Boys Room - Jax's Pillow -

So I saw this pillow and LOVED it. And since Jax was the only boy still without a pillow for his bed, I used a $1 pillow form from the thrift store (obviously pre-hot washed and sterilized). I love the way it came out, and he was pretty excited to have it on his bed too! Pillow #4 done!

(Pillowcase blogged here, jean blanket blogged here)

Boys Room - Pennant Banners -

I love these pennants at PBKids. And then came across several tutorials on-line and realized just how easy it would be! I just sized letters on my photoshop, using he font collegiate outline and then printed out the outlines of each letter to save on ink. I used iron-on adhesive, but it never sticks very well to felt, so I just sewed around each individual letter. LOVE THEM! It was the last project from my $4.67 Jo-Ann's trip (I had enough left over felt to give some to two different friends to make their own too!). Jaxson loved his so much that he has actually overly stretched it out a bit and has demanded that I put it above his bed. I love making things for my kids. :)

Boys Room - Framed Artwork -

For the other dresser/window spot, I picked up some dollar store frames and used this idea I saw posted on pinterest. I already had the red spray paint, and a Rand McNally road map we picked up at the thrift store.

*The frames are straight ... unfortunately, the photograph isn't.*

For $5 we have framed travel artwork of places we've been with the kids! Idaho & Nevada, then Utah & Wyoming on the other end. Here's a full shot of it ...and the AWESOME plants that completely block the view & lighting thru the window ... now I am off to work on my birthday girls' finishing touches on her cake and special day! :)

Boys Room -Postcard Frame-

I love it when we can use one thing to cross off many goals on a list. :) Hunter needed to start a collection of some sort for a cub scout goal ... and since there are so many places we can travel here within an hour, and he already had a fun postcard from San Fransisco & Japan (from my Mom's travels) ... it seemed like the perfect idea! We picked up this AWESOME frame at the Goodwill for less $4 ... than Hunter sanded, and I showed him how to use spray paint primer. We picked up cork from Hobby Lobby for 40% off and used some extra batting I already had and some fabric I saw at Hobby Lobby as well. We decided that using ribbon along the board would make it more friendly for the younger boys ... and wah-lah! This is actually the most expensive thing I have done so far ... but still less than $20, and it passed off a cub scout goal for Hunter too! Double woo-hoo!

Boys Room Clocks

So eventually I want to frame in this map for the boys' room, but on a non-existent decorating budget, this works for now. :) I actually used my birthday money from Ryan's parents to buy the clocks. We decided to use Moscow, New York, Cheyenne (where we live now) and Hawaii for the time zones. **Sorry for the photos, they are in the basement which has two HUGE bushes in front of it, even during the middle of a bright summer day it looks like a dungeon ... fun times!**Hunter wanted to cut the letters & stick them up himself ... just used scrapbook paper ... not as polished as I would hope for, but it's done, it's cute and it was such a thrill to cross one more thing off my list! :) I made a little inspiration board a year and a half ago, and forgot about it ... fun to see how it's finally coming together like I had envisioned! Although now I'm thinking I'd like to add a little saying on an orange board right above it ... hmmmmmm ... I also added some little fun hooks right next to the bedroom door for their hats. Nice & organized ... they were on clearance at Hobby Lobby and only $2 each ... a little bit of a splurge, but it's fun! :)

Finishing the Boys' Room -Go Letters-

So I have been trying to decorate my room, my girls' room, my boys' room and my front room/kitchen area ... as a result, nothing ever looks close to put together. But I have a few ideas now for the boys' room and so I am working on a bunch of projects to finish up the wall space and wall decorations! :) So this is my goal this month ... to finish their room!

First on the list ... is a set of "GO" letters ... I made Hunter scrapbook the letters himself (which I think he loves being REALLY involved in his room decorating/decision making process) ... we used map pages from an McNally Atlas we got at the thrift store ($0.50 on 50% off day ... perfect!) ... and then I had him paint the edges of each letter side. :) The perfect less-than-$5-craft ... and I REALLY like the way they look on his little shelves in his room!

ABC Felt Pillow (Project #8 & #9 of 45)

So I saw these amazing felt pillows on etsy, but the price tag nearly killed me. Seriously. And while I understand the value of homemade and the hard work she must really put into each one (it took me almost 2 hours on each pillow to stitch all around the letters, and I have no idea how long it took to trace & cut the letters ... but I'm guessing I'm in each one at least 3.5 - 4 hours), I already had the felt on hand, and some random pillow forms (it looks black because of the overcast skies on the D & O ... but they are really a dark hunter green), so I made one for the boys room (originally it was going to go on Jax's toddler bed, but Colton has confiscated it) and then I also decided to use up as much felt as possible (and another pillow form) and finish another one for a friend in Vegas ...

