Tween Room Makeover

Over the summer my 8 yr old daughter started watching "Trading Spaces Kids." We have now blocked tat channel, for my sanity sake. Ever since, she has been begging me to give her room a make over. In a day, so she can be suprised. She was so enthusiastic for the project, she asked her only birthday presents this year be the ones that would go towards her big room makeover. She told me what she wanted, and I spent a few months preparing and making a few accessories. Then I locked her out for a weekend and went to work. She now a happy 9 yr old with a fairy garden room that she actually wants to keep clean!

Her requirements: fairies, but not the baby kind or Disney kind; colors, especially purple; a bulletin board; a writing desk; a chair for reading in; vines and floweres hanging from the ceiling and on the walls so it feels like a garden.

My requirements: cheap, easy, sibling-proof.

Supplies:

Flower garden bedding set and purple curtains- $0.00 snagged from a friend who was moving 

Desk- $0.00 handed down by a friend who was moving

Dish chair- $30.00, but jointly gifted by a friend bring my cost to $15.00

Purple bean bag chair- $2.00 from goodwill

Memo board- $2.00 for ribbon, $1.00 for fabric, made by me here

Mobiles- $2.00 for 10 pieces of cardstock, $4.00 for butterflies and flowers, made by me here

Canopy- $6.00 for ribbons, made by me here

Wallies flower fairies stickers- $14.00

Paint- $6.00 for assorted colors of acrylic paints

Total Cost: $52.00, plus about 10 hours of labor. You might be faster if you don't have 2 yr old to help!

Before:

 After:

I practiced the painting with water first.

 Flower garden mural:

 Stick on Fairies with glitter paint pixie dust:

 New desk and chair:

 Painted the tree:

Added mobiles, memo board, curtains, and bedding:

 Hung the canopy, tested out by lil' sis:

 A few more wall fairies:

 Memo board and fairy headress:

Bed Canopy from Hula Hoop

I was in Bed Bath and Beyond last week and saw a sheer bed canopy for $39. I was shopping for my daughter, who wanted her room decorated like a fairy garden for her birthday. I loved the canopy, but knew I could do better than $39. I went home and did some scrounging, and came up with this:

For a total cost of $6.00.

Here is how I did it:

1. Gather supplies- I used a small hula hoop that had been abandoned behind the dresser, 4 sheer curtain panels from the living room window that had been replaced by drapes, and 6 rolls of sheer ribbon from the clearance rack at the craft store. You will also need a needle and thread, scissors, and a ceiling hook to hang it up.

2. Break the hula hoop. Don't worry, it goes back together. Find the seam (mine was hiding under the upc sticker) and pull it apart.

3. Thread on the curtain panels. You could also use a bolt of tulle, a couple of bed sheets, or lightweight fabric of your choice. Just sew a pocket at the top to thread the hoop through. When you are done, put the hoop back together and secure with a piece of packing tape.

4. Well, technically you could be done here, but that would be boring. Here is where you personalize it. Add ribbons, flowers, strings of beads, whatever you want!  I used ribbons in green, pink, blue, and purple. Just eyeball the length to make it as long as you want, cut it up, and space it evenly around the hoop. Mine went on every 6 inches or so. I tried to cheat and use my handy liquid stitch fabric glue, but the sheer curtains with the sheer ribbons was just too much sheer for the glue and it wouldn't stick. So I had to sew it by hand.

5. Next, tie two lengths of ribbon, string, yarn, fishing line, wire- whatever you want, across the top of the hoop in cross shape. This is your hanger.

6. Put in your ceiling hook. Make sure you anchor it in properly- find a stud, use the little plastic cover for your screw, etc. Then hang your canopy and pull on it to make sure it isn't going to fall down. It took me three tries! In the end, I'm not too worried because it isn't heavy. if it falls on her during the night it won't hurt, and all that sheer won't suffocate her. if you use a different fabric, be extra sure it isn't going to fall down when rolled over, tugged on, pulled for peek a boo, or whatever.

7. Hang and admire!

Memo Board

Another addition to my daughter's room- a memo board. Not just a boring brown bulletin board, but a ribbon-laced rainbow-colored bulletin board to coordinate with her fairy garden theme.
This project was super-easy and fast. The hardest part was mastering the staple gun!
Cut a square of fabric and batting just larger than your board, flip it to the back and staple! Start with the center top and bottom, then the center sides. Then do the corners by folding the fabric as you would gift wrap and stapling. Criss-cross the front with ribbon, stapling the ends to the back and weaving the ribbon as you go. I suppose if you really wanted to, you could cover the cardboard backing with some pretty paper. This is going straight on the wall, so I didn't worry about it. If this board was larger and you wanted to make sure the ribbon stayed in place, you could anchor the ribbon to the board at each intersection with a button or a brad. This one was small, about a foot square, so it wasn't needed.

Ta-da! Boring bulletin board into fairy garden memo board.

Flutter Paper Mobile

Have you seen this picture?
An easy to follow tutorial for the project can be found here.

I thought they looked gorgeous, and decided to make my own. The originals were made with rainbow colored vellum and weighted with tiny fishing line sinkers.

I had to make some modifications to make these work in my house. First, vellum is expensive and I didn't want to spend a dollar a sheet at the craft store or buy a case of 100 sheets. Also, it will curl and warp when exposed to humidity for a long period of time and I live in the south. It didn't stand a chance! So I used card stock instead. It loses a little of the translucent light effect but the colors and fluttering and movement are still there! And I didn't have tiny little fishing line weights so I used these feather butterflies I picked up in the bargain bin at the craft store. It fit great with the theme of my daughter's room.

So after you get a stack of pretty paper and something to tie to the bottom, here's a three step tutorial for you:

1. Cut paper into strips. How small depends on how much work you want to do. I went with about 1.5"

2. Set the stitch length on your sewing machine to the longest you have then sew your strips together down the middle. Make sure you sew a few stitches between each piece so that they don't overlap. You want each piece to be able to turn independently. I used ten strips for each mobile. If you have a really high ceiling or are hanging them over a table and no one will be walking under them, you could make them longer. I wanted mine out of reach of little hands jumping on the bed, so I kept them short. Pull a length of thread out before you start and at the end of each set for hanging and to tie on your weight.

3. Tie on a weight. Go with something tiny and small like a fishing weight or a bead, or big and colorful like a butterfly, fabric flower, tiny car, or whatever works with the theme you are using in the room.

Now hang, turn on the ceiling fan, and admire! 

(OK, that was four, but an easy four!)

Fall Wreath

First find your wreath don't over pay and buy new, find one used somewhere! This one had some ivy and an ugly bird nest hot glued to it, I ripped the bird nest off and glued leaves over the ivy.

found this beauty at the local thrift store for$2.00!



next go to the dollar store and buy 2-3 garlands. I had mine already but I know you can get them there for cheap!

pull it apart!

glue around filling in spaces as you go.

and you're done!

you could add ribbon or a bow, but I like simple.

I hung mine on my door.

Happy Fall! I hope this will help get me in the mood for cold weather, because right now I am longing for year round summer!
---Sandra

Bed Makeover

Ok we bought this bed 6 years ago with the intent to refinish it. The only problem there has always been a child sleeping in it. Every time we moved (3 times) I thought before we set it up I'll paint it. Obviously it never happened. so I finially went to walmart bought the paint and went for it.

So here is the before, it is really scratched up with alot of wear and tear.



Here is the head board




Painting it out in the garage.




the drawers.



And here is the after!