Tween Teal Room Remodel

My daughter had a big birthday this year - 10!  And that called for a big birthday gift.  We converted her pretty, pretty princess pink room into a room more reflective of her current tween tastes.  Since she loves all things peacock, we went with a palette of aqua and teal with pops of green and purple.

I also wanted to use this opportunity to improve the functionality of her room, so that meant making a few frugal changes in her furniture.  I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this, so I tried to modify what we all ready had or rely on thrifted and discount finds as much as possible. I'm so happy with the outcome.  Take a look...

We took her walls from pale pink to cool aqua.  I agonized over the color choice.  Too dark and it could have been depressing.  Too light and it could feel cold.  I ended up finding just the right color from Behr at Home Depot.  I always seem to end up picking Behr - something about the saturation and clarity of their colors just feels right to me.  We kept the high white shelves in place - they are so useful for displaying pictures and knickknacks while keeping lower surfaces less cluttered.  The area under her bed is useful for extra storage.  I found some great bins at Michaels to corral nail polish and doll clothes (and does that not say it all about being a tween - halfway between little girl and young woman - sniffle sniffle...) as well as stuff she doesn't need to access daily, like her gear and bathing suits for synchronized swimming.

We modified the arrangement of the room slightly by moving the bed away from the wall and giving her a good sized nightstand with lots of storage.  She is a big reader and needed a place to keep her stack of books and collection of bookmarks.  The nightstand was originally in the guest room and I thought it would be a good fit for her.  I painted it white with green in the cubby and did a harlequin pattern on top using painters tape to help form the design.  That lamp was originally hers, but it is now sporting a deep purple shade - a Goodwill find courtesy of my mommy.

Above the nightstand is a piece of custom art that I created from a thrifted frame.  It was originally a pale peach frame with a colonial blue matting surrounding a poem extolling the virtues of grandmothers.  I snapped it up because I liked the oval shape and that it had a mat all ready.  Once I got it home, I cleaned it up, primed it, and spray painted the frame lime.  For the mat, I painted right over that bad boy with acrylic paint and then slapped on a top coat of glitter for good measure.  I then went to wordle.com and fiddled around until I created something that would fit.  My tween is really into synchronized swimming, so I populated the wordle with terms from the sync rho world.  I was so pleased with how it turned out.  All told, it cost $2 and took less than a hour of active work time.

Hanging from the window is a ribbon chandelier that I made from lots of ribbon and a small embroidery hoop.  The curtains were a close-out find at Ollie's - sheer white with aqua polka dots.  Only $5 a panel!

Her desk resides on the other side of the bed.  With a few modifications to the area, it's a little more functional now.  I covered her original French memo board with a pretty piece of calico that I found at Walmart.  Where the sheer lavender ribbon is stapled to the board, I hot glued iridescent rhinestones.  The pegs holding buckets were originally in our nursery (AGAIN with the sniffling).  I repainted them aqua and wasn't happy with the aqua on aqua look, so I tried to put a opalescent top coat on one to see if I liked it.  I'm still not sure how that will end up - I may just scrap aqua and go purple with those.  On the other side of the memo board are fabric-covered cork boards in pretty thrifted frames (only one is up in this picture, but eventually there will be two - the other one is aqua and as previously mentioned - aqua on aqua it too much aqua).  I'm a big fan of using walls for vertical storage to keep horizontal surfaces clear.  I hope that this helps her to keep her desktop clean and open and ready for work.

After I mounted all of the desk stuff, I found out that my hubby had bought a custom lattice-style memo board for the room at a craft festival.  He was so proud of himself because he NEVER buys decor (or anything really-  he is completely averse to shopping).  I'm thinking we might put that on her closet door since the desk area is full.  Funny story - the craft festival was in North Carolina - my inlaws live there - and when my husband inquired about the color choices, he was informed that (cue pretty southern accent), "his daughter might like this seafoam green and they also have a very nice Richard Petty blue."  Huh?  I've heard of a lot of varieties of names for different hues of blues, but never a "Richard Petty" blue.  Apparently that's a race car driver's signature color?  Can you tell we are not race car fans?  Does one call oneself a race car fan?

Moving to the other side of the room, we kept her 9 x 9 storage cube and swapped out the pink bins for blues, greens, and purple.  She originally had a 3-shelf bookshelf, which was woefully inadequate to hold all of her books, so we swapped it out for a tall bookcase.  We modpodged scrapbook paper onto the back of each shelf to give it some personality.  The books case is large enough to hold lots of books and her American Girl dolls.  Yay - they don't have to live on the floor any more!  I swagged the name banner that I made for her birthday party from curtain to curtain - it adds a nice touch.

