Beginnings of an Owl Nursery

Well, I have come out of blog hiding again! I am working on some really fun projects around my house right now, and thought there was no better time blog about it!

My 4 year old son and my new baby have been sharing a room for the last 9 months out 

of necessity.

 Here is a picture of her "nursery" located under my son's loft bed.

In the beginning, it worked great and I loved having them both close. But, as the baby grew and her sleeping habits changed, it turned into a headache. 

So we went back to the drawing board and thought about what we could do. I didn't want to move my bedroom downstairs because we would lose our built in closet desks. So, we decided to move my 4 year old downstairs and give the baby the room next to ours. I will blog later about Madison's big boy bedroom , I promise!

The first thing I had to do was paint the baby's room. I gave the beadboard a couple of fresh coats of white, and I painted the rest lavender. The theme for her room is a mix of different things. Owls are the main focus, because I love owls! I hate the pre-made owl nursery decor, so it has been up to me to make a lot of it. This is the first thing I made for her room and I have just kind of run with it!

So besides owls, I want her room to have a vintage, chic feel and I also want it to be eclectic and fun!  I love Pinterest and that is where I go when I need inspiration. Here is a link to Caitlin's room board on Pinterest.  It took me a while to find a starting point because there are so many cute things I would love to do. But I also have to be budget friendly. 

So here is where I am at right now

I made four tissue paper pom poms, and I plan to add some white lanterns and  colored honeycomb balls. The pennant banner is something I made out of vintage fabric from my stash. I also have plans to frame a letter "C" for that wall.

I had such hard time deciding what to do with this lamp. I originally planned to spray paint it pink, but decided the blue was pretty. The yo-yos and ric-rac are vintage from my craft stash, and I think it all came together great!

Here is the dresser, which sits across from the crib. The found the mirror at Wal-mart and it was only $25! I would have loved to find a vintage one, but I had to be frugal and I am impatient! I plan to surround the mirror with various prints and make a gallery wall. 

This bookcase is on the same wall as the dresser and it is already nice and organized. I got the baskets and bins from Wal-mart, Ross and the thrift store. I would like a nice chest or bin for under the hanging dresses for extra storage. I also want to find a way to display some of Caitlin's vintage dresses in a fun way. 

So, that's where I am now. There is still a lot to be done, but I am happy with the progress. My good friend Ashley gave me some super cute fabric for curtains and I still need a cute area rug. I will post more as I go, and maybe even a tutorial or two!

Until next time...

This is for Ashley

A friend of mine has recently encouraged me to start blogging again. So this is for you Ashley!

It has been over a year since my last blog entry and I am sitting here thinking, "Where do I even begin?"

I will keep it simple and abridge the past year and a half in pictures!

My big boy is 3 and in preschool

I got pregnant in February of 2012

And had a sweet baby girl named Caitlin

 

And I am starting my Etsy for selling vintage children's clothing and toys!

 

Other then that, life has been the same around my little green house. I am still a full time nanny and now with two kids we keep extra busy.

 

So, until next time...

 

Organizing: My hutch

I love my hutch, even if it is still brown :)

What I did not like about my hutch was the lack of functional organization it had. All of my cookbooks, kid's craft stuff, and other random books were thrown inside in a jumbled mess. I didn't get out the coloring and painting activities as much as I should have because it was just such a hassle! Something needed to change.

Here is my hutch before the change:

And here it is after!

There is still a spot for my cookbooks, but the rest of the shelves are devoted to the kids. Underneath I keep my re-usable shopping bags and there is a bin for my cloth napkins and a bin for paper lunch bags and paper plates.

The blue and green bins are from the dollar store. There is a bin for crayons, a bin for stickers and stamps, a bin for bubbles, a bin for paint, ect. Now it is much easier to grab what we need and even easier to clean it up! We have been coloring and painting a ton more since doing this.

I am still planning on painting my hutch. Maybe something like this:

Two closet offices in my bedroom

We recently changed rooms in my house, forcing us to move our computers into our bedroom. I love my house, but it is seriously lacking in rooms and storage space. We got creative with our small-ish master bedroom: my husband built a closet for his computer and we turned the existing closet into an office for me. I couldn't stand the thought of having blah spaces for the computers in my bedroom, so here is what we did!

Here is the before of my closet space:



Ugly black dresser stuffed into the closet...yuck!

And here is the after!



We built a custom desk into the odd shaped space




I created my own stencil to decorate the walls in my office



The paint looks black, but I actually used silver stencil paste. I used stencil vellum and hand cut my stencil with an x-acto knife. A little time consuming, but worth it!

And I have a spot to hang my purses in this odd storage area that was pre-existing



Here is a picture of my hubby's closet space before:



Please forgive the ugly state of my bedroom from last year!

And here is a picture of Steve's office:



We built this into a pre-existing storage space located behind the wall that runs the length of the house.

Lots of work to be done still, but its a start! More pictures of my office decorated and organized to come soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

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Vintage lunch tray upcycle

I recently saw this project using vintage dinner trays as a frame over at blue eyed freckle

Totally cute right?


I fell in love with the idea and I just happened to have a vintage lunch tray laying around the house. I used mini clothespins and pictures from my son's 1 month photo session.

So here is mine:

Now I need to find a place to hang it!

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