Big Girl Room

Remember this post?  The one where I talked about my ideas for my daughter's fairy bedroom?  Well it's finally finished!  


The very first thing I did to prepare for the "transformation" was buy a new fairy puzzle to glue together and mount to a surface.  The fairy puzzle was my inspiration for creating the room - right down to the colors I hoped to use.  I glued the puzzle together and mounted it to a piece of foamboard using Mod Podge.  The Mod Podge served both as glue and as a sealant/gloss. I used pink ribbon as a "frame" and the same pink ribbon to hang it from the wall.  Here is the finished product:

I picked the wall color to match the grass in the puzzle.  It came out to be a pale mossy color.  Claire insisted to keep the yellow chair rail which matched her nursery bedding.  Luckily it doesn't look to bad.  


I knew I wanted to have a canopy over her bed but I didn't want to pay the hefty price tag that comes with them.  So I looked up how to make one of my own and I was pleased to discover it was rather easy.  I started with a styrofoam wreath ring from Michael's. 

I wrapped it in a sage green ribbon to keep the styrofoam from "snowing" all over her bed.  I bought fake flowers which matched or complemented the puzzle colors. 

 Using my trusty hot glue gun, I created a wreath.  I glued pink tulle around the inside and draped pink ribbons down as well.  I used pink ribbon to create a way to hang the canopy from a hook. 

I wanted a bit more artwork for the walls.  I searched the internet for just about everything fairy.  I came across this artist who creates adorably whimsical artwork.  I bought a 2011 fairy calendar for just $5 and picked out my favorite images from it.  I applied them to canvases with Mod Podge (my fav, can you tell?), and made some pretty cute wall art (if I do say so myself). 

Alright, so there's most of the little details.  I found some great little wall decals (including one that said 'I believe in fairies').   Would you like to see the whole thing put together?  Claire's new big girl fairy room?  I thought you did.

Week 3: Linen Closet

Our linen closet needed help.  Big help.  It was so bad, I'm afraid to even post before pictures.  But I will because I know there are people like me out there who have ugly, cluttered, completely disorganized closets too.  Basically our linen closet housed towels, sheets (most of them poorly folded), extra pillows, blankets, cleaning supplies, rags, extra toilet paper, baby bathtubs, potty seats...and about 3 years worth of toilet paper wrappers.  There was stuff in there that I forgot we had.  God, this is embarrassing.  Okay here we go. 

Before

Ack!  Sorry you had to see that.  Looking at it now, I can't believe I took so long to clean it all up.  As you can see, I couldn't even stand in there, let alone see the floor.  To organize it, I pulled everything out and organized them into piles: towels, sheets (according to bed size), beach towels, blankets, cleaning supplies, rags, trash, and 'attic'.  I bought 6 stacking baskets to house the towels and most of the sheets.  I wish I had at least 2 more of those baskets actually, so next time I go to Target, I'll probably pick some more up. 

 Towels got put away along the edge of the wall, and sheets along the back.  The wooden bin on the floor now holds all of my cleaning rags.  There's a spot next to the rags for the bucket (lovingly known as our puke bucket). 

Cleaning products got put away into a big bin with a lid.  Other miscellaneous items are also placed on the shelves.  I turned the mirror around so I can actually use it if I need it. 

Pillows, extra blankets/comforters are organized and on the top shelf.

So there you have it!  And it's stayed clean for over a week now!  Hopefully I won't let it get back to the "Land of The Lost" again.  On to the next!

Week 2: Pantry Organization

Well I'm already behind on my goal of completing one home project a week.  This time, my excuse was sickness.  At least one of us was sick everyday for the last two weeks.  We're not all 100%, but life is back to normal enough to finally get back to this blog. 


This week, I organized our pantry.  We're blessed that our little house has the potential of having good closet space - we just need to utilize that space correctly.  So my first step in utilizing storage space was with the kitchen pantry.  It didn't turn out the way I had envisioned, but it gave me some ideas for other parts of the house that need help.  


Alright, so here's my before picture. The outside.  Not so bad. 

The inside.  Yikes!  Obviously way overdue for some TLO (tender loving organization).

I started by taking everything out and throwing away expired items.  Then my helper and I organized what was left into six bins.

 

 The final result

It's better, but I'm not quite in love yet.  I'm thinking of adding some paper to the shelves to look something like this...

....but that seems like a lot of work and I have too many other things around this house that need my attention.  So we shall see if I get motivated to tackle that one!

A Work In-Progress

While I'm working on this week's project (pantry organization!), I wanted to talk about something that I've been working on for a little while: My daughter's "big girl room".  Right now, her room is perfect for a baby, but it doesn't quite fit the four-year-old that she is today.  She loves fairies, so I'm playing around with a fairy-themed room, using one of her favorite puzzles as my inspiration. 


This is her room now:

Lots of pink pink pink!  Her "new" room will have a twin bed, a dresser without a changing pad, and the glider will be retired to the attic. 


