Living Room makeover

What the heck is going on?  I almost forgot for a second that I have a blog.  Not that there is anything important or interesting going on over here...I have just let my laziness completely take over.  Ack.

Anyhoo... I have been itching to do something new with our living room.  Maybe it's the cabin fever rearing it's ugly head, or the fact that it's been 5 years since we moved in, and I'm ready for change.  I have been pinning some ideas for a while, and I'm thinking of going a little wild up in here.

Our entire main floor is painted yellow...and I am soooooo over yellow.  Thankfully it is a neutral yellow, so it's not too overwhelming, but there are too many walls that start and stop in weird places, so if we tackle part, we'd have tackle all.  Not going to happen.  Also in my favor, is the couch.  Yes, it's looking pretty sad these days, but while the kids are small, we are not replacing furniture.  It is actually a sectional that is currently split in half on either side of the room.  (see below)

I figured the easiest, most  "non committal" way to make some simple, yet dramatic changes would be pillows, lamps, and curtains.

Too wild??  I'm not sure if I can sell my ultra conservative husband on something like this?

Kinda boring...

Swap out for something with more color/personality??

As I mentioned before, we've been here 5 years and I have never picked out curtains.  That was too overwhelming, and I figured we could just close the blinds for privacy.  Shame on me!!!!  I have been seeing horizontal striped curtains everywhere, and I'm dying!   I've considered making them, but fabric adds up.  Then I found a few tutorials showing how to make them.  With paint!  Say whaaaat?

Source: cuckoo4design.blogspot.com via Sara on Pinterest

TO DIE FOR, RIGHT?

Source: theyellowcapecod.com via Sara on Pinterest

These babies make me happy...so happy...but very nervous at the same time.  Black?  Could I pull this off?

Hmmm...I don't know?  (Images are cut and pasted on...obviously)

Please excuse the mess in the background...we live here.  Isn't this couch so sad.  The two sides may need to be reunited.  It looks kind of limp. :)

Or maybe it just needs some happy pillows and a new lamp shade?  I also toyed around with the idea of Tan-ish stripes...so it's not so...bold?  Maybe I should just stick with a few colors, instead of the rainbow explosion.   I need help!  Any thoughts, opinions?  Is this just horrific and tacky?  I am no interior designer, that's for sure.  Before I spend any money, I'd love some opinions.  Holla!!!!

The twin bed debacle...

Now that Sydney is in pre-school, totally potty trained, and about to turn three, I decided it was time to re-do her room and get that big girl a new BIG GIRL ROOM! Woo-hoo!  I didn't want to spend a fortune, so I decided to just focus on the bed, and the rest can be re-purposed and re-used.  (more on that later!)

I was so excited to drive out to the Stage Coach Barn Sale and look for something fun.  I found a twin bed that was already painted and looked adorable.  It was only about $125, so we brought it home with us!

 {along with this super cute little baby cradle...who say no to this?!}

We weren't quite ready to start the remodel, so it sat in the garage for a few weeks.  I was feeling so confident in my new purchase...until we decided to put it together. 

Problem #1:  I did not bring home the side rails that came with the bed.  I didn't realize they were part of the bed frame, but luckily, the owner and I found each other through facebook and told me she had them.  Had to drive back out there to pick them up.  Minor set back.  No worries.

Problem #2:  Once the side rails were installed, I realized there should have been slats for the mattress to sit on...and I had no such thing.  So we improvised, bought some boards, and had them cut to size.  All is well. 

 Let's get the mattress on there and make the bed!

 Oh wait...what's that?  You sold me a Twin XL bed and neither party knew?  Oh, that's cool.  So I now have a twin mattress, and a ghetto XLong bed that looks RE-DIC-U-LOUS.  Now what do we do?

Well, we went to all that trouble to get the head board and foot board to work, we figured we would just get a regular, run-of-the-mill bed frame and just attach the headboard and foot board to it.  Perfect! {except once you connect the headboard to frame, there is no where for the foot board to be connected.}  Seriously? %#@&

So...we had to load everyone back up, bring the twin matress to the store to return it and purchase the twin mattress/boxspring set.  Super simple.  Seriously, this was fun...ha!  (insert sarcasm)

At this point, our options were very limited here, and since we now owned:
1. Freakishly long twin bed
2. Twin mattress/boxspring set
3. Basic bed frame
4. Cute twin bedding that had already been washed and dried.

I WAS DETERMINED TO MAKE THIS WORK SOMEHOW.

 

So, if you could have seen our family out in the backyard this weekend...I'm happy none of us lost a limb, or an appendage.  {I am convinced we are single-handedly bringing down the property value of our neighborhood...seriously, our dead christmas tree is still back there rotting.}   Um, I digress...

I made Dan get out some form of saw and we just went to town and started cutting things.  Picture him with a hack saw (???) (that broke two blades during the cutting process) and me straddling the bed rail trying to keep it steady as he cut.  It was...interesting.  But alas...

Freakishly long bed rails are  now normal twin size.  Now we just have to figure out how we are going to get the bed together.  To be continued...

Learning to ride with no training wheels!

A friend was telling me that she puts together slideshows for her family a few times a year since they are currently living out of the country.  She uses Windows Live Movie Maker because it came on her laptop and was fairly easy to work with.  To my surprise, I have the program, so I decided to test it out with some photos and videos took of Bryce riding his bike.

It was pretty easy to use!  I am going to create a QR code for the video so I can use it in my Project Life layout!  I will totally be doing this more often!

