playroom and entry makeover

jer and i have been working on the three bedrooms for quite some time now... i feel like they change monthly! this post is just going to focus on the play room and out entryway, which also needed some tlc. 

the playroom

the middle room has been many things since we moved into our house in 2006: a guest bedroom, an office, a guest bedroom again, then a play room. i KNOW it will stay a play room for as long as we are living here. even if we have another child, the middle room will stay a play room! it's a must!! 

when it was an office, we painted it grey. i loved the grey walls and the dark wood.. i don't have any pictures of when it was an office, but i really liked it. jer had a nice built-in shelf with wood that matched the office furniture. i thought it looked pretty sharp, aside from all the dog gear we kept in there as well.

 

After it was an office, we decided to make it a bedroom again since we were trying to sell the house and wanted it to look like a room for presentation. 

 

i kind of liked it, but always thought the grey was too dark for any sort of playroom. i love grey walls, and i even think that now as a play room i would have liked them grey, but a very light grey. then, when we got the foam floor tiles put in, i really hated the dark walls. it was SO drab and dark and looked awful against the brown and blue floor. blech!

finally, we have an after:

 

jer gave me the ok to paint the room. no, i didn't paint it. jer did. not my thing. i picked the 2 colors, jer did a chair rail, and we did the darker on top and the lighter on the bottom. seth LOVES the paint! when anyone comes over he has to take you to his room and tell you how 'daddy paint' the room. the day jer painted it, i don't think i have ever seen seth so happy! he was literally dancing around the room the whole night!

i also have had these bird wall decals i got with a gift certificate to pottery barn, like 2 years ago!

the easter eggs are removable. i just liked them up for the season. seth really likes them, too! luke couldn't care less.

 

you can't tell our boys have 3 sets of grandparents, can you? spoiled much?!

 

because the toys were taking up a lot of the play area, jer made some shelves for the closet to keep the toys in. i like it much better that way!  just shut the closet door and bam, no mess. notice, no door to the playroom. we took it off so we can always see and hear what's going on in there. boys can be naughty!

the project that took me the longest in this room was definitely the 4 pictures of trees and animals in spring, summer, fall, and winter. thanks a million to my friend sara for helping me pick out the paper! i then used the cricut (thank you grandma tiffany!!) and a little creativity to cut the paper out and put the pictures together. the frames are dollar store frames painted white. cheap and easy.

 spring

summer

 

fall

 

and winter

 

i think i still want to put something in their room. maybe something coming from the ceiling. havent decided what, though. maybe, like these.

handmade, which is nice and also inexpensive so if i end up not liking them, i won't feel bad about changing them out.

well, there you have it. the play room. 

the entryway

the entryway was kind of ho hum. i liked it at first but got tired of it... happens a lot over here. well here is a before and after. i LOVE picture walls, so i was so happy to do this! then it took another 3-4 weeks to put pictures of people i actually know in them, not just the pictures of people that came with the frames. 

before

 

and after

 

i would do a photo wall on every wall if i could... but i fear it would be too much! here is a little photo wall eye candy for ya, click here

still want to get a wreath for my front door. i'm really loving magnolias and succulents right now, so i wouldn't mind either of these: magnolia or succulent.

well, i'm done for today... naptime is nearly over! maybe tomorrow i will get to seth's room.

Luke's woodland nursery

i've just about finished luke's woodland nursery to where i'm starting to really like it. i wanted a warm, natural, simple feel to it, but with some fun cutesy characters to make it feel like a nursery and not just a 'sarah' space.

here are some before pics:

 and after:

the color of the walls is leftover from when it was seth's nursery, but i loved it so much there was no way i was going to change it! it's a very calming blue-grey. jeremy created some boxes around the bottom to break up the blue-grey color. he also put up crown molding and made a shelf.

i made these letters for luke with some woodland paper, stickers, and dodads. 

i think they turned out really cute in his room!

i got these fun mushrooms from thai pan. i would like to get more for this room, but the kind with the red top and white polka dots. i love those! these are cute, too.

my lovely friend sara got this for for luke. it is SO cool! his back projects starts onto the ceiling when it's dark and it plays really soothing music. i love it so much!

i had to put the chubby pictures of luke up. the top picture my dad calls 'baby luke in bag' and the bottom one he calls 'baby luke in garbage can'... he doesn't get it. haha, love my daddy!

this is the cutest mobile ever! there is a deer, a fox, a bear and a bunny. the colors go perfectly!

i made the frame to the right. you can't see, but it's star ribbon on the top with an owl and a bunny and carrot at the bottom. then, i HAD to put a picture of luke and his awesome big brother!

these took me the longest out of everything. it is an eclectic mix of different woodland creatures cut out of paper using a cricut and different painted frames. i love the hedgehog, fox and racoon the most, but they're all cute little guys. then, the frames were either painted or modge-podged with different paper. it was a labor of love but i really like how it turned out.

there are a  few more things i would like to do, buy, and put up. for instance, i really want to get these:

this stuffed owl

this mushroom lamp

this fox pillow

and this sweet log pillow

i have them pinned in pinterest... my new FAVORITE website! you pin things you like online and can categorize and organize them on your page in the website. i love it! 

lastly, i want to print and frame this picture i drew for luke with my bamboo pad. my printer isn't working, so it may be a while.