Above the cube is a peacock painting we stumbled across at Ross - love it!  And for only $7!  Next to the 9 x 9 cube, we put her teal saucer chair and a little aqua storage ottoman - both from Target.  The ottoman is just big enough to hold a fleecy throw.  With a little lamp on the adjacent shelf, she now has a cozy reading nook to curl up in.

At right angles to the reading nook is her closet and then a little alcove just the right size for her dresser.  We mounted a thrift store mirror that was originally an awful pink and gold color - with a coat of glossy white spray paint, it's perfect in this space.  And then - the piece de resistance...  the custom accessory organizer.  It's made from a thrifted calendar holder.  I removed the back and sanded it down and then stapled chicken wire to the frame.  Next came a coat of primer and some lime spray paint, followed by affixing some cotton batting around the back to prevent the chicken wire from scratching the wall.  After that, I attached the lavender ribbon and screwed little cup hooks around the edge.  I am so happy with this piece.  It's fun and functional.  My tween can now see all of her accessories at a glance.  They are in one central location and are not occupying any horizontal space.  Clips are attached to a ribbon knotted through the wire.  Headbands are tucked into the wire openings.  Necklaces and bracelets dangle from the hooks.  Tiny items are corralled into a hanging bucket.  And pony tail elastics are color coded and loaded onto shower curtain rings suspended from hooks.  This project was worth every ounce of sweat.  If I ever make one again, I will remember that it's easier to snip chicken wire with scissors than wire cutters and it's easier to install screw hooks if you drill a little hole 1st (yes, I am that clueless about hardware) and I will try to find a frame with wider edges so there is more space for stapling.

Rock Climbing Party - Part 3, THE PARTY!

My daughter just celebrated her 10th birthday.  I know this is the ulitmate cliche, but where did the time go?  My beautiful little Gerber Baby has grown into a beautiful young lady, poised on the edge of tweendom, growing like a lovely sunflower - I love her to pieces and am so proud of the independent, smart, caring person she is becoming. 

We celebrated this milestone birthday with a joint birthday party with her dear friend, E.  Both girls turned 10 within a few days of one another (which is remarkable in our district, where tons of the kids are "red-shirted", i.e. parents opt to hold their kids back before starting kindergarten, which means that kids start school at 6 instead of 5.  A lot of the 4th graders in her class were 10 at the beginnging of the year.  I had never heard of choosing to hold your kids back before moving here...).  Anyhoo, both girls wanted a rock climbing party, so we doubled up on the fun with a duel party.  Their joint party was a great success.  The two birthday girls had an amazing time climbing and being feted by their friends.  Here are some of the highlights.

Pizza and drinks were included in the package, so our only food contribution was birthday cake.  For E., there were from-scratch cupcakes with Etsy flamingo toppers.  For my M., I made a kit-kat cake with peacock-colored M&M's on top.  I made the cake from a butter recipe mix, but amped up the fun by using my checkerboard pan.  I finished it off with a cardstock pennant and sound some cool Wilton candles with blue and green flames.  (I set the orange and red candles aside to use at the Skylanders party next month...)  To make the moment special for both girls, we sang to each one separately.

The cake table served as the focal point for decor.  It was topped with a (wrinkly!  boo!) white cloth (a thrift store sheet that I repurposed).  I wish it wasn't so wrinkly - how do you get linens to a destination without wrinkles?  The cloth was adorned with handmade name banners for each girl (denim triangles with iron-on letters sewn to seam binding). 

I made a little vignette with glittery initials, some sentimental baby pics, and a fun pic of both girls together with a birthday message added in Picasa.  The backdrop was made from my tissue paper garland mounted with zip ties from Dollar Tree.  I had planned to mount them on painted wooden dowels, but that didn't work.  I improvised and zip-tied them to the pipe railing instead - it looked awesome!