...and yes, I know this is not the most appropriate song for a four year old learning to ride a bike, but its one of his favorites!

Bryce's Big Boy Room!

We have been busy with a special little boy's new big boy room makeover!  It was waaaaaay over-due, but we decided, spur of the moment, to just go for it!  

 I found lots of cool ideas on pinterest and just pulled a bunch of stuff together.  

  

First we started with a new paint color.  

 I went with (what I thought was) a basic light gray.  However, after it was primed and painted, it dried much blue-er than I thought it would be.

Grrrrrrr.....this still irks me.  Oh well, it's up there now, and its not getting re-painted anytime soon.

To cut back on costs, I decided not to get him a new bed, but instead, we were going to use an old Queen size set that we aren't using, and just gave the headboard a little face-lift.

Dan thought I was crazy for taking on this project, but I convinced him it would turn out fine.  How is it the man has no problem taking rediculous investmentl risks, but can't handle a little spray paint???
 
After some sanding, a few coats of Kilz, and MANY coats of blue spray paint, the headboard was finished.  (So are my remaining brain cells...but that is a different story)
 
 After the paint was dry, we started to tape off one wall to add some stripes.

 We were just doing a darker gray color on top of the base color, so the taping went pretty smooth.

Watching paint dry...
We still have several things to hang up on the walls, but it is coming along!

I've been waiting to take more pics, so this is the only one I have of his room so far.  I hope to get the rest of the shelves and signs up before the weekend.  More photos soon!

Bryce is loving his new room.  He looks so small in this giant bed.  He's been sleeping in it for a week now and I laugh when I get him up in the morning because he is in a different position every single time!  Must be nice to have so much wiggle room!

There's a few more projects I would like to incorporate, like this:

Source: sunshineontheinside.blogspot.com via Sara on Pinterest

or This:

Source: pennycarnival.typepad.com via Sara on Pinterest

And maybe something like this?  I bought some chalkboard paint, so I may paint a big area and frame it with some trim???  We'll see???

Source: mysisterssuitcase.blogspot.com via Sara on Pinterest

Spring Crafts and Decoration

Now that the weather has been feeling much more spring-like, I have been inspired to reflect these feelings inside the house as well!  Since I spend 90% of my life in this house, I am obsessed with decorating for each season.  Mix that with my obsession with Pinterest and we are in big trouble!  I found a few pinterest ideas and had to try them out.  Here is what I came up with!

I swear I "pinned" this at some point, but I couldn't seem to find it, so I just recreated it from memory.  So easy!  I had the vase sitting around, grabbed a package of Peeps at the grocery store along with some colorful Jelly Beans (I think these were Skittle or Starburst Smoothie Flavor?) and picked out some (SUPER CHEAP-O) tulips from the dollar store.  Dump them all together, and Bam...instant Centerpiece.  Very cheap too.  Maybe a cute gift to bring to teachers, or your Easter Dinner Hostess?

Next up, I decided to spruce up my Stove/Oven/Range/Hood...whatever you call it.  Can you tell I'm so savy in the kitchen???  I call it my new Spring Decor Shelf, that's what I call it!

This may have been the cheapest of all my Easter/Spring decor.  

I had all the supplies in my scrapbook stash to make the banner and the bunny frame.

I used some Kraft then white Cardstock to make each flag, and fun spring-y cardstock to make each letter.  We had some twine in the garage and I just punched holes in each flag to tie to another large piece that attaches to the top of the cabinet. ( It is a very scientific process:  I tied the twine to some heavy serving spoons and tossed them on top of the cabinets hoping they wouldn't fall.  Yup, very scientific)

Hobby Lobby had all their Easter stuff 30 or 40% off so I picked up a few of these wooden eggs for some color.  I think they were $2.99, so around $2 a piece??  Not only am I scientific, but I'm really good at math in my head.

The bunny frame was a must because after all the rest of the decor was up there, I had a big empty space right in the middle that needed to be filled.  I just Googled "bunny silhouette", printed out a this little bunny, then traced him on black cardstock.  All you PL-ers...do you recognize the patterned paper from Clementine?  Used a frame I had sitting around and BAM...another free little accent.  

I "pinned" this adorable tree months ago and knew immediately that I wanted to make this.  (you know, because I love labor intensive, arthritis inducing crafts)

It didn't turn out AS cute as the original crafter's, but I still love it.

Like I said, this was very time consuming, lots of steps, lots of work, but I had fun doing it.  There is a great tutorial here, but I snapped a few pics of the steps to discourage you from trying encourage you to make one!

The longest part was making all the leaves.  I cut out some cardboard as a template to try to make the leaves as uniform as possible.  Then rummaged through my paper stash and found some Spring-y colors and patterns.  Trace, cut, trace, cut, trace cut, ignore your kids, trace, cut, trace, cut.

 Gather some good branches from your yard and try to arrange them to create the fullest efffect.

 Again, the tutorial shows how she glued the two sides of the leaves together with a wire running down the center to create the stability and give it something to attach the branch.  Then you just wrap the wire around the branch to create the look you are going for.  I broke several branches during this step and had to keep shortening my branches.  Find good sticks to start with.

I'm glad I made two different sizes of leaves so it gave the tree some variety.

I've been thinking of spray painting the vase, but that seems like a ton of work.  So it will stay this way...for now.

So things are looking a little Spring-y.  Here's a few more Easter Decorations.  

Felt banner was $3.99 at Target...Love!  Loving this weather!  Loving the time change and having daylight at 7:30pm.   Loving this time of year!