 

there you have it! 

i also finished seth's room... i'll do a post later showing that. it's pretty cute; safari/jungle theme to match his bathroom. i also finished their playroom. post to follow.

springtime cookie decorating... first time with glaze icing

hey!

so i have a new favorite blog to look at called the sweet adventures of sugarbelle and it is so much fun! really fun eye candy! she decorates cookies like an art. she uses royal icing, like most hardcore cookie decorators do, but in my cookie decorating trial, i used a glaze icing i found. it doesn't call for meringue powder and the word on the street is that it tastes MUCH better. another upside is that you can use the same consistency for outlining and flooding (a cookier term for filling in the cookie with icing). downside is that you can't get as much detail as royal icing since this glaze spreads more. meh. i didn't want to buy meringue powder anyway.

i'm in the mood for spring, although the snow outside says otherwise. i decided to try my hand at some cute bunny, chick, and flower cookie cutters i got at target. i got my decorating supplies from my mother-in-law denise. she makes the cutest cakes! anyway, here are some pics of my process:

 

to fill my little decorating bags, i used this trick ... it keeps things so clean! and because i only had one coupler to work with, it saved me a lot of time cleaning. really cool trick. i love tricks! i did end up making a mess, anyhow, but it was other kind of mess, not frosting all over my hands and bags and everywhere. 

ok, so the cookies were suppose to be 1/4 inch think, but i don't have anything that helps you roll dough out evenly and measured, so i used a straw and a ruler! i put the straw in the dough when i thought it was the right thickness and measured it with a ruler. i'm sure this is not unique, but i thought of it on my own and i was very proud! i'm not a baker, so this is all new for me!

 

while my bunnies were drying, 

i decided to take a picture of my organized mess into a rainbow. awe!

i couldn't decided on the bunnies with or without whiskers. 

 

i decided without was much cleaner and cuter... yes?

here they are! they may look easy, but they were hard for me so LAY OFF! (said in Adam Sandler-esque anger)

i think i want to make some more chicks, but do them in blue! eh!?! blue ducks!!

feel free to leave a quacktastic comment!

baby headband and clip-ons

hey! hello again!

i have a baby shower to go to tomorrow and it's for a baby girl! you know what that means? bows, flowers, headbands, etc! i decided to try to make a headband for a baby. i have never done it before. i don't know how to use a sewing machine (nor do i own one) but i do know how to use a hot glue gun and a needle and thread, so i kind of improvised. i don't have much experience with hair things for babies but i assume you need a headband that is gentle. i tested it out on lukey, the poor kid, but i think i got something that will work. i got a pair of little girl tights from Dollar Days and cut the waist band. it's the perfect size for luke's head, but he does have a large head for his age, so i hope it works. then, i put a band of cut matching fabric around it so it can act as a place to hold the clips i decorated. (when jeremy saw me try it on luke, all he said was 'never again' haha!)

well, here they are. after taking pictures and looking at them, i realized that a lot of the ribbon is frayed in a few places. i think i need to fix those up before they are presentable as gifts, but i think a trim and some clear nail polish should do the trick. i can't wait to meet baby sydney!

for these i used a cool flower-making sewing thing. you just put the fabric in and thread the needle where it says to go, pull the thread when you are finished, and voila! a baby flower! i suck at explaining it, so here is a link to what they are. on that site i saw these! how cute! must get.


this one i sewed using tulle and a really soft cotton with pearls.


this picture shows the headband that these all can attach to. if it doesn't work out the way i hope, then in a few years i think the clips will work just fine in her hair. i don't know. i hope!


i thought this flower would be cute for, like, a newborn photo. it doesn't seem like it would really be a good flower for everyday wear.


there you have it! my second post! hope you all enjoyed and if you ever want to nap craft with me, give me a call! i love company!

pom pom flower statement necklace

Hello!

this is my first post for blue duck! does anyone know the reference? a little old-school jr high sarah for ya. i drew my little ducky on my bamboo tablet that i am still LOVING! Look HERE if you still don't understand what it is. so much fun! i drew my header for my personal blog with it, too:


well, here are some necklaces i made last week. like i said, i found out that i NEED a creative outlet! i was having such an identity crisis/crazy post-preg-hormonal-thing and making things and attempting to be artistic has been very very therapeutic. i feel like "me" again, if that makes sense.

here they are. i made them for some family birthdays, and i was so sad i had to give them away! i secretly wore one for a day before i gave it away. i know, tacky and not so much a secret anymore. sorry haley!

this one i used a mix of organza, cotton, silk, antique buttons, random doodads, and an old pair of jeans from jr high


this one is definitely more simple and understated. i used lace, a pearl, organza, cotton, and satin ribbon:



this one is cotton and silk. how awesome is that big metal brooch-thing i found?



there you have it. i think my next project will be some headbands for my cousin's 3-year birthday. if they turn out, i will post them as well!