The Girls' Room

We are a one income family.

We live on a budget.

Also...

.

.

.

 I'm a visual person.

Big time.

My husband talks to me all the time about changes he wants to make to our house.

I always nod my head and then ask him one question.

 "Will you draw it out for me?"

If I can't see it...

I don't know if I'll like it.

Anyway, my point is that because I'm a visual person, I like to look at pretty things.

I like things to look nice.

This is probably why home decor fascinates me.

BUT, when you combine these two worlds of mine...being on a real life budget...and being a very visual person who loves decorating, sometimes you have to just:

"Do the Best You Can with What You've Got."

I definitely took this to heart when I redesigned my girls' bedroom.

The first three pictures below are the before shots of their room.

{It was functional, but didn't exactly appeal to the whole visual side of my brain.}

Before . . .

Before ...

Before...

{Yup. That's a bathroom over there to the right.  It needs remodeled too.  All in due time my friends.}

Here are the "After" shots of the girls' room. 

I spent only $2.00 on some minor little details for their room.

One of the first things I did in here was, obviously, rearrange the furniture.

This is always the cheapest makeover anyone can do.

Just play around with the stuff you already have.

Put it in a different place and see what a difference it can make!

The other thing I did was go out to my garage and gather a bunch of scraps of molding I already had.

A lot of the pieces were only 12 inches long.

But I had enough to piece together a long ledge or "shelf" for that one wall.

Someday I may add some bead board below the ledge on that whole wall.

For now it will just stay how it is, and that's as good as it's gonna get.

So where, you ask, did I spend that $2.00????

I spent one dollar on that little mirror. {Dollar Tree}

I spent the other dollar on the pom pom fringe for the lamp.  {Walmart}

This wall art, on the other end of the room, was another free project that I did.

It happened to come together so easily.

My neighbor was trimming one of his trees and a bunch of the branches were falling into our yard.

So I kept one of the branches, spray painted it lightly with white paint, stitched together some small stuffed birds out of some left over felt I already had, added a few tissue paper pom poms and walaa!

Looking at this picture I now realize that I forgot to put eyes on those cute little birds.

Oh-well.

My girls and I still like them anyway.

The frame in the picture below was made with some stencils I already had from Michael's.

I thought the word dream was fitting because I hope my girls are blessed with wonderful dreams while they sleep in this room and I also hope that they dream big in life.



The last project I did in this room was this

'I am a child of God'

pennant banner.

I cut triangles out of burlap, stenciled the letters on them, and hot glued the triangles to some twine.

I hope that my girls notice this banner when they look in the mirror so that they will know how special they really are.



I had so much fun decorating this room with things I  mostly already had.

Well it's late and I still have to finish baking some rolls tonight for Easter dinner tomorrow.

Happy Easter Everyone and thanks for reading this super long post!

Linked here:  Sugar Bee Crafts, Somewhat Simple, Sew Much Ado, Beyond the Picket Fence, The Shabby Nest, Just a Girl

Girls' Room Makeover - Sneak Peak

A few months ago we decided to put both of our girls in the same room so our three kiddos could have a playroom.

It's been heaven having all three kids toys contained in one room.

AND even though our girls are almost five years apart, they've been doing just fine sharing a room.

When we first bought our house, we were so excited that each of our kids would have their own room.

But, the more we thought about it, the more we thought that maybe sharing a room would benefit them more...at least for the time being.

When our kids get older they're probably going to have roommates in college and they'll obviously share a room when they are married someday.

So what better time to get used to a roommate and sharing a space with someone else than right now?

I also hope that since there is such a big difference in their age, living together will allow them to get to know each other better than if they lived in separate rooms.

Already there's been nights when I've walked past their room and seen my youngest daughter laying on her older sister's bed while she is read a bed time story.

So cute.

Well...right after we did all the room switching, we just kind of left the girl's room as is.

They had the basics in their room, {beds, dressers, etc.} but the room wasn't decorated hardly at all.

The last few weeks I've been working on it a little bit at a time and it's finally almost ready for the big reveal.

{Actually, it's not that big of a reveal, but there are some definite changes, ha!}

Here's a sneak peek:

The key ingredient to redoing this room for both girls was actually just doing the best I could with what I already had.

So stay tuned to find out what I was able to come up with!

Dresser Makeover {Reveal}

Okay, so as promised in my post here, over the weekend this bunnified dresser went from

this:

To this!

It's not a huge dramatic change. 

But it's classic.

I chose to use a plain white paint color I already had left over from some house projects and I picked up some knobs at Home Depot for $1.79 a piece.

I also removed the old dated wrapping paper from the inside of each drawer...

and replaced it with some fun aqua colored wrapping paper {found on clearance at Target} that I mod podged inside the bottom of each drawer.

It's so fun to see a pop of color each time I put away clean clothes or grab a clean shirt for my little girl!

And can I just also add that I had so much fun using my husband's power sander!!!

Power tools rock!

No wonder husbands like them so much!

They sure make the job go faster!

{Total cost of this new transformed dresser for my little girl:  $18.00!}

Linked To:

Making the World Cuter

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

Keeping It Simple

The Girl Creative

Somewhat Simple

The Shabby Chic Cottage

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Tales from Bloggeritaville

The Shabby Nest

Tatertots and Jello

Dresser Makeover

Ever heard of freecycle???

A couple months ago, during a conversation with my mom, I told her that I was looking to buy an old dresser to replace my daughters changing table.  I wanted something old but solid that I could fix up.  I was planning on scouring garage sales or thrift shops to get the best bang for my buck.

Before I'd gotten around to actually finding a dresser, my mom called and said she found just what she thought I was looking for...and it was free!

{Such great news!}

Check out the link above to find out more about how freecycle works in your area.

Don't you just love all the bunnies?

Well bye, bye bunnies! 

I'll be spending my weekend fixing this dresser up

...from the inside out.

Check back Monday to find out how this dresser makeover turns out! 

Ruffle Pillow

First off, pardon the horrible yelloweee picture below.

I don't usually get my creative juices rolling until after dark when the kids are in bed.

Hence the horrible lighting.

Anyway, ruffle pillows are EVERYWHERE nowadays.

If you are wanting new pillows for anywhere in your home, there are so many amazing tutorials out there.

Pillows make any room feel cozier.

I was in the mood for a ruffle pillow for my little two year old's room.

So following THIS awesome tutorial from House of Smith's, I started on my new journey with ruffles.

I didn't follow her instructions exactly...

I didn't pin my ruffles as I went I just kind of tucked each ruffle under one layer at a time and sewed right down the middle.

I left my edges raw and didn't hem them because that's the look I was going for.

...that and it was late and I was feeling a little lazy...lol.

I didn't have an insert for my pillow, and I wanted to stick with just using what I already had.

So I snagged an extra pillow (that never got used) out of my daughters closet, cut it open, and used that pillow's stuffing to stuff my new pillow.

Walaaa!

Here it is on my little girls bed.  Since transferring her out of a crib about a month ago, I still have no idea how I'm going to decorate her room or what kind of bedding I'm going to use. 

Any cute suggestions are welcome!

...by the way, I'm not a very experienced sewer AT ALL but this project turned out to be pretty easy.

So if you're interested in ruffles, go give it a try! 

You'll be amazed with what you can create!

Linked To...

Somewhat Simple

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Tales From Blogeritaville

The Shabby Nest

Tatertots and Jello