Boys Room Curtains (Project #4 of 45)

So after making the boys their fort, I had an 18" x 72" remnant of fabric left over ... so I made them some basic curtains! :)

I didn't make them the perfect length of their current window (we're just renting, and who knows what the next window length would be), and I didn't allow for anything to hang on the sides (it's a boys room ... they are rough, they wrestle & they would pull them down in a heartbeat without meaning to), but I just used a bit of stitch witchery and a cheapy $2 curtain rod from Wal-Mart and begged my husband to hang them for me ... thanks honey! :)

Sorry for the crappy lighting, their room is always a challenge & with the clouds moving in the for big 3 day snowfest we have forcasted, it was hopeless. And in more important/pressing matters ... is it possible for the baby to drop & then come back UP??? Seriously, I usually get a couple of weeks off from the rib pain, but the baby dropped LAST Saturday and by Thursday night she was kicking my ribs again!!! Oy.

The Fort

So, it's DEFINITELY winter here ... and the snow can last for another 5-6 months (Cheyenne doesn't DO spring we've learned), so the kids are all loving and re-discovering their toys, and inventing things and being artsy and stuff. And they're building forts ... lots of HUGE forts in the front room, which their lovely 19 month old baby brother thinks is fun to immediately knock down.

Not to even mention the mess ... that they never put back away ... from the upstairs front room (since the downstairs is NEVER warm during winter time) ... it was driving us all crazy. So, I took some uber cute fabric that I had picked up to make myself a purse & had just enough to make them a fort ... the dark blue w/ polka dots fits perfectly with their decor, and it was another free & fast/easy project for the boys!

I didn't want it to create a fully darkened/covered fort/cave, but enough that they had a large fort-type area to play in and then we tied it onto the top bunk and there you go! :) Since their room can already get so dark during the winter, the slits of light let in enough light to let them all have fun, without being scared. And I LOVE that all of them can fit inside it now. Project #4 complete ... and didn't cost anything out of pocket again! :)

The kids saw me taking photos, and couldn't wait to get in on the action, it's getting a LOT of play time ... which is what I've noticed is the most ironic thing about toys & kids, the cheap, easy, basic things always get loved the most, I'm so glad they like it. :) **Please excuse the red-eyes ... my computer w/ photoshop will NOT turn on the past few days ... I think it's dead for good this time, ugh.**

BTW - I am in LOVE with the photos I've been able to take the past two days! My parents sent us a camera for Christmas (and told us not to open it until Christmas Eve ... but I couldn't wait any longer!!!) ... oh my goodness, I can't believe the difference between our last camera (which had been slowly dying for the past year or so) and this .... yeah! :)

Boys Room Shelving

Thanks for the love on the Noel sign, I've loved it! :) Project #3 for the boys room came out to cost about $20 in wood (and was bought MUCH earlier in the year & has been sitting in the garage taking up space ever since), but the paint I already had from painting their dresser. We found this awesome tutorial on Knock-Off Wood for collector's bookshelves just like pbkids ... and my poor husband somehow got roped into doing it for me. :) **Although I would like to add that he really enjoyed working on a wood project and is now committed to several more ... poor boy is getting pretty overwhelmed at just the thought of it all!**

Hunter is always reading late into the night and the books late, late, late at night and then the books fall down the back of the bunkbed and are lost forever in the abyss of junk that I can't reach and can't move the beds to get either. This totally solves that problem now! :) After the toddler bed is ready for Jaxson we'll make him a smaller version for his bed, I'm just not sure how "big" I want it to be yet.

Matching Bedding

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! :) None of my pictures really turned out, but we did craft paper on the table w/ crayons on each seat for the kids ... it worked so well! And they all STAYED at the dinner table for longer than 5 minutes, that alone was nice. :) Then we made little Mayflower ship nametags for each seat (which I was surprised how much the kids liked that, we'll have to do it again at Christmas!), here's the tutorial I used. The kids just couldn't be bothered with looking at the camera, they were busy sneaking food & coloring, lol. But you get the idea. Then the rest of the weekend was spent finishing more projects! :)
Project #2 for the boys room ended up costing me NOTHING out of pocket. So nice! :) I wanted matching bedding. But ... I have no budget for that ... honestly ... I have no real budget to decorate, lol. So ... how to get matching bedding???
Well, Hunter already had a jean blanket, and we had a full/queen jean blanket that we put on the bottom bunk for Colton. As soon as I can get to a Jo-Ann's (the closest one is 45 minutes away ... ugh), I'm going to buy enough jean material to quickly whip up a little toddler bed one too. Then I was trying to think of matching pillowcases and I remembered the yards of cute, "I am a child of God" flannel that I had bought a couple years ago (planning on using it as a backing for a blanket). And I had just enough random scraps of red flannel to put as the top part of the pillowcase! :) YEAH! :) I read a lot of random craft tutorials and just winged it from there on the pattern I did. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy! :) I know it may sound dorky, but it's fun watching the room come together from nothing ... and for practically free! :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

So, I can't believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving ... already! Where did the year go? Yes ... I know that makes me sound old ... I'm allowed to say that at this point though, right? :)

So, I have some cute aprons I made the kids and we are busily prepping food and getting ready for tomorrow (pics on Monday ... as soon as Ryan takes them) ...

Do you remember the story ... "It looked like spilt milk" ??? I'm realizing, re-decorating the boys room is becoming more & more like that ... lol.

