L's Big Girl Room: Details and Pinspiration

My sister's ballet slippers

inspiration shadowbox

So here we go.  A few little details and the "PINspiration" behind the ideas where applicable.  There is nothing like a bit of visual research during the project planning stage.  

Visit my pinterest board for all links if you're interested, or inspired (pinspired?) as it were.

collection of dress up clothes

inspiration book shelf from YHL house tour

IKEA spice rack as a book shelf

our own collection of vintage quilts and blankets

the captains bed and two dressers

layout inspiration

Built in shelving made by Daddy

our shelving inspiration

Benjamin Moore Stonington Gray (HC 170)

That's it.  The full room tour.  Phew.  Now you've seen it all.  If by chance you want to see the other posts, the bedroom layout is here, and the closet details are here.

Inside the Pink Closet

So here is the (much delayed) view of the inside of her renovated closet.  Keep in mind that these pictures are from before her birthday (in April, I'm such a slacker).  Now there is a giant 3 story Barbie castle in the middle of the closet.  It has a dance floor if your Barbie wants to come over and play sometime. Can you see her collection of fancy dresses hanging in the corner? We made one section of full height hanging going sideways to take advantage of that corner of the closet that is hard to access.

 There is so much shelf space we don't quite know what to do with it all.  A few memory boxes are tucked on the very top shelf, one with baby blankets and clothes and one with crafts and school treasures.  From this angle you can see the hidden shoe storage in the white shelf.  The pink boxes hold smaller toys, jewellery, etc. and the higher ones hold shoes she is growing into.

 When the doors are open during the day it is a fun little hit of colour.  This little girl loves pinky pink and this mommy is so glad the whole room doesn't look like a bottle of pepto.

We have been living with this layout and closet organization for a few months now and it works great!  Lost of room to play, separate bins for all her different toys, easy access to her books, and lots of carpet space to play despite the small square footage of the room.  I am so thankful that A is handy enough to build the things we collectively dream up.  I love sketching my ideas on a scrap paper and then (after a bit of a wait) seeing how he can create them.  This space is a hundred times more useful than it was, and it gives L a special place to play and read and sleep.  Perfect.

AHH! I just found some before pictures I think this highlights how full the closet was before

 and also highlights the particularly useless sections on the sides.

right side is now full height hanging and where doll beds live

Left side is where the white shoe shelf is now

still keep toys here, now Barbies instead of Little People

Butterfly Birthday Details

So tomorrow L turns 5.  It is kind of amazing that our baby girl is now a beautiful, sweet, over-accessorized 5 year old smarty pants.  It was her first real friend party.  Last year she had 2 friends over for a playdate.  This one wasn't much bigger, 4 friends, but it was a 'real party'.  The theme was butterflies, and the colour scheme was... magenta or pink (Fancy Nancy says magenta is a fancy way of saying pink).  Some time was spent on pinterest, and equal time spent in multiple dollar stores.  So here it is!

Sparkly butterfly invitation

Inside the goodie bags...

 Goodie bags with butterfly headbands and pony colouring books.
I made the tiny pennant banner from an idea off pinterest from string and pink duct tape.

I bought her two dozen roses with, you guessed it, more sparkly butterflies!

Streamers, ribbons, and more butterflies for our pink table. 

Butterfly wall decals flying up from the front door came from Nana and Grandad.

The cake was pink inside and out, yummy.  As always made by Uncle G!

The blackboard got a makeover for the occasion.

Fruit caterpillar kabobs

(fruiterpillars?)

Craft time, this girl party was so quiet and they sat for a long time.  

Quietly played a few games- catch the butterflies

TP chrysalis

Present time

Snack time

The party ended with quiet play time in her room.  

They all got along, they played nice, nothing got broken.  

I really could get used to this girl party thing.

 Then we moved on to a little family party.  Starting with a BIG sparkly Barbie castle!

K read her the birthday cards to her, extra cute!

 The rest of the evening was spent playing, visiting and enjoying dessert for the second time!

She is the cutest little 5 year old in this house for sure!

Growing Up

My babe is so big now.  His handsome, clever, serious self turns 8 today.

Seems like only yesterday he was being born. On the floor. In our apartment.  

Yes, this is my moments-old son wrapped in a beach towel and me on a stretcher in my living room.    This really is his first picture.  Ahh, good times.

For the full details of the Tintin party, go here.

In our Easter Best

R's bow tie is a bit floppy because I made the strap a bit too long.. too bad. But still cute!

Pinspiration- Bow Ties for Easter

I have a cute little dress (actually two) for my daughter for Easter, but the boys have fewer options. My hubby vetoed sweater vests, so I was trying to think of something fun they could wear besides a button up shirt and kakkis. Then I remembered I had pinned a few different tutorials for little bow ties on pinterest.

bow ties for my boys

After clearing the idea with R and K, I let them pick from a few different scraps I had in my sewing box. The tutorial was straight forward, I made both in about an hour. The hardest part was turning the long skinny strap inside out. It took forever. I still have to add the fasteners (velcro or hook and eyes) but that requires the boys actually wearing their shirts in order to measure.

tutorial from Papernstitch

Oh and I didn't use interfacing. I wanted to make them right away and I couldn't find any interfacing in my stash, so I went rogue. Just call me the Sarah Palin of sewing. And don't tell my friends who actually know how to sew!

Science Party

My creative energy for the last two or three weeks has been focused on throwing the best 6 year old science birthday possible. You can click over to my other blog to check out more pictures!

Pillowcase dress

I (finally) made a pillowcase dress for L. I got the idea a long time ago and took her to Value Village to get a practice pillowcase.

She was this big.

Oh so squeezable, look at that face.

This particular pillowcase had polka dot fabric in all our favourite colours, and it was cheap! Perfect.

Except I didn't get back to it for a long long time. Like a few years. Cough, procrastination, cough.

But I recently had the urge to sew and this project had everything I needed, bias tape, thread, some contrasting scraps for the ribbon at the shoulders. It took no time at all! Not perfect but easy enough that I plan to try again. In the mean time I have to convince her to wear a shirt underneath if she insists on wearing this dress in January!