Organize a little girls room.....

This is the never ending project...."Lets organize your room"

My Beautygirl wants to keep absolutely everything that has ever passed through her hands. So we are working on a system to make her room more organized. (I can always dream)

This is the dresser. It is two small file cabinets that are metal.













We have attached tags made out of those lanolin samples. (No I did not steal them. I got them when I was working on a project for school.) A little magnet is glued to the back.


Hopefully, the tags will help the clothes go into the right home.














Also, we took down the huge rod in the closet.
It was warped in the middle. Instead we hung two towel rods from Ikea. We just placed them upside-down and screwed them into the wood shelf.











This way we could divide and conquer her stuff. School outfits on one side. Dresses, coats, etc... on the other.



















On the top shelf, there are a few plastic file cubes. Of course we are not hanging files in them. One houses extra blankets and bedding. The other is home to dress-up clothes.














We did install a belt thingy...to hang the belts from.





















We have a long way to go. We already did under-the-bed storage, which went really well. (If you want to see the under-the-bed storage, look for the label "luggage".)











So... What do you think?

Doll Clothes

My Beautygirl decided that we needed to make doll clothes for some of her dolls.

I did not have any patterns, so I suggested that we call grandma and see if she did.

I was thinking "quick trip".

--Go to grandmas
--get doll clothes pattern
--go home and begin project...


When I got to grandmas, she was already in the midst of one doll dress for another granddaughter. Grandma accused me of getting her involved in a NEW project. I told grandma what my plan was and then.... I discovered that my Beautygirl had set up a very different event. Little did I know that Beautygirl did not just call grandma, but she arranged that grandma would be making the doll clothes for other cousins at the same time. And Beautygirl had talked to the other cousins and told them the plan as well. It was to be a day! Not only that, but Beautygirl had brought some of her fabric scraps to make the doll dress.

She set up a project day at Grandmas--without my knowledge.

Hmmmm.....

So, this time, I figured "What the heck! I am already here."

This could be an opportunity to teach a little sewing.
I let Beautygirl design the dress.




I then made up a pattern (because after all that, the patterns at grandmas were WAY to complex for a doll dress)
I showed my Beautygirl how to pin the pattern to the fabric and how to cut it out.



Well, that was about all she could handle. (After all, she does have a hyper-focus issue that we deal with often)

So guess who made the rest of the dress? You got it...ME!




However, I did require Beautygirl to sew on the buttons.







In the end, The dress turned out pretty darn cute.

Soda Pop Tops

Storage...



I recently needed to be able to hang more things in my Beautygirls closet. I create outfits for school, so the torment of the morning routine is lessened. But! Problem....

How do I get the outfits to hang together. If I hang the skirts on the bar of the hanger, the shirt wrinkles and hides what is under it.








Here comes the awsome part! take a pop top and use it as a hanger connector. Cheep!!!! and the clothes hang like a dream.









Viola...

--Tara

New? storage....Luggage

I am sick and tired of the storage "solutions" being damaged or just is not the right size....

Well. I have found a solution. I am taking luggage (solid) and painting them to fit my beauty girl's color scheme. Now we have Polly pocket storage, barbie storage, stuffed animal storage and art supply storage. And all of it fits under her bed. By having all of this luggage taking up all of the room, it helps keep other things from being shoved under the bed.
(After all, that is the meaning of cleaning your room. Push it under the bed and no body will be the wiser. Right?!)

Anyway. On to the process.

• Find old luggage.

(I happened across this really nice set of Samsonite. The insides were in prime condition. a little wash and good as new.)

• Lightly sand the out side shell.

(tape off anything you want to keep paint off of. I taped the handles and latches.)

• use "good" spray paint. I used Krylon.

(several coats will be necessary. I should have primed the luggage first. Then I would have only used One can of the ballet slipper pink. But none the less, I did need two cans of paint for three pieces of luggage.)