I had a piece of wood that I had framed to be one of my "Be True" artworks. But ... the framing on the back was HORRIBLE (I did it myself ... and I'm not known for my patience or skill in cutting wood), and so Ryan made a new frame for me, and the old frame and wood sat in the garage for the last umpteen months. I didn't want to throw away the wood, but I didn't know what to do with it ... so it looked like a piece of "be true" artwork, but it was really meant to be ...

Chalkboard speech bubbles for the kids doors! :) I've seen this around ohdeedoh's website and a few other spots, and it's perfect! 3M velcro tape to put it up on the door and now both the kids rooms have one on their doors. Savannah loves to write messages, Hunter keeps writing math problems for Daddy when he gets home from work, and Ryan has been known to write an "I love you kids" for them when he has to leave uber early for work. I love it ... and it was free & used up some random piece of wood out of the garage! :)

Crib Bed Transformation

I mentioned how we got two cribs (one without all the parts) and a mattress for $2.50 at a local estate auction ... but I didn't want to just throw the crib bed away & KNEW there must be something to do with it ... then it hit me!
I thought about this cute pottery barn idea. We were putting these in the boys room (which now holds a almost 8 year old, 3 year old & will soon hold Jax who's 19 month), and I've had to come to the unfortunate realization that a cute little schoolhouse was NOT going to be an appealing idea to my oldest son, I realized we could still make the art section of each square with the two sides of the crib! :)

**He was so sweet to pose for that picture for me ... in the snowy/windy garage ... after spending all day under our van trying to get it fixed. Thanks honey!**

After cutting off the spindles & filling in the gaps they left on the top & bottom, we primed & painted all around the molding section that was left.

Then Ryan was sweet enough to do the three coats of spray paint all around & I cut some galvanized sheet metal (it was about $16.50 for a HUGE 3 x 4 sheet at Home Depot), and painted the sheet metal with some chalkboard paint we already had. We used liquid nails to glue it on & left it weighed down (with the laundry detergent ... lol) for 24 hours. It's awesome now that it's up on the wall!

I wanted to do both panels as magnetic chalkboards, but the sheet metal was FOUR inches too short on one side, we didn't like the idea of sharp edges ... so I'm trying to find some large sheet of cork board to fill in the other ... the boys LOVE it and are always playing "school" on it, and coloring pictures for me to see ... perfect! :)

Hey everybody!

I'm finding my mojo again ... it's been a long time since I crafted, sewed or did anything crafty and I've realized how much I've missed it. So, I've been hanging up picture frames and finishing projects that I started and for the first time since the move, I feel more like me, more like things are okay & even though my house is getting messier in the process ... I'm also de-junking and getting that slowly under control, yeah! :)

So, here's the first thing I've started on ...

There is a fun little estate auction here in town. I have been able to score some GREAT deals before and this last week was no exception. I was able to pick up two cribs (with no guarantee that all the parts were there mind you) and a crib mattress for $2.50!!! While we had all the pieces for one crib, the pieces for the other were missing. So, I racked my brain for a few days on how we could utilize the crib walls and then I saw this, and this on the pottery barn kids website.

So, we are in the process of chopping off the tops & legs, filling in the holes with putty & getting ready to spray paint! Hopefully, I'll have a finished project to show you on Monday! :)

Snowy Weekend

Our weekend was filled with lots & lots of snow! We finally got a chance to go sledding and the kids LOVED IT!!! Unfortunately it should be in the high 30's tomorrow, so the snow will melt away much sooner than the kids would like. But the non-icy roads would be a nice thing.I broke my sewing machine needle & with the snow & freezing cold temps, I never ventured to the local Wal-Mart to pick up a new one. The only real outing we've had in the last four days was on Saturday morning. I stopped at the local Goodwill & picked up the newest treasure to work on for Hunter's room! This little dresser. I picked up some clearance handles from Target for $5, and we're planning on filling in the design with wood putty & painting it dark blue. I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am with this $22 little treasure! :) Now the remaining big question is what to do with the funky mirror???

The Boys Room

So when we moved, we put the 3 older kids into the largest room in the house, so they could hang out together. With the intention that Jax would move out of this crib next year & then it would be a boys only room. So we've been trying to come up with some kind of decorated room (with absolutely no budget mind you) for them. Nothing themed or matching. Something that would grow with a one year old, but not be too baby-ish for the 7 year old too. So I've been letting Hunter decide what he wants & likes. This is what he's picked. There is no decorating budget ... no money for this at all. So, we're going to very slowly work on it, and Hunter is actually excited about thrift store shopping for things he wants. And I figured I would slowly accumulate the fabric ... since I need enough to make three complete quilts (one for each boy).

I found these old chipboard alphabet letters in my scrapbook stash & Hunter loved putting them together (and we put them in an old frame I had around). He's so very proud of the fact he's going to make things for his new room.**Please don't notice the thrashed room behind him.**

Then this weekend, we picked up the wood to make these. It cost about $18 in wood (we're making two of the large 36" ones w/ the extra ledge included) and I can't wait to get the garage cleaned out this week & start working on it! :)