New Old Cupboard

I just adore old blue paint... don't you?

And Robin's Egg Blue is my happy color any day of the week.

It can be pretty hard to come by painted blue cupboards out here in the West, so I made do.

A second-hand-store cupboard with the right style and dimensions...

some new paint (Miller 0689 Atmosphere), a can of brown shoe polish, and an intense amount of elbow grease was all it took.

I bet you can't wait to see where the cupboard now lives and what sits on its shelves...

IKEA Pillow Re-do

Last weekend, after my first-ever adventure to the phenomenon that is IKEA, I found myself with two too-light and too-bright couch pillows. I loved the Jacobean-like embroidery covering the front, but the colors were just as bad in my living room as I expected them to be.

But that's okay, because I had a plan.

First, take the covers off of the down pillow forms, then soak them in some RIT color remover.

Finally, give them a bath in RIT tan dye, which mellowed them quite nicely.

Before:

After:

Now lets pretend they were made from old hand-embroidered bed curtains, shall we?

For anyone who wants to try the same trick, here's a link to the same cushion on IKEA's website.

Rainy Day Fun

Inspired by a friend who made a rice bin for her girls, based on this post, found by way of Pinterest (evil, evil, web site!), I made a little rainy-day fun for my kids.

One large, shallow tote with lid + 20 pounds of rice + food coloring + rubbing alcohol = hours of creative play.

Which also = one Mama that gets a little peace and quiet while she works.

Fourteen Butterflies

It has been a few weeks now, and I guess I hadn't blogged about it because I was waiting to see how things went... Katie has been moved to her "own" room. Its not that she didn't like her cozy little spot in the corner of the master bedroom, on the contrary, she was quite happy to browse through my book collection (I caught her with Pigs Might Fly more than once), and loved knowing that I was at her beck and call all night long.

But after a bit of a transition time, we are all sleeping much better, Katie in her crib, and the Parents in their kid-free zone! She is down to one waking per night, and that suits us all just fine.

In preparation of the big move, I took the circa 1970's yellow butterfly mobile that hung over my childhood bed and updated it with various fabrics. Jack was actually quite upset when he saw it, saying in a quite disappointed voice, "Mama!? Did you paint them???" Katie and I think it was a definite improvement.



To further adapt the guestroom/Beth's craft studio, I needed to hang curtains. Being first and foremost interested in not spending much money on this endeavor, and also being limited by time and resources, I opted for a trip to our local thrift store to see what I could find in the bedding section that could be repurposed as curtains. To my dismay, the best I could find was a decidedly PINK duvet from IKEA. It was that or the horribly retro orange and avacado flowered sheet set. So with a sigh, I took the PINK linens home, threw them in a large bowl of walnut dye, and came out with something at least a little less Pink, and actually quite nicely muted and variegated.

And did I stop at that? Oh Heavens, NO! I couldn't stop myself from throwing the white polyester lace sheers that had "temporarily" been hanging in those windows for a few years into the leftover dye.

After hanging the finished pink panels in the windows and draping the lace over the front, the end result was still a bit too pink for my taste, but when the daylight comes peeking through, the overall effect is quite charming...


So, while I am not that happy to have to share my space with Katie, who still takes 2 or 3 naps each day, I am completely THRILLED to be sleeping almost normally once again.

One last little glimpse...