Scattered on the table were the various favors - a water bottle and free climbing coupon provided by the facility, little cello bags filled with shimmer gumballs (last minute addition when I remembered that we had a ton leftover from Easter) stapled with a scrapbook paper topper, and monogrammed favor bags filled with pop rocks, a carabineer, and a little thank you note mounted on pretty scrapbook paper.  The note read "Thank you for your generous donation.  We're so glad that you were able to help us celebrate our 10th birthdays.  E and M".  We went with a generic thank you since there was no way to know who gave what to the birthday girls.  This was because our girls opted to not receive gifts and instead asked guests to consider bringing an item to donate to their chosen charities - a local food cupboard for M. and local animal shelter for E.  This really warms my heart.  Once upon a time, I was one of those poor kids RECEIVING food from food cupboards like this one, so it makes me so happy that our family can give back and also that my child WANTS to give back.  Not every kid would be willing to pass up birthday presents like this, so kudos to you, E. and M.!  To make transport easy, we brought plastic bins to serve as the donation receptacle.  Each birthday girl made a sign for their charity to add to the bin.

Peeps Garland Tips and Tricks

We just had our first neighborhood egg hunt yesterday and it went very well in spite of being ridiculously cold.  (Nothing like hunting for eggs in the snow.  Oh Spring, you foul temptress, changeable vixen... why dost thou tempt us with splendiferous sunshine only to snatch it away when outdoor events have been planned and evites sent?  Why?  WHY?)  I'll be posting more details later, but for now, here's my Peep garland, which was the inspiration for the whole event.  (Does anyone else throw parties purely to give them a reason to make something they saw on Pinterest?)

I ended up needing 2 boxes of yellow bunny peeps for this.  The first step is to open them up and separate them.  The separation points are quite unsightly, so if I do this again, I will have yellow sanding sugar on hand to patch them up.

After separating them, leave them open for a few days and let them go a little stale before trying to work with them.  It helps the needle to go through if they are a little stiff. 
So after a few days in the open, thread a large needle with at least 2 strands of embroidery floss.  I used yellow in the same color.  Now that I think about it, it might be fun to try it with fishing line so they look like they are floating in the air - maybe next year!  Push the needle through both ears and  pull the thread until about 12 inches from the end.  This is your allowance for hanging to garland. 

 Make a double knot with the tail end and another double knot just past the 2nd ear.  This will help to keep the string in place until the innards adhere to the thread and immobilize it.  More on that later.  Repeat this process, spacing the next bunny a few inches away from the first. 

Do this until all the bunnies are threaded.  Leave another 12 inch tail to allow for suspending that end.  Now, let the whole thing sit undisturbed for at least a week.  This will allow the peeps to harden even more and it will allow the interior marshmallow stickiness to adhere to the thread so that when you hang the garland, the peeps stay in place.

Things that I learned...
These things drop A LOT of sugar.  I mean A LOT!  If you can work on this outside, do.  If you can't, try to work over a tray or something. 
This is not the craft for you if you can't deal with sticky fingers.  You will be a gooey mess.
This is harder than it looks, especially the knotting part.  The first few are OK, but as your hands get stickier and the string gets stickier from multiple passes through the bunny innards, the string starts to get tanglier and your hands get clumsier and it can get frustrating.  You may want to do several shorter strands and just tie them together.

But even with that said, the end product was totally worth it.  It was fun, bright, cheap, and a great focal point for my food table, especially when paired with some quick felt and yarn pennants that I made as well.

Pennants and Picture Display

Yep, I hoped on the pennant bandwagon.  There is something so cheery and fun about them, so I decided to make some for our playroom. 

I used a quick and dirty method with minimal sewing.  I made a template by cutting a triangle out of a cereal box.  I then parked my butt in front of the TV with said triangle, my scrap fabric bin, and a pair of pinking shears from Joann's (coupon!) and pinked my way through a stack of colorful calicos.  Once that was done, I laid out a few lengths of ribbon and pinned the triangles at fairly even intervals.  I then ran the whole thing through the sewing machine.  I didn't even take the time to match the thread to the ribbon.  I kind of like the contrast.  The whole process took me an episode of True Blood.  Once done sewing, I mounted a few clear small Command hooks and swagged my banner around the playroom.  I love them in the playroom and I also love that I can use them for parties as well.

Under the pennant banner, I mounted a wire for displaying artwork.  I don't know why it took me so long to do this - I guess I was nervous about putting a hole in the window trim and then not liking the wire.  No worries now - it was well worth the risk.  I bought a picture hanging kit at Lowe's.  The kit consists of a spool of thin wire and some tiny brass hook screws.  There's other stuff in the kit, but I haven't used that part.  I simply screwed the hooks in by hand, threaded a length of wire through each end and wrapped the tails around a few times.  Easy peasy.  Add a couple colorful plastic clothes pins from the Dollar Store and Voila!  Instant extra art display area does double duty as playroom decor.  And because our playroom was an addition and still has the windows that look into the family room, we can put artwork facing into both room for double the display space.