Kid's Rooms

In an earlier post, I showed you the Photoshopped mock-ups I made for the kids to approve their bedroom designs.  Here's how my daughter's room turned out:

The carpet was originally blue.  We dyed it purple.  Thank goodness I only needed to paint half the wall, because that pink took at least 5 coats!  That's what I get for buying cheap paint. 

We installed the wainscott and trim, painted glossy white.  The headboard was painted in the same glossy white.  I installed the girly chandelier and swapped out her closet doors for mirrored ones. 

She loves her new room and calls this her princess bed.  <3


My son's room:

He'd begged for bunkbeds and I couldn't resist. His room has the same wainscot as my daughter's room, but the trim is stained instead of painted.  I love how that looks with the deep blue paint.

I apologize for the sparse number of pictures.  (Running out of storage in Picasa.)  To see more, come visit!

Photo Collage

Today I obsessed over a multi-photo frame.  Here's the result:

Prepping photos for framing

I wanted to frame my kids' recent school photos in the 4x6 frames I'd recently bought.  Here's the original pic of my son:

The problem was that they weren't the right proportion and I didn't want to crop them.  To solve the problem, I stole a page from the digital scrapbooking book.  I opened a 4x6 document in Photoshop and covered it with a patterned digital scrapbooking paper.  Then, I plopped the photo down on top of it.

I adjusted the saturation and lightness until my (originally green) paper matched the gray background.  Then, with a soft brush set at 22% opacity, I erased the background to allow the pattern to show through.   Here's the finished result:

The original picture of my daughter:

And the 4x6 version:

Framed!

For some reason, decorating relieves stress for me.  That creates a bit of a conundrum because during this stressful time I'm living in someone else's home!  Fortunately, my mother-in-law has been very gracious. 

Color Theory:  In the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew, everybody painted their living room walls mauve.  It is said that mauve relieves insanity.  It is a color often used in prisons and hospitals for similar reasons. 

To ward off depression during my hubby's deployment, I painted my room (AKA the guest bedroom) bright green.  I hung gorgeous white curtains and bought a white duvet cover set that I have plans for....
Then I played musical frames.  I started with these:

After a quick swap, we have:

I bought two 4x6 frames in a similar ornate dark wood.  I then added pics of the kids (more on that soon):

 

I like the way it's turning out.  What are you working on?

Toddlers Telling Time

Today's obsession is how best to mark the passage of time while Daddy is gone. 

The first strategy involves apothecary jars filled with jelly beans (1 for each day of the deployment).  Each day, the child gets to eat 1 jelly bean.  To avoid fighting, we'd need a jar for each child. 

A fun thing to do before my husband leaves would be researching which jelly bean flavor is each child's favorite. Then, each jar could be filled with their favorite flavor bean!  I can imagine my son choosing the buttered popcorn flavor because he often eats popcorn with Daddy.

The second strategy is a paper chain.  Each day, one link is removed from the chain.

I like these because they're patriotic without being over-the-top.

These are gorgeous, but wedding-themed.  I'd have to custom print the paper with messages from Daddy for each day and markers like "Halfway there!"

My final conclusion?  I need a better way to cut my scrapbook paper with these cute patterned edges!  (The little scissors never work very well for me.) 

What ideas do you have to mark the passage of time?

Growth Chart

Admittedly, I've been out of commission for a few days while reading the new Dan Brown novel.  Not wanting to shirk my blogging duties, I'll share with you a project I completed a few months ago: a growth chart.

Being a military family who moves often, we needed an alternative to tracking our kids' growth on a doorframe.  Many growth charts commercially available are too cartoonish and furthermore, too small!  My son could easily grow past 6' and I'd like to be able to chart the whole way.

The solution:  I purchased a 1x4 and placed it on the wall at the height I wanted it to be.  Then, I placed a tape measure over it (starting at the floor) and taped it to the wood.  I woodburned the ruler markings into the wood.  I also woodburned the family name into the top of the growth chart.  Two coats of natural polyurethane and it was finished!  Here are some pics of the finished chart (with the names of my children removed):

Minimizing

 In the past, I've had precious items lost or damaged during a move.  This time, we're going to try packing ourselves and using a POD.  It's an exciting possibility, but it means that we must fit all our worldly possessions into an 8x8x16 foot box...  Therein lies the problem. 

Some of the decisions are easy:  Of course we'll sell the old sofa, give away the wall heater covers, etc. 

Some are less clear:  How do you get rid of picture frames without knowing which ones you'll want in the new house? 

And some require getting creative:  When my husband proposed to me in Boston, he did an amazing job of it!  It's a long story that ends in a room filled with 20 dozen long stemmed red roses.  I dried them and enjoyed having them hung around my room.  They were boxed and moved with me to Ohio.  They remained in the boxes.  We moved to California with the roses still in those original boxes.  Now that we're about to move again, I couldn't bear the thought of them moving around in boxes yet again.  There must be a better way... 

After obsessing about it for a while (that's what I do, right?) I made this:

Now instead of 4 giant boxes, I have one 12x12 shadowbox.  My roses will be on display where I can enjoy them and it's a small step toward reducing our footprint.  Tell me what you think!

Kids' Room Decor

My family is preparing to move again.  Hubby is off to war and I'll be house shopping while he's gone.  That leaves me to dream of decorating my imaginary new home (a source of joy and stress-relief). 

The kids currently share a green, sheep-themed nursery.  It's beautiful, but in the new home they'll each have their own room. 

I'm currently leaning towards a nautical theme for my son's room.

My daughter was a born fashionista (One of her first words was "shoes".)  She also loves the color red, so she might have a sophisticated and dramatic room.

                                            

It's always fun to think and plan ahead!  I'm off to help a friend set up her new home.  Have a great one!