A few Updates to the Child Bedroom

It´s been quiet around here lately as we are trying to enjoy our summer as much as possible.

I did however get a few small updates to our son´s bedroom done.

When I last showed you this room it looked looked like this:

Soon after moving in, we put in carpet scraps to reduce the noise that was being heard by our downstairs neighbour.

And then we moved furniture around and called it a day…. until this month. It was finally time to make a few changes to room to make it a little more playful.

Here are a few of the things we changed:

1. Paint:

One wall got painted in a dark teal to add a little more color and contrast to this room.

2. Furniture:

We got my brothers old high bed and new bed sheets. i am still searching for a nice set of bedding that will fit into the room better, but for now the navy sheets and bedding work out just fine.

We also changed the placement of bed and wardrobe.

3. Accent color:

I covered the toy box behind my son´s desk with green wrapping paper so it can serve as a “shelf” for pens.

I covered the cushions of our story-time armchair in new fabrics.

(Both fabrics I got inexpensively at Ikea). The chairs are still from my childhood.

So, what is left to be done?

1. We need a real rug/carpet to cover the floor.

2. I would like to create some kind of art station/desk area, as for now, paints and art supplies are all over the house.

3. I would like to add some artwork to the walls or create some kind of board so my son can display his creations.

All in all, these small updates cost less than 50$ (Paint, Paint Supplies and Fabrics).

Est. 2009

 Finally I was able to finish another frame more my son´s gallery wall. This time, I decided on making a frame with his name and year of birth using letters available here. There are thousands of great choices and it is a lot of fun to play around with different types of designs.
I simply saved all the letters I liked to a folder and then pulled them one by one into a picasa collage.




My squares ended up a tiny bit uneven, but I like the outcome anyway. Next, I printed the sign onto white paper, which was cut to fit into another white frame. 
Not completely happy, I decided on making another mat from a green piece of scrapbook-paper.
I used doubled-sided tape to attach my sign to the green mat and reassembled my frame:
 


This will fit right in with all of the other frames I have so far and will make a great addition to my son´s room.



The frame with the Zebra is the one housing my new name sign.

Now I just need to wish  a Happy Nikolaus-Day to everyone celebrating it.

Linked up here:
-Frugal Friday
- Show and Share Day

Now for the Key

 Since I am in full-blown gallery-wall-creating-mode, I have another frame to share with you:

I don´t remember where I got this little key from. Only that I found it in between all the stuff I went through for our international move.
Since it didn´t take up too much space in a suitcase, I decided to take it with me.



Together with a few other supplies, I created another little frame incoorporating the color scheme for my son´s room.



I just cut some more of the scrapbook-paper to size, then I added some blue ribbon to the key, and attached this to the back of the frame´s back support.



Here is the finished product:



And here it is among its fellow frames:



What do you think?




Linked up here:
Tuesday´s Treasures
Frugal Friday
Before and After Party

Displaying a babyshower-invitation

 Next up for the gallery wall: Framing my son´s babyshower-invitation.

All I needed was the invitation, a navy-blue picture frame, and some scrapbook-paper.



I cut a piece of the scrapbook-paper to size:



And then I assembled the whole thing:



Here is my frame among all the other wall gallery items:



I am still thinking about what I will do next, but I´ll let you know when I get there.

Linked up here:
- House of Hepworths
- Before and After Party

Even more Art for the Gallery

 For now, my knit-scarf hasn´t gotten very far (zero rows to be exact), but I did start another project for my son´s wall gallery. First up, here are my inspiration pictures:




I love the simple message of this line - a few words are all that are needed.
However, for my son´s wall gallery, I wanted this to be happier and decided to switch up the colors just a bit:



Here is the my version as I created it in Word. I used Tahoma script in size 90 and bold. Then I centered the words and colored the letters randomly but still following my overall color scheme. 
Next, I printed a copy and went to the store to get a nice large picture frame and a block of greenish scrapbook-paper.



Once my art was framed, I decided I liked this project without the scrapbook-paper. Here is the finished product:




Linked up here: Metamorphosis Monday
                          House of Hepworths
                          Before and After Party

The Letter L

                                                                                          Source: twotwenty-one.com via Carina on Pinterest

Have you seen this jute-letter on pinterest? When I saw it, I had to pin it with the intention of creating one of these for my son´s room.

So the other day I went and got all of my supplies ....

... all of them except for one: I wasn´t able to find a wooden or styrofoam letter anywhere in my town.

At first, I figured I would just order one online, but all of the sites I looked at had higher prices for the letters (plus high shipping costs) than I wanted to pay for this project.

Then yesterday, while throwing away an empty diaper box I realized how I could create my own letter without spending a cent:

Can you see it?

Maybe now?

I cut out 4 L´s (each 25 cm high and 15 cm wide or 10 inches high and 6 inches wide ), layered them, and glued them together to give me one 3-dimensional L.
And all of that for the cost of one empty diaper box.

Next, I got out my supplies: 3 bundles of jute (20 meters each), 1 bundle of blue thick cord, and a small pack of green wood-beads.

I started by covering the ends with small pieces of jute and attached those with hot glue. Then I just went on and covered the whole thing by wrapping the cord around the letter. Whenever the cord didn´t want to stay put (at the ends and in the "corner"), I used some more hot glue to come to the rescue.

Next, I attached 3 green beads on a small piece of jute and hot-glued those to the letter as well. Once that was done, I used my blue cord to decorate the L a little more.

