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.

Girl Scout Journey Celebration

My daughter's Junior troop recently completed their Journey to earn their Get Moving badge.  They spent the last year diligently working on it, learning about energy and conservation along the way.  The Journey concluded with an event at a local park to celebrate their accomplishment.  Because I love parties, I volunteered to assist the mom leading the event.  She was gracious enough to let me be her collaborator on the project.  It was so much fun to share this project with her - thanks, T.!  We are kindred party-planning spirits!

To honor the journey, we stuck with an earth and conservation theme and worked to bring in lots of color as well as upcycled and reclaimed elements with some pretty vintage touches as the cherry on top and is that a run-on sentence or what?

Food
Dirt cups:  Chocolate pudding and crumbs with whipped cream, enclosed in mason jars - the ultimate eco-friendly party tool.  T. gussied them up with cupcake wrappers on the lids for a punch of color.  She stacked them in a beautiful dark wood crate, which I totally covet!

Earth cupcakes:  Modified from this post (skipped the heart center), these were a hit.  Topped with a simple buttercream, they were quick, easy, and festive.  Side note - when I tinted the batter, I wasn't thinking and did more green than blue and it irritated me all day that my ratio of "land" to "water" was skewed.  Did I mention that I'm a geek?  Anyhoo, regarding the frosting - I did hear from some girls that the frosting was a bit too sweet.  Does anyone have a buttercream recipe that's less sweet?  Mine is 2 sticks butter, 4 cups powdered sugar (which I reduced to 3 cups), and a splash of milk and a bit of vanilla.  My favorite frosting is the cooked frosting recipe listed here - it is TO DIE FOR, but I was worried it wouldn't hold up in the heat - even the buttercream got a little flat and melty and buttercream is MUCH stiffer than this cooked frosting.  (And in case I wasn't clear - this frosting = AMAZING.)  But if you make it, do yourself a favor and do not use store-brand butter.  Name-brand butter only.  You may also want to do a practice run before trying to make it for an event.  There are some traps that can make things go very wrong.

Fruit Skewers:  T. and I split them up and each made half.  I really liked that approach because we ended up picking different fruits, which made for a nice variety in terms of taste and color.

Decor
The food table was covered in a blue cloth (originally, it was covered by T.'s creamy vintage lace tablecloth, but the high winds knocked over a pitcher of lilacs that some idiot put on the table (moi!), so we had to improvise.  Food was arranged around the aforementioned crate (me want!) and accented with some pretty pansies and a sweet little doily.  In lieu of water bottles, T. brought a beverage dispenser filled with cool water.  We supplied plastic cups which were cobbled together remnants from other parties.  We also made sure to bring recycling bins to the park.  The paper straws added a nice pop of color.  The final touch was a simple banner that T. put together with twine and vintage napkins - the napkins were draped over the twine and pinned in place.  Even in teh high winds, it held together nicely.  The vintage napkin banner was just the right little touch to bring some vintage elegance to the setting.

The girls sat picnic-style on blankets spread under trees to enjoy their treats.  The idea was to have jugs and jars of lilacs scattered around, but it was just too windy.  The lilacs were grouped in a pretty basket and used to accent the food table instead.

 Activity
In keeping with their focus on recycling, the girls made jewelry from reclaimed hardware.  We have a Tool Thrift Shop in town where donated items are resold at low prices.  All proceeds go to a local senior living facility.  I was able to find a ton of washers in various sizes.  A quick coat of primer and they were ready to be enameled with nail polish.  I found several sets of mini bottles at Big Lots and Marshall's and the girls went to town making unique pieces.  We provided hemp twine in bright colors to string the finished product.