And here is my inspiration: Melissa and Doug floor puzzle

Her wall color will be "lemon grass green", kind of like the lawn behind the fairies in the puzzle, and I found an adorable wall sticky that says, "I believe in fairies" 


Other accents that I'm hoping to incorporate are:
"floating" fairies

Fairy growth chart

purple gazebo over her bed

New toy storage:

I've got all these great ideas but I can't decide on the right bedding.  I'll keep you updated on my progress.  I can't wait to have it finished and unveil it to my daughter!

Week One: Map Art

Since having children (we have two - ages 4 and 21 months), we've made some changes to the layout of our home.  What was once the office/den, is now our dining room, and the former dining room now houses all of the toys.  The walls in our "new" dining room have been bare for far too long, so I wanted to find something to hang or display on the wall behind the table.  Our dining room also doubles sort of the entry to the house.  You walk in the front door and directly to your right is our dining room.  So I figured it should look nice, right?  Right. 

To show you what I mean, here's the front door

(don't you love the toys and balloons in the picture?  Get used to it. I have kids and clutter and they show up in my pictures.)

 So here's the empty wall.  See?  Nice and empty.  Needs some perking up, don't you think?  To the right of the picture is the front door.  And all the lovely clutter.  Like I said, get used to it. 

Not knowing what I'd like to put on the wall, I needed to get some ideas.  So I headed to one of my favorite places: Pinterest.  I stumbled across this website which describes how to turn an ordinary map into wall art.  I just happened to have a vintage map collecting dust in my closet.  It belonged to my grandfather and used to hang above his desk.  

Here's the map. It's been folded, rolled, ripped and patched up many times - it has seen better days.  But I love it and it reminds me of my grandpa.  So it's perfect. 

According to the directions from the original website I found on Pinterest, I needed to find some canvases.  I was in luck, because Michael's was having a sale on value packs of canvases - score!  Once the kids were in bed, I started working on the layout.  I wasn't able to get them to cover the map perfectly, so I had to sacrifice a bit of Greenland, Brazil, and the Atlantic Ocean in the name of art.  

Now here is where I screwed up.  I had planned on spacing out the pieces - creating small gaps in between each one.  But when I made the layout, I forgot to factor in the gaps.  So if you plan on doing something similar to this project, and you want gaps between the canvases, make sure to do that from the beginning. 

Alright, so I figured out my layout:

Then I traced around each piece with a pencil, and very carefully cut them out.  Using a foam paint brush and my new favorite product, Mod Podge, I glued each piece of map to it's corresponding canvas. 

When dry, I again pulled out the Mod Podge and painted over each piece to create a clear glaze (2 coats).  Done!  That was the easy part.  The tricky part was getting it on the wall.  

You see, I don't have the best track record for hanging pictures on straight or evenly spaced.  Even with a leveler, it never seems to turn out the way I saw it in my head...without at least a few extra holes in the wall.  So I needed a fool-proof way to get my map art on the wall.  

So here's what I did: 
    1.  I used a big roll of paper, laid the canvases down how I'd like the them to appear on the wall, and traced around the outside edge.  Then I cut along the line so I'd have a piece of paper that's the same size as the completed map art.  I would use this paper as a template to figure out my positioning on the wall. 

     2.  Because there weren't any hooks on the canvases to hang them on the walls, I decided to use push pins, and they worked really well.  I simply pushed the push pins into the wall and hung the edge of the backing of the canvas on the push pins 

push pins in the wall 

     3.  Next I needed to figure out where on the wall to put the push pins.  I taped two small nails on the backs each map piece.  

     4.  When each map piece had two nails a piece, I lined the canvases back on the template I had cut out earlier.  When I was sure of the placements, I pushed the nails in to the paper.

     5.  When I removed the canvases from the template, I was able to see exactly where I should push the push pins into the wall.

     6.  I removed all the nails from the canvases, then took my template with the new holes in it, and lined it up on the wall where I wanted the map pieces to go.  I used some masking tape to temporarily place it on the wall.  
     7.  Using the holes as guides, I pushed a push pin into the holes and into the wall. When I finished making all the holes in the wall, I took the paper back down, and filled in each hole with a push pin. 
     8.  This was the best part - hanging up each piece.  I simply lined them up against the correct pins, and viola!  A finished product!

 

my not-so-bare dining room wall!

And there you have it!  All in all, it took me a full week, working evenings and a few nap times to get it finished.  It only cost about $45 - not to shabby!  I'm happy with how it turned out, but I'm more proud of finally being able to display my grandfather's map and to have a reminder of him every day. 

On to the next!!

First Post!

Welcome to my very first entry for my home organization blog.  My idea for this blog came from my desire to finally complete some projects that have been on my "to-do" list ever since we bought our house five years ago.  In those five years, we've completed only a few updates, and while we may not have the budget to complete some of our bigger dreams (new windows, central air, etc), we certainly can do a lot more to make our home a prettier, more comfortable and organized place to live.  


My plan is to *try* to complete one organization or home improvement project (with the help of my wonderful husband) each week.  Along with the weekly projects, I'll have a few long-term goals I'll be working towards as well.  I'll be taking photos and updating this blog with my progress, and hopefully it will keep me motivated and excited to keep going.