Craft Room Makeover

I have been meaning to share my craft room. I finished it a looong time ago, but I never got around to taking pictures of it and posting about it.

I have barely set foot in here, other than working on a few things for S.R.'s Room at the beginning of the summer. Once the kids go back to school, I will have more time to work in here.

So, let me give you the tour of this walk-in-closet-turned-craft-room.

There isn't a lot of space, but it's perfect for what I am doing. 

The antique sewing machine belonged to an aunt or cousin of my mother's many moons ago...not exactly sure what her connection was. 

When I was a little girl, I used this sewing machine table as a desk to do my home work on. I can't tell you home many hours I popped that pedal up and down while working away on homework.

 The way I had the room set up before made it very difficult to stay organized. To see a before, you can go here.

I ripped out two wire shelves(FYI-they leave ENORMOUS holes in the wall), and gave the walls a fresh coat of paint.

I did a major cleansing of the craft room as well, and donated an entire van load of crafty goodness. 

Now that the clutter is gone, everything has a place, and there's some room to grow.

I needed an "idea board", and loved the look of a crib spring. It's been all over Pinterest, and I had one. Trendy and free...can't beat that!

  My main storage piece has to be my most favorite thing in the room. I had these cube shelving units, but they always ended up looking messy and disorganized. I looked online for storage bins, but they ranged from $6-$12. I needed 18 storage bins...that's a lot of money! So, I went to Target, and low and behold in the dollar section they had storage bins($3 each). I wanted all the same color, but when you're rummaging through the dollar section, one cannot be overly picky.

I found inspiration from the Land of Nod

here

&

here

With 2" wide painter's tape, number stencils, and some white fabric paint, I was able to get a similar look.

All of this for less than $60 versus $108-$216 before taxes and shipping. Not too shabby, eh?

 Another favorite in the room is the diy chalkboard. 

It is an access point into the attic, but with a little chalkboard paint, now it's actually a useful piece...I mean it was useful before..if you needed to get to the backside of the attic..but it's even more useful now, since we'll probably NEVER bust through it to get to that part of the attic:o)

I'm totally digging this new space, and it's so much easier to create in an organized environment...well it will be once I have a few minutes to myself;o)

 What are some ways that you have organized your craft space? I would love to hear!!

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Handmade See Saw-Made by Me!

Guess what. 

I've been doing a little wood working...

and I'm totally digging it..

like a whole lot!

S.R. asked the hubs to build her a see saw the other day. 

I found the plans on Ana White's website, and after looking them over, I decided that I could make it....all by myself.

The hubs has been so hard at work on the half bath, I thought it would be one less thing for him to worry over, and I could try my hand at construction.

He cut all of the wood for me because pressure treated wood is so heavy. I needed his muscles to straighten the base a bit (the wood was warped) and to attach the see part of the saw(is that right??;o)), but other than that, I did it by myself. 

S.R. kept asking me if I was sure I knew what I was doing...I did because the instructions were so easy to follow. I plan on staining the wood to match the play set soon.

The kids LOVE their new toy. The neighbor kids LOVE the new toy. I LOVE that I made something that everyone LOVES! Now I'm ready to find something else to build...any suggestions?;o)

On a side note, I thought I would share the beautiful rainbow we had in our backyard the other day...I love moments like these when we can take a second to appreciate God's promises. 

I hope you all are having a great day. Try to stay cool in this heat!

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Fresh Picked Flowers

I love fresh flowers. I picked these from our backyard. Aren't they pretty? I hope you're having a great day!

We're in the middle of a bathroom reno right now...tiny spaces make me cranky...so I think I'll just peruse Pinterest and look at my pretty flowers...that way I won't have to go paint;o)

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LEGO Table

You can find more information about this table HERE.

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Window Valance and New Look for the Couch

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend. I got to spend some good old fashioned quality time with my little family, so it was definitely a good weekend for me.

In the midst of that, I was able to finish the window valance and pillows for S.R.'s couch.

