Yep, I’ve been MIA for the last month. And it was nice. We had 4 close family member birthdays, Easter, several dinner parties (1 that I hosted), teaching preschool for a week, and a birthday party. It’s been a bit hectic. My little princes had a birthday, and wanted to do a Barbie butterfly popstar party, with purple, pink, and sparkly for the colors. Plus, she’s been really wanting a wedding dress for her and her Barbies. So, I’ve had a few projects in the works.
This dress is still a work in progress, but you can see her Barbie had a pretty dress too. I’ll figure out what to do and show you later.
So I got the main ideas for these dresses online. Belle was here, Ken jacket was here, wedding dress with train was here, wedding veil here, and the ball gown here. Poor ballerina, with only 1 foot.
Barbie even has a bouquet she can hold. Don’t worry, Ken is barefoot. I think he came with flip flops that have since been lost?
To prep for the party, I used a Cricut, with a brand new blade, to cut out bunches of purple & pink butterflies, and yellow stars. The dang thing ruined half of them! Argh, I get so frustrated with those machines! I hung those all up with fishing line and sticky tack on the ceiling.
We made flower balloons to hang up, but used push pins to get those to stay in the ceiling.
I used streamers from the dollar store, and cut out some big stars and spray painted them with metallic paint for the other wall.
We bought dollar store fairy wings for all the girls, and the 2 boy cousins got SWAT helmets. Tricky planning with boys!
For party games, I printed a Barbie butterfly picture at Staples, and had them do an engineering print. I only did 18”x24”. Then we colored it.
I picked up some jewel stickers and some foam butterfly stickers while waiting for it to print at Staples, and they were blindfolded and had to stick a jewel on the wings.
We decorated these cardboard butterflies I got at Michaels, and some microphones. If there were more reading kids, we would’ve done some Karaoke.
My cute husband was the star. He painted all the kiddos faces when they came in. Butterflies and Star Wars (for the boys).
He also made the Barbie butterfly cake. Let’s pretend I have a nice pretty tray for it, mkay?
All in all, she had lots of fun! She got even more Barbies too. Maybe I’ll post more now? We’ll see….
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?
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?
