the metal rails... so if you have time and plan to build the wood rails (which give the bed a better farmhouse feel) you will save some money. Either way, it's better than spending $500 for a Pottery Barn bed.

Linked here:
The Shabby Nest
Miss Mustard Seed
Chic on a Shoestring Decorating
Beneath my Heart

Craigslist find

So this is my current project! It's not much to look at right now, but it's got GREAT potential! The girls' bedroom now has 2 twin beds in it, so in lieu of a big dresser, this dressing armoire takes up half the space. I've just started with the drawers and hardware, but soon enough it will be shabby chic-ed, white & distressed. At least that's what I'm going for! Wish me luck!

Prayer Pail

Are you taking down Christmas decorations and wondering what do with all of those Christmas cards?

Create a Prayer Pail!!

We let our girls pick out 1 card each night & we pray specifically for that family. We love looking at the pictures ALL YEAR & are hopefully teaching our kids how to pray for others.

Finally finished!

Remember the girl's room that I've been working on??

Well, I'm finally done!!

I found this picture on Simplified Bee and was completely inspired! I love the combination of blues and pinks. It's girly without being too babyish. Plus, I'd already painted the knock-off version of the Pottery Barn bird painting, so it was really just meant to be.

The Serena & Lily bedding, while beautiful, didn't exactly fit my budget. So I used this light blue comforter & sheets from Target. And I found this GREAT coordinating pillow at TJMAxx. Her black bed (which you'll see when you scroll down) is 1 of the 2 that I bought in Round Top.

For her nightstand, I grabbed this piece from the mud room. Since it was already painted blue & provided 4 more drawers, it was really a no-brainer. I brought back in the painting and flower lamp and added a crate of books on the floor for easy access.

I kept my younger daughter's bedding pretty simple. The coordinating blue pillow is the "container" that my older daughter's comforter came in. I just stuffed it with stuffing and re-buttoned it. I had intended to bring in the other matching black bed, but reconsidered after realizing that the old crib would make nap time and bed time easier for now.

And here's a few more pictures of the finished room...

I love how it came together but love even more, that it's done! :)

I'm linked to...

Painting on walls

I love finding inspirations in catalogs of things I'll never be able to do or afford. I've torn things out of catalogs a hundred times to put in my "eventually I'll do this" file. I've been unhappy with how my four-year old daughter's room has looked since we got her a new bed and rearranged her room. She had this long wall with nothing on it that couldn't be filled with any more furniture. When I saw this picture in the Pottery Barn Kids catalog I was inspired!!

I love the entire room. Ideally I'd buy the whole set...but of course I live in a world with a budget! I showed the picture to friends and my husband to get their feed back and a vote of confidence that I could actually do something like this. Well deperate times (aka: sick kid, unable to get out of the house) call for extreme measures.

I took this blank wall (excuse the window reflection) and hand drew a tree form using the picture above as a rough guide.

I used brown acrylic paints from a craft store to paint the tree form on the wall. This was the point where I knew... NO TURNING BACK.... like it or hate it it was staying! :) I am no artist... so this was a huge risk for me.

Of course no craft project in my house of three kids under 4 turns out just as I plan.... while out prepping a template for leaves my 2 1/2 year old twins decided to help me out with the paint job. Imagine my horror (and delight) to find they had painted the wall ... but DIDN'T come close to the tree!

I used a template to start painting leaves on the branches.

Then I added flowers in varying shades of pink and red and added lighter colors to accent and add dimension.

In the end it doesn't look much like the PBK version and it's by no means perfect... but I think it fills the space nicely. Eventually I may hang a bird cage on the right branch that looks a little funny... but we'll see if that ever happens.

Eventually I'll finish the REST of the room...

linked here:

Making the World Cuter

Keeping it Simple

The Girl Creative

kid's closet

I'm following in Lindsay's footsteps today... cleaning up & cleaning out! I began to organize my daughter's closet this weekend while I was already in her room painting. Might as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone! My biggest hurdle...combining her closet (and everything in it) with my younger daughter's stuff.

Closet #1

Closet #2

I began with organizing all of their bows.

I realize they have a ridiculous amount!! My mom makes and sells them, so they're the lucky beneficiary of every color you can imagine. I simply tacked up 3 rows of ribbon. And I found these unused storage racks in the garage, which worked well for shoes and books.

2 hours and 1 goodwill box later, I ended up with this...

Much better! Now back to decorating...

A new look for the girls

Beadboard. Check! New paint. Check!

What do you think?? At first glance, it looks half-way professional, right? I found that wood putty & caulking can fix just about any flaw. Can you see my mistakes??

I used Morning Fog 401-1 from Pittsburgh paints.

I thought it would be a tad more grey, but I'm still happy with it.

Now for the fun part...decorating!!