Awards
The event concluded with the leaders talking with the girls about the highlights of the Journey followed by passing out their patches.  For a fun presentation, the patches and a seed packet with a vintage-inspired label were bundled into a colorful bandanna hobo pouch tied with jute twine.  Because the whole troop earned the same patch, there was no need to personalize the bandanna pouches.  In retrospect, we should have considered handing them out rather than letting the girls pick their own.  I noticed that while the leader was speaking, some of the girls were more focused on creeping closer to the bandannas to ensure that they could be the 1st to pick their color.  Oops!

Parfaits in a Jar, Cake Crumble Tips and a Tasty Mousse Mix

A coworker was kind enough to give me 8 of these adorable jars.  Walmart sells sliced peaches and pears in them.  I just think that they are the cutest little things and wanted to find a way to use them on my food table.  And then it hit me - parfaits in a jar.  Perfect!

I spent some time Goo Gone-ing the label stickies and I used a Magic Eraser to scrub of the inked lot/expiry info - it worked like, well, magic.  The good people at Mr. Clean don't lie.

I washed everything well and then painted the lids with 2 coats of brown acrylic paint (because I have a lot of brown for some reason).  The base coat color is irrelevant and only serves to cut down on the number of coats of chalkboard paint I needed to use.  Chalkboard paint is more expensive so I always try to get by with one coat.

I filled the jars with alternating layers of chocolate cake crumbs, chocolate chips, and chocolate mousse.  Here's my super-frugal, efficient tip for those cake crumbs.  Whenever I make a cake that involves trimming it or say I make 2 cakes from a box mix and I only need one, I don't toss the extra bits - I throw them into a zipper bag in the freezer.  This way, I always have cake on hand for dishes that don't need a full cake recipe, like a trifle or a parfait.  Try it! 
Now, regarding the mousse...  I have made chocolate mousse from scratch before.  The first time was a huge fail (because I grabbed half and half instead of heavy cream - oops!) and I ended up with chocolate soup.  But now that I think about it, I recovered gracefully by heating up the soup and BAM - it became the best hot chocolate ever, so I'm changing that to a win.  Life gives you lemonades, people.*  My second go-round with mousse was a bit more successful, but required more time that I had last week, so I bought one of those box mousse mixes near the pudding and Jello mixes.  It was actually very good.  Oetker Dark Chocolate Truffle Mousse  I recommend it if you are in a pinch.

So, back to details.  The parfaits were prepped, lids were applied to jars, "Parfait" was written on said lids in chalk, and the whole shebang was finished off by tying on purple spoons with multicolored yarn.  I wanted baker's twine, but it wasn't in the cards, and yarn worked just as well.

I grouped the jars - 4 at a time - on a cake pedestal.  I had to put out the other 4 jars like 5 minutes into the party because they were a huge hit.  I did notice that people were taking them home, so if you do this, be prepared for your jars to walk.  I'm cool with it, though.  My coworker really likes sliced pears.

*I have a friend whose husband always thought that the quote was "life gives you lemonades" instead of "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade" and I think that is the cutest, most uplifting story.  I love positive people and I strive to be more like that.

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.

Easter Fabric Flower and Carrot Centerpiece

On Saturday, we will host our 1st ever Easter Egg Hunt for neighborhood kids and friends.  I'm very excited about it and have been busily filling eggs, assembling supplies, and making some decorations to add to the fun.  Today I'm sharing a play on a flower arrangement that I made using some basement finds.

The vase was from a flower arrangement that my husband sent me a few months ago.  The flowers were amazing, the sentiment was touching, and the vase was WOW.  I just loved the color, the shape, everything.  What's nice about it beyond all that is that it's SUBSTANTIAL, but the opening is narrow, so you don't need a ton to fill it up and have it look full and stay upright.

I tossed in a few chunks of Styrofoam to serve as a base.  I then turned my attention to the fillers.  While unpacking my Easter decorations, I found a little baggie filled with fabric carrots and flowers that my mom had made.  She was making one of those cloth baby books where you have numbers to match, buttons to do, zippers to zip, etc.  She didn't like the way her carrots had turned out, so she started over and gave me the rejects.  I had planned to make a garland, but hadn't gotten around to it.  Anyway, with a little hot glue and some bamboo skewers...