Now for the cream. I could not find a crown to save my life and I did not want to have PLAIN luggage storage. It needs a little whimsy. I made a stencil out of laminating film. After I used a good sharp exacto knife and cut away the pieces that would show on the luggage, I taped the stencil into place. This is where I used a different color of paint. Bronze? I think was the color. But It goes great in her room. And Yes! I did have to cut out a second crown stencil because my first one was too big to fit on the train case (which houses the small Polly pocket dolls).

We have filled the suitcase storage and now have some great places to keep her stuff. UNDER the BED! Hooray!!!

Party- butterfly Pinata

A few year ago, my Beauty Girl wanted a pinata at her Birhtday Party. Well I just could not spend the money on the one she wanted ($18 plus). I thought, I can make that!

Well I did make it and it was perfect!


The girls loved swinging at the thing and had a grand time diving after the candy as it fell!

There is a word of caution to this tale. Unless the Pinata needs to match your birthday theme exactly, it would have been better to just buy the thing! The supplies were cheep, but the labor was intensive! The moral of this tale is Lots of time, no money...This is the answer! No time, some money... Just buy it!

Lets Play House

OK... It is a little uncanny that one of my sisters and I are so similar. Well, here is yet another example of this! I had drawn up plans for a PVC play house for my Beauty Girl a few years ago. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but a completed project of a pvc house on HER blog! Anyway, it got me all inspired to actually put my plans into action. I did look at the plans she used, which were almost the same as mine, but I added a door to the front. (My Beauty Girl is a tad accident prone and would have tripped over the pvc pipe in the entrance.) And for the sides, I put in holes for windows. This is two fold, One there is better ventilation and the breezes do not tear apart the whole thing. Two, I can check up on play more easily. That is my job as the MOM.

I also recycled! I used left over pvc from my Dad and used old sheets that were going to be donated. But viola, I found a use for them. I attached hook and loop (Velcro) to the walls and sides for easy removal of the walls. This is an outside thing you know (but it is under the back porch). For the top, I used a queen sized fitted sheet. I just popped it on and there it is! I did have to buy the connection pieces and one more piece of pipe. I think I spent around $15-$20.

We did put a few other things in there. An old spool for wire was painted pink and is now a table. There is a tin mail box (painted pink) outside the door. Also, an indoor-outdoor rug is under the house. That is just to make it a little nicer for my Beauty Girl!
Take a look. Tell me what you think!

castle

this is a picture of a mural I worked on with two of my sisters. Tiff and Sundee helped work on the little village. I painted the castle.
This was done in Sundee's little girl's room.

Doll House

This last year for Christmas, my beauty girl asked for a doll house for her Barbies. Well, they were ridiculously expensive. So I called in some help and we remade this book shelf into a doll house.










The response was perfect.


Some of the props were re-purposed. The bathtub was a bread pan, the sink was a candle stick holder (upside down). The dresser up stairs was a jewelry box, kitchen table was a tile glued to a candle holder, rocking chair was a pin cushion. The wall paper was scrapbook papers

Lil' grey sweater-makeover

This little girls sweater was $3.74. My little girl needed a longer sweater than what she had, but finding one was a trick. I saw that there were many people "fixing" sweaters to meet their needs. So I thought it was a great idea and did it too. It is an easy craft idea too. I took the sweater and sewed two zig-zag stitches down the middle, next to each other. I then cut between the stitches. I added a button and small string to hold it closed. Also, I rolled the sleeve cuff up about three inches.

....... New knee length sweater for my little beauty girl! As she was getting out of the car to go to school, I heard one of the teachers comment to her, "Cute sweater". That did my heart good!


-Tara




Here are some shots of my beauty girl in her sweater.

Birds in Paris

I found this paper at a paper store in DownTown Mesa. Sadly, the store went out of business in the fall.
This paper was the inspiration for my Beauty girl's room. A warm pink and milk chocolate brown. Vintage feel with birds and flowers.