 

Since an "L" is a little difficult to attach to the wall evenly, I made sure to add little hooks to the backside of the letter:

These will enable me to make this letter part of a wall gallery I am planning for my son´s room.

These are the 3 pieces I have so far. Next time, I work on a letter like this I will try to reduce the amount of jute used in the corners, or increase the amount of jute on the straight parts, so that the entire letter is covered more evenly.

Eitherway, I am happy to move another project from my pinterest boards to the done board.

Linked at House of Hepworths, Metamorphosis Monday and Frugal Friday.

It´s Pinterest Challenge Time!!!

For the second time this year Katie Bower and Sherry and John Petersik invited all of the DIY-bloggers out there to participate in the Fall Edition of the Pinterest Challenge.
Well, at first I was up for the challege, but had no clue what to work on..... Until Friday evening, when my older neighbour came over and asked me, if I was interested in a little wooden chair for our son. Sure I was.
Off she went to get the little stool from her basement and came back with this:



 
Here is a snip from my `Boy´s Room` Pinterest board:




As you can see, I decided on making a little time-out-chair from my neighbour´s gift.
I had to think for a while about what I would do exactly with this chair, but then decided on using a bit of an Ikea curtain found a few months ago at the `as is` section for $3.00.
Here is the fabric with all the other supplies I got for about $10.00 at the hardware store:



I started by detaching the ´pretty´ peach colored seat from the 80s:



Then I lightly sanded the wood:



After that I used spray-primer (especially since this was the first time I ever used this brand of spray-paint).



While the spray-paint was drying, I worked on covering the seat with new fabric.



Just make sure you have a bit of fabric overlapping on each side.
Once that was done, I started giving my chair two light coats of blue spray-paint.


         (This was after the first coat)



Here you can see the chair coming together, but maybe you can also see from the picture that the white primer was coming through the blue. I decided to let the paint cure over night and to get on another 1 or 2 coats the next day. (Yes, I had to go out and buy another bottle of spray for that plan).
Once all that was done and the paint had time to dry another night, I reattached the seat to the base. Ready for the small reveal?
Here is the chair before and after:



How cute is that? For sure this chair is going to fit right in with the color scheme I have in mind for my son´s room. Here is another close-up of the seat:



For sure I love how the chair turned out and the Pinterest Challenge is accomplished :).

Linked up at the Pinterest Challenge, November Before and After Party, Frugal Friday and Show and Share Day.

Addition to the "Baby's Room"

About 5 years ago, previous renters had left behind a hideous little TV stand covered in a weird light pink-grayish laminate. I made do with it, especially since someone in the house (that would be the hubby) told me that painting laminate was impossible.

So the little TV stand moved with us to another apartment and spent the next 2 years in our hardly ever used guest room.

Then we downsized and a few months later I started discovering DIY-blogs and stumbled across Censational Girl's explanation on how to paint laminated furniture. Full of energy and new-found hope I painted the TV stand and another dresser my hubby had collected off the streets. The fresh white color was so much better than the laminate.

I made one mistake though. I polyurethaned the TV stand with a product that warned somewhere in the fineprint it would discolor white paint. Awesome. Since it was in the middle of winter and another painting session with wide-open windows in the freezing cold didn't seem like a goog idea, I decided to live with the yellowish tint that started to show after a few months.

Over the weekend  I decided to tackle the little guy and make it pretty again.

You can't see too well from this picture, but the stand had gotten visibly more yellow over time.
I decided to remove the upper board and to paint whatever was below in white with the intention to use this piece as toy-storage in my son's room.

Here is the stand after I removed the top board. Now it becomes pretty visible how ugly the previous laminate was and how yellow the poly had turned over time.

I decided to use some of my free Glidden paint I got a few months back in order to not only freshen up the white, but also to add a little something else to the stand.

 This color is Glidden's Soothing Green Tea, a fresh but not overpowering green.

 

After painting the inside corners with a brush, I used a paint roller to cover the entire inside of the stand.

Here is the finished stand (which I had touched-up with white paint). There was one big problem though. I had started the whole project intending to use my leftover primer from last year to cover the circle at the top. Once I opened the can, I had the nice surprise of completely dried out primer. Too bad. The top circle will have to be painted another time or I might even try to make a bench out of this once I pick up a bench cushion and some pretty fabric.

That didn't mean though, that I couldn't dress my stand up a little.

Can you see the light green I added to the open portion of the stand? For decoration I used my son's piggy bank, a place mat (to hide decorate the unpainted portion), a lamp, and one of my son's old receiving blankets framed and hung on the wall.

Then I decided to dress up the bottom portion as well.

 Some company for Mr. Piggy. Isn't this cute?

(After taking the pictures I removed anything not  toddler-friendly for obvious reasons. Also within 10 minutes my son had discovered the new addition to his room and messed up the remainder decoration).

Anyhow, what would you suggest? Adding a little bench seat at the top? Painting that unpainted circle in white? Any other suggestions? Let me know.

Linked up at the following Parties:

Between Naps on the Porch - Metamorphosis Monday
My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia - Tuesdays Treasures 
Domestically Speaking - Power of Paint Party 
Savy Southern Style - Wow us Wednesday 
The Shabby Creek Cottage - Transformation Thursday 
House of Hepworths - Hooking Up 
The Shabby Nest - Frugal Friday