... I ended up with this.

I really like how it's a fun play on a floral centerpiece.  I also like how it was free.  I like that part a lot.

It will look great (I hope hope hope) on my treats table.  Lots of height and visual interest.  And did I mention that it was free?

Skylanders Party Planning - Part 2, Elixir Inspiration, Portal Punch, and Archery Targets (in progress)

The planning continues for the Skylanders Party, albeit slooooowly.  (My attention has been focused on our upcoming neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt.  More on that later...)  But I have had some cool finds and ideas that I'd like to share.  Firstly, while enjoying a nice bottle of Orangina, it occurred to me...

 ...that an Orangina bottle sure does look a lot like the Healing Elixir bottles found in the game.

Emptied of Orangina, labels removed, and filled with blue liquid (dyed water, Kool Aid?  Do kids still drink Kool Aid these days?  Will I be shunned by the other mothers for serving dyed sugar water?) with an ankh sticker slapped on the front - this is going to look amazing!  It will be a sacrifice to have to drink 16 bottles of delicious, sweet Organina, but I will do it.  Because I love my son THAT much.  Hold your applause.

Next, my son recently accumulated enough stars for good behavior to earn Spyro's Adventure.  While looking at the Portal of Power in action, I realized that it cycles through different colors...

...which you can NOT see in this picture, but trust me.  It does.  You know what else cycles through different colors AND we have at least 4 of in our basement?  The color-changing lights we put in our Halloween pumpkins.

Color Changing Pumpkin Light

I'm going to try to mount my punch bowl over the pumpkin light and have the colors illuminate the punch.  I'm thinking that a sherbet punch might be the right mix of cloudy and translucent and will allow the light to shine through in the same milky, mystical manner as the portal.  I will also try to fashion a cardboard surround painted to look like the portal and wrap the whole contraption.

I also started construction on some archery targets.  I found huge sheets of cardboard at BJ's (they put out little boxes all the time, but they do have big sheets of cardboard in the back - just ask) and did the pushpin-with-string-tied-to-a-pencil trick to get nice big concentric circles.  I have 4 cut out and will start painting soon.

It doesn't look like much YET, but wait until I paint it!  Then it will have STRIPES!  In ALTERNATING COLORS!!  Boom.  Amazing.  (OK, fine.  It will be like any other archery target you've ever seen, but I worked so hard cutting 4 of these bad boys out that I felt they deserved a mention...  and...  OK, fine.  So I only cut out 2 and I made my husband cut out the rest.  But in my defense, it was REALLY HARD cardboard.  BJ's cardboard is legit.  It don't play.)

DIY Clearance Aisle / Donation Salvage Chalkboard

So I found this picture at Marshall's on Clearance a few years ago for $2.00.  It depicted 3 French-looking chefs holding a variety of foods and the image was mounted on a black and white checkerboard background.  It was an odd little picture, but it actually worked really well in our old black and white kitchen.  When we moved into our new house, we now had a grapevine kitchen and the picture no longer fit, so I tossed it in the To-Be-Donated box and forgot about it.  Fast-forward to a few months later, when I realized that I really, really wanted a chalkboard in the kitchen to list daily reminders for the kids.  I decided to make my own and packed up the car to drop some stuff at the Goodwill before shopping there for a suitable frame that I could repurpose into said chalkboard.  And there it was in my box - the weird French chefs.  SCORE!  It was just the right size and shape to become a chalkboard.
I painted over the chefs with gray Martha Stewart chalkboard paint from Michael's (coupon!).  Once that was done (3 coats), I painted the background with a little of our leftover green living room paint and then glossed it up with some antique bronze glaze.  Not bad for free!

My lesson from this - shop in your house first.  You might have the perfect thing languishing in your basement or garage, waiting to be transformed into something fresh and new!