The frame was a thrift store find ($3.99).
The paper ($1.50)
The glass birds were after Christmas ornaments 90% off ($0.39 each)
Flowers (about $0.20)

The other embellishments were things I already had.

a little tree

I got this wonderful idea from a trip I took with my sisters in August of 2008. Anthropology had a beautiful old wardrobe with glass doors. But the glass doors had a drawing of a tree on it in marker. I could not get the idea out of my head. So I took this frame, took out the yucky cat poster and drew on the glass. I used dry erase markers instead of permanent and I drew on the back so it would not get smudged. Then I put two little birds that I had cut out of an old wrapping bag. I glittered and shined up the birds, of course, before I stuck them to the front side of the glass. It gives the tree a little life. The pictures do not show it super well, but you get the idea.

Christmas Doll house

Christmas was quite fun this year. My beauty girl asked for a barbie sized doll house for Christmas. Have you ever priced a plastic barbie house? $150 is a "Good deal". So I found a bookshelf ($60)that was in the shape of a doll house and converted it! My mom helped with the wall papering of the whole thing (which was lots of work) and I did the decorating and furniture placement(and making in some cases).

The bathtub was a bread pan with glass rocks glued to the top for faucet knobs and to the bottom for feet. The pedestal sink was a candle holder. Both were spray-painted white. The dresser in the upper room was a jewelry box, painted white. The nursery was for twins and the curtains are tassels. The kitchen table was a 19 cent tile glued to a candle holder. The couch was a trinket box, that was stuffed with a cushion (that I made) and the rocking chair was a pincushion, reupholstered and painted white. The fire place was a print out from a website of an actual Victorian replication gas fire place.

The fridge is an actually Barbie refrigerator. But that is the only thing that was truly "Barbie" The rest was a knock off or started out as something quite different.

It was an absolute hit! We finished opening gifts at 7:45am and she played with it until we left at 12:30pm to visit family. When we got home, she was back into her doll house until bed time.

Saddness...bye bye chicks

With heavy hearts, we said goodbye to our beloved chickens. We had a move, and try as we might, we just could not bring them with us. NO! we did not eat them. We found them a happy home with more yard space and lots and lots more bugs. About three weeks after we got the birds settled into their new home, my beauty girl and I went over to visit the chicks. Those dang birds did not even remember us at all. It made my beauty girl so sad. We cried together about the loss, but we were also grateful for the safe home for the birds. We felt like that visit would bring closure to her about the birds adoption by another family. That was at the first of November 09. Today(December 30, 2009), in the car, there were big tears rolling down my beauty's face. She was silent otherwise, not a whimper of sniff, and if I had not looked back, I would not have known. I asked what was wrong. She said that she knew that the chickens had a good home, but she really missed them. I tried to comfort her the best that I could, and still watch the road. Sweet girl. She raised the chicks from day old bird to about one year (almost exactly). Those silly chicks were so good for her. She needed the responsibility and carefree nature of the chickens. But most importantly, those silly chicks brought a sense of purpose for my beauty girl. She needed to have someone depend on her. Some day! I really mean it, I will have more chickens. They are MOST definitely not as high maintenance as a dog, (which we did get to bring with us to our new place.) They are as relaxing to watch as fish in a bowl. Plus, they give back with little white and yellow ovals of protein. Chickens are easy maintenance and quite fun. Good bye big chicks. We will miss you.

The swing--swinging

Lets all take a turn.. . The day the swing was finished, in fact, about five minutes after it was finished, there was already heated discussion on who was getting a turn.


It turned out perfect. And it is fun! Even my 13 year old, big-ol-boy goes out to swing.

Picture labels

For my little beauty, I have come up with a system that works GREAT! She was having trouble putting her clothing away in the correct place. she would take the entire stack and shove it into a hole, drawer, under the bed, etc... It was "put away" just in the wrong place. I wanted to label her drawers, but she has a reading disorder called dyslexia. There are varying degrees of this disorder, but hers was diagnosed as severe. It is almost like she is blind to reading. That being the case, word labels were not going to help. So I tool a Polaroid camera and took pictures of a few items that belonged in each drawer. I then taped them the front of the drawers. This has been fantastic! It works so well now because she does not have to guess at the words, she can just use the pictures to find the correct home for her clothing.