If you were with me during Crafting with the Stars, you know that the hubs built this couch for S.R. It was made to fit a crib mattress so that it could be used as a bed for her guests, or for E when they are having "sleepovers".

This little couch has gotten a LOT of use! 

 The large pillow in the back is something I made with some of the remnants of the quilt fabric. Super easy to whip up. The other three pillows were purchased from Target. The square pillows had been marked down to $5.99 and the bolster pillow was around $13. The crib sheet was another Target purchase, and it may have been around $9.99.

 The window valance took some planning and searching online for inspiration. After about an hour, I finally decided to take a few different ideas and put them together.

I really like the end result and I like it much better than the panels that were there before. 

This room has been a lot of fun to put together. Just one more post on S.R.'s "bigger girl room." I'll share with you the art project that is going on the wall beside her bed. 

To see the finished quilt, you can go HERE.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Riley Blake Dress Up Days Scalloped Quilt

Back at the beginning of this year, I decided to make S.R. her own quilt, and to turn her room into a bigger girl room. When I was pregnant with her, I made one for E, which you can see here at the end of his bed. I felt it was time she had her own "made by Mommy" quilt. 

Her favorite color is purple, so I searched for several weeks to find the perfect combinations of fabrics. Riley Blake had a line called Dress Up Days, and S.R. and I both fell in love with the prints!

After seeing the Girl Inspired's Scallop Quilt, I knew that would be the perfect design for S.R.

I will have to say, this was a rather expensive quilt to put together. S.R. has a full size bed, so I had to purchase extra fabric. After all the blood, sweat and tears (yes, all three occurred), it was definitely worth the fuss.

I attempted to machine quilt it myself. However my machine messed up and the bobbin stitches were all loopy, so a very dear friend and I had to pick stitches for over 3 hours. Bless her! I decided to throw in the towel and send it off to be quilted. I'm so glad that I did. I love the end result. The flower stitching is a perfect match to this whimsical fabric.

I had a lucky find at Target the other day as well. They had this bed skirt marked 50% off. Just an FYI, purple really isn't "in" right now, so it was fairly difficult to find coordinates for this bedding. There is a lot of purple and pink, but not a whole lot of purple and orange.

The matching throw pillows were made with the ruching technique, and the puppy pillow was my first attempt at hand embroidery.  Pillows are one of the easiest ways to really dress up an area!

The sheets were purchased at Walmart, and I was really excited that the polka dots matched the colors in her quilt!

I have two or three more things to finish up in the room...a valance, an art project and an accessory or two to add, and her bigger girl room will be complete!

Stay tuned to see some of the other areas of her room! 

To see the before, you can go here!

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New Chore Charts

Now that summer break is here, I decided it was time to reinstate the chore responsibilities for the kiddos. Last year, I made a chore list, and my intentions were to teach E and S.R. responsibility and the value of hard work, but my system was truly broken and our excitement for it lasted all of one week. 

Expecting my kids to do the same things over and over again day after day was just expecting too much. I certainly don't do the same things day after day. We all need a little variety, right?

So to fix my broken system, I searched on line for age appropriate chores. 

It's truly amazing what little ones can do...we really don't give them enough credit. If you check my Pinterest board, you can visit the sites where I found my ideas...

This particular idea came from the Martha Stewart website.

 Thankfully this little project was mostly free to me. I had one sheet of magnet paper left. I printed the kids' pictures and the chores with the money value on them(in 25 cent increments). I had blue card stock, and cut it down to size and put the kids' pictures on top and made little button magnets to hold the bottom in place. 

The paycheck pad is something made on publisher. I used Vistaprint to print the notepad. Once it arrived in the mail, I attached magnets to the back.

We are now on week three and still going strong. The kids get to pick some of the chores to do and I delegate some as well. Saturdays are for make up work because sometimes we are gone and they don't get the chance to really make any money those days.

It is amazing how much cleaner my house is now. If you haven't started making your kids do chores, you are truly missing out....and so are they!

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