Girls’ Room Reveal!

Okay you know those AWESOME room reveals all over the internet that have amazing before & afters, and pretty much blow your mind? This isn’t one. For several reasons. We rent. We can’t  paint walls, and most of the furniture isn’t even ours. It’s our landlords. We don’t know how long we’re going to be here, but we know it’ll be awhile, so we don’t do a ton of nail holes (because I’ll just have to patch them all), and our girls have very strong opinions, so they get input on their room. In parts. Okay, so with all that said, here’s their room. Some stuff you’ll recognize, but some stuff will be new, and this will just show it all working together, mkay?

First off, do you remember (if you’ve been here awhile) how Thing 1 told me she wanted a Fancy Nancy room? Like so:

So little by little the past month, I’ve been doing things for their room to make it “fancier”. (she reminds me of the checklist all the time!)

Remember the bedspread I showed you here?  Yeah, I sewed that bedspread. It took forever. But not as long as Thing 2’s bedspread, since I hand-dyed everything for that.

Do you remember the sparkly pillow from a shirt? I made that cute ombre heart pillow from using 2 tutorials from V and Co. This one for the heart and this one for the ombre pleats. Then I made the turquoise shag one using this tutorial from V and Co. Pretty pillow? Check!

Yeah, that bedspread and pillows. Okay, back to Thing 1’s bedspread.

Feather boas strewn across the headboards, set in place with thumb tacks. Feather Boas? Check!

Then you can see the Flower Canopies I made on each bed with my Command hook rent friendly tip. Canopy? Check!

Let’s see, above the bed is some of my rent-friendly polka dot décor. It used to be spread all around the room (but the room is GINORMOUS), so I took them all off, and put them on one wall, and layered some of them.

I kinda love them, so do the girls. You can also see the Christmas Ornament lamp (about halfway down the post) my hubby helped me make.

You can also see the mini gallery wall that they helped me paint all the frames, and the blessing dresses I made for each them when they were born.

The little banner is sweet. Thing 1 wanted to try sewing, so we used hole punches to cut out bunches of shapes, then she sat on my lap and helped me sew them together.

Right by the bed is the microwave cart bookshelf I revamped from my Grandpa. Plus a diffuser to prove that they’ve been sick for the last 2 weeks….Ugh.

Right by that is my first upholstery project. Still love the chair, still going strong! Can you see the woven rug I made on the floor? Fancy Rug? Check!

Right next to the chair is all their bows I’ve made them on the bow holder. I showed you a few bows here, and Nat showed you some here.

Then the mirror I “fixed” with washi tape. Love that stuff! Hanging on the back of their door is this:

They have so much crap. Little rings, necklaces, etc. I get so tired of stepping on things, so we hung up this and put on labels.

With pictures on them so they know what goes where. They helped decide so they keep it a lot cleaner now!

I forgot to show their mismatched curtains. I made the yellow one for our previous rental, but it didn’t work by itself on a this larger window, so they picked out the other curtain from the DI (a thrift store), and they think it’s fancy to have colorful curtains. There’s also a strand of Christmas lights strewn over the top and side that they love. (Lights? Check!)

Hung over the top of the closet doors is a strand of turquoise (a fancy word for blue) beads I got on clearance at Target after Christmas.

Then there’s the kitchen I made for them last summer, and the growth chart a few months ago.

My hubby painted this dresser we got from my parents way back in our first house when we were expecting Thing 1. It was already blue, so he painted the minty-turquoise color with a crackle paint.

I still have a project I’m working on for above the dresser here. It’s pretty fantastic in my head!

Hanging on the wall is my thrifted painted owls, and more of my free cornstarch art. Then, there’s the stuffed animal storage I made, and an old bookshelf that was painted the same time as the dresser.

This other dresser I got from my grandparents, and painted a few summers ago, but I really would love to strip it down and refinish it. Maybe something like this?

(source)

Finally, right by Thing 2’s bed is the dollhouse I made 2 Christmases ago for the princesses.

Speaking of princesses, all of their dress up clothes currently reside in their closet where they can reach them, and mostly stay put away…

So, there is the reveal. Eventually when we do move into our own house (whenever that is) the girls will probably not have a HUGE cavernous room. Plus, we’ll have to get a bit of new furniture. So, I just did touches of fancy to make them happy, and they love their room. It’s fun to look back and see all of the projects that have come together to make their room theirs. If I can finish the awesome art I’m working on (think pallet art) then it will be that much cuter.

I’m trying to decide if I should enter the contest Creating with the Stars. It’d be awesome to try, but I just don’t know if I can do awesome things when I’m in a (basement) rental and on a very tight budget. Are you going to enter?

Woven Rug!!

What do you do when your daughter wants a Fancy Room (yes, still on that), with a fancy rug? You go shopping for ideas, first.


These were both rugs that my daughter loved while we shopped at Target. It’s the same trip we got the sequin shirt for her pillow. So I let it marinate in my head while I finished her bedspread. Then I remembered this idea I had seen elsewhere.

I originally saw this idea on Craftaholics Anonymous. It was an idea from Everyday Art. I logged it away in my brain. Then, I read through it and found a non-slip rug thing at Walmart. It was for a 4x6 rug for $8. I cut it half, and then went through my hoard of scraps.

At least it’s organized! By color, and in some cases, by type of fabric (knits, satin, tulles, etc). And I cut 100s and 1000s of strips. All about 1” wide. But, instead of doing them just one tuck under and letting it be, I did different lengths of strips and wove them in through the non slip rug mat. After weeks of watching TV/movies, with my husband thinking I’m crazy (which I am), I finished 2 rugs!!

For Thing 1, purples, white, some greens, and turquoise and blue.

All scraps, some of it from the bedspread.

And Thing 2’s rug.

She got pinks, oranges, greens, and white.

I kinda love how they turned out. Almost makes all the hours and carpal tunnel worth it FYI they are about 32” by 28”. Almost square, but it works.

DIY Flower Canopy

Okay, here’s yet another post about my daughter’s fancy room. It’s been an involved process! But I am working on about 4 other projects simultaneously, so I will have some other non-fancy stuff soon.

She wanted a canopy, if you’ll recall.

So, that was actually a really fast thing to do. I had everything already. I just glammed it up a bit more than just regular tulle. I’m sure you’ve seen these floating around, specifically like this:

(source)

(source)

(source)

So, I got about 20 yards of white tulle, between my 2 princesses, 2 embroidery hoops, pompom trim, and some silk flowers. I put the tulle inside of the embroidery hoop when it was folded in half, and put a rubber band around the halfway part. I hot glued pompom trim onto the embroidery hoops. Then, a couple of hours of movie watching with the husband, I pulled silk flowers off their stems and sewed them onto some fishing line, tying knots around each one, until I had 4 really long (read: about 12 feet each) flower strings. I put those into the embroidery hoops too.

Now, the real trick was figuring out how to hang it from the ceiling in our rental…. So, I got a large command hook and drilled a hole through it.

It was about 1/8” or 3/16” drill bit. Just whatever fits between the ridges behind the hook. Look at one, you’ll see what I mean.

Nice clean hole in the Command hook. I emailed them, they don’t have any products yet for hanging things from the ceiling. They did tell me not to hang anything over a bed, so don’t hold them or me responsible if you choose to do so. That’s why I used a large hook because the weight limit was a lot more, even though these don’t weigh much at all.

Then I put it on the canopy using fishing line again. Just looped it through the hole and through my rubber band loop and tied some knots.

Voila! That’s French, and so very fancy. They love their fancier beds, and since nothing is near them laying on the bed, I’m not worried about strangulation or any such nastiness.