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).

DIY Recipe Box

Yey, today ít´s finally Pinterest Challenge Time over at Young House Love, Bower Power and 2 other blogs. I am so excited to see all of the great projects completed all over blog-world.

First up, here is what I have been pinning recently:



Yep. Recipe Boxes. Many years ago, I sat down and created a recipe binder for all of my recipes.



But over the years, it ended up more like this:



Every time I found a recipe online, I would print it out and stick it in the front. So something had to be done here.

With improvement in mind I went on pinterest to see how others stored their recipes. Seing all of those pretty recipe boxes, I decided that this was what I needed in order to organize my recipe situation.

I already had index cards, and only needed some type of container or box to hold my recipe collection (with enough space for it to grow). At the $-Store (or since I am in Germany the EUR-Store) I found the right item.



A cheap light green basket (picture is not true to color), that was the perfect size for my index cards.
At home I grabbed my scrapbook paper and started tracing out divider cards on some dark green cardstock.



I used a small nail polish bottle to trace on tabs as well.



I cut out my dividers and made sure they fit.



Next, I used the white portion of the my scraps, to create lables to go on the divider tabs….



… and attached them with the white side up on the dividers.



Then I decided I also wanted to label the recipe box itself, so I took yet some more scraps and worked on that.



I used Jute to attach this label to the front of my recipe box.



And finally I started copying my loose recipes onto those index cards. That will probably take me a couple of nights. However, even if I should get lazy at some point and I can still cut whatever I wrote or printed a recipe on to size and just stick it in the box.



So, what do you think? Isn´t this better than my previous overstuffed recipe binder?



At least, now I have quite some space for new recipes ….

Linked up here:

- Tuesday´s Treasures

Organizing my "Office"

Last month, I shared how I was able to update our main living-room/bed-room/office to include a functional work area using my childhood desk.

This was working much better than what I had before, but the organzer in me wanted to go a step further. Since I am using the desk drawers as dresser replacement and the space behind the door as storage for diapers, I didn´t really have a lot of space to put away paper-work, office supplies, and cables.

So on Sunday while over at my parent´s house, I remembered a little desk-top organizer with drawers, which I had purchased at Ikea about 15 years ago or so.

You have probably seen these before. However, I am not sure though whether they are still being sold at stores.

Once I cleaned out the drawers (there was my make-up from 15 years ago in some of those drawers - yuck!!!) I got crafty.

I made a template and then cut out 4 copies of the template on pretty paper.

Late Night Project - So I have bad pictures again.

Next, I attached my cut-to-size paper to the drawers using spray adhesive.

Within half an hour of work, I was able to put my newly decorated drawers in place and to start re-organizing my desk.

See, now I have a space for my notebook cable, the cell phone adapter and a few other cables I use frequently. This is perfect spot for keeping them out of sight, but easily reachable.

I made simple lables for each drawer and put them into the designated slots.

What I like about the drawer organizer  is, that it gives me storage space on two levels. One to hide stuff and one to show off stuff. Perfect.

Now, I would love to paint it white but that will have to be for another month, since paint is not in the budget. Same goes for the desk by the way. Plus, I am not going to attempt painting furniture for the moment, since we have a beautiful -14 C outside (6.8 F). No way I am going to paint furniture with such pretty temperatures, lol.

As for the budget, this project cost me nothing. The drawer unit was mine from many years ago, I already had the scrapbook-paper and I also already had the glue.


Linked up here:

- Before and After Party
- Tuesday´s Treasures

No space, no Christmas? - Kein Platz, kein Weihnachten?

Yep, that´s our situation at the moment. We are still in a very small space and there is simply no room to put a tree anywhere. So what´s an Ikea-loving girl to do in such a problematic moment?

Ja, das ist unsere momentane Situtation. Wir leben immer noch auf sehr beengtem Raum und haben ganz einfach keinen Platz für einen Weihnachtsbaum. Was würde ein Ikea-Narr in dieser Situtation machen?

Well, I went to Ikea. As simple as that. Not exactly with the goal to find a solution for my little dilemma, but almost on the way out, there was all the Christmas-stuff on display.

Ganz einfach. Zu Ikea fahren. Natürlich sind wir aus anderen Gründen dort hin gefahren und fast am Ende unseres Rundgangs waren alle Weihnachtssachen ausgestellt.

After going through all the different displays longing for my own tree, I couldn´t believe my eyes when I stumbled upon this:

Nachdem ich mir sehnsüchtig all die Weihnachtsdekorationen angeschaut hatte, konnte ich meinen Augen nicht glauben als ich dies hier entdeckte:

Source

This miny-tree is only about 20 inches tall (56cm) and very narrow. And it fits. Even on a tiny table or a small space on a sideboard or sidetable. To top things of, it was only EUR 12.99 (about 16 USD?).

Dieser Minibaum ist nur etwa 56cm hoch und sehr schmal. Und er passt sogar auf einen kleinen Tisch.

I don´t have to mention that I was thrilled, or do I?

Ich muss nicht schreiben wie sehr ich mich grfreut habe, oder?

Anyhow, I grabbed one of the Feijka-trees (that´s their name), a package with various small, red ornaments and a package with a golden pearl ribbon.

Kurzentschlossen habe ich mir also einen der sogenannten Feijka-Bäume geschnappt, sowie eine kleine Schachtel mit verschiedenen, roten Ornamenten und einer goldfarbenden Perlenkette.

Once home, my son and I started decorating our table top tree:

Sobald wir zu Hause waren, haben mein Sohn und ich angefangen den Baum zu dekorieren.

Maybe, I should say that I tried to decorate and my son ripped everything apart. After some fun and some struggle, we had the tree set up.

Vielleicht sollte ich besser sagen, dass ich versuchte den Baum zu dekorieren, während er alles immer wieder auseinander nahm. Nach einigem Spass und einigem Ärger war der Baum dann doch endlich fertig.

I like how this small tree already changed the flair of an entire (even if small) space.

Mir gefällt besonders gut, wie das ganze Ambiente eines kleinen Raumes mit einem kleinen Weihnachtsbaum geändert werden kann.

The golden pearl ribbon was a little too long for the entire tree, so I just wrapped the end around the tree stump in the planter. That way, I was able to cover up the fake "potting mix" and I added a little more bling to the tree:

Da die Goldkette ein bischen zu lang für den kleinen Baum war, entschied ich mich diese einfach ein paar mal um den "Baumstamm" zu wickeln und die falsche Erde damit abzudecken:
 

Can you see the pearls peeking through?

Hier kann man die Perlen im Topf sehen.

Maybe, I´ll add a pot around the base, or maybe a scarf or something like that.  I´ll see if I find something cheap in the next couple of days.

Vielleicht hole ich noch einen Blumentopf dazu oder benutze einen Schal um den Untertopf zu verschönern. Mal sehen, ob ich hierzu noch was Schönes finde in den nächsten paar Tagen.

Last year, my tree looked like this by the way:

Letztes Jahr sah unser Baum übrigends so aus:

 
Blue, silver and teal. I brought the little angel with me and it is also on this years tree.

Blau, silber und türkis. Den kleinen Engel habe ich mit nach Deutschland gebracht und er hängt auch dieses Jahr wieder am Baum.


Linked up here:
- Frugal Friday
- Show and Share Day 
- Christmas Tree Party

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

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.