Darcy's Big Girl Flower Garden Bedroom

We're only a few weeks away from a new occupant moving into the crib, so it was time to boot Darcy out and transfer her to a big girl room!

I originally intended for this bedroom makeover to be a Christmas surprise for Darcy (although I never got as far as figuring out how to keep an entire room in our house a secret from her), and it is just now completed in mid-March, so that's right on track for my typical scheduling!

I recruited some design talent to put this room together -- namely, Kathleen of Lindsay Hill Interiors (aka Darcy's grandma) and she did a marvelous job of creating the perfect space for Darcy. We wanted to give her a room that was sweet and girly, without being babyish or too 'cutesy.' The results are a lovely, feminine space that can grow with her, and won't feel like a baby room as she gets older.

Needless to say, Darcy LOVES her new room.

Step 1 was getting this girl a Beddy's of her very own. Every member of this family now sleeps in a Beddy's bedding set and they are THE BEST EVER. Perfect trifecta of being simple to use, comfy to sleep in, and absolutely adorable. We picked out the Vintage Blush Beddy's for Darcy's room.

If you aren't familiar with this awesome product, it is an all-in-one bedding set (meaning, literally ONE PIECE of bedding from fitted sheet through top quilt) that zips up the sides similar to a sleeping bag. It is a one step, one zip process to make the bed in the morning, and Darcy can do it by herself. Hallelujah for one less chore for me to complete every day! Another perk for young kids transitioning out of a crib is that zipping it up to her armpits at night prevents her from falling out of the bed as she gets used to sleeping in a bed without side rails. Just awesome, all around.

If you'd like to see how we all use our Beddy's, you can see them at home in Forrest's bedroom HERE, and our bedroom HERE (those pictures are actually from our old house -- maybe someday I'll get around to photographing our bedrooms in our current place!).

Kathleen recommended a feminine accent wall, and she found this beautiful floral wallpaper from Milton & King. I found the idea of wallpaper pretty intimidating, but it turns out, wallpaper is pretty simple to hang (as long as you've got two sets of hands at your disposal, and bonus points if your designer has worked with wallpaper before and doesn't mind helping out!). It took us an afternoon to put the wallpaper up, and I love that it brings in some fun color and pattern without being overwhelming or too 'trendy' -- I have high hopes that this is a style that will look great for years to come.

This dresser was a vintage find that we refinished in a cheery yellow color before Darcy was born (you can see it in her original baby nursery HERE), and it looks perfect in this colorful, happy room.

This girl LOVES her stuffed animals and plays with them frequently, so we included a big basket in her bedroom for her furry friends to live in. And this shaggy, plush, comfy rug from Rugs USA is so soft and cozy that I keep catching Darcy lying on it, trying to make snow angels.

Darcy is absolutely loving her new room, and so am I! If you have questions about any of the items in her room, let me know and I'll do my best to answer :-)

Product list:
Zipper bedding, bedskirt, pillows: c/o Beddy's
Bed: Walmart
Basket, dresser, floral paintings, and many accessories: thrift store finds
Distressed letter "d" over bed: Hobby Lobby
Nightstand: thrifted, I believe originally from Ikea?
Lamp: Target
Wallpaper: c/o Milton & King
Rug: c/o Rugs USA

Chic Black and White Halloween Mantel + Traditional Fall Hutch Decor

I think I've proven in the past that I'm not always the most enthusiastic decorator for holidays. But it's a lot more fun when your kids act excited about decorating, which was a big motivator for my Halloween decor this year.

Since I already had quite a bit of black and white happening on my mantel between the clock and vases (not to mention the fireplace box itself and the white mantel), I decided to go with a monochromatic black and white scheme. I wanted to keep it looking chic and sophisticated, but still fun for the kids, and this is what I came up with.

I started by gathering up books from my collection that have black spines/covers, and stacking them up. I always like using my books as decor, since I already have lots of them and it's fun for me to put them on display.

These two lanterns usually have blue and green candles inside. I didn't want to buy black and white candles just for this display, especially since I knew I wouldn't be burning them. So I just took a sheet each of black and white paper, wrapped them around the candles I already owned, and taped them into place. Easy, free fix to keep my black and white look going.

I made the 'spook' banner and the bats using my Silhouette Portrait. Super easy and quick to pump out, and I love the swarm of bats escaping from the fireplace. I think I'll leave them up all year, and just accessorize them for every other holiday. They can each wear a Santa hat for Christmas, bunny ears for Easter, etc. It'll totally work, right?

We have a cute hutch in our kitchen that I used to display our more traditional fall decor.

The little 'apple cider' sign was another quick Silhouette project from last year, made from a piece of scrap wood I found in the garage. I used those removable photo hanging strips to attach it to the back of the hutch. Hopefully it'll come down okay!

And I was happy to rediscover this little painting in a box in my garage. I bought it at a thrift store years and years ago, but never found a good spot for it in our last house. I think it looks perfect tucked into this display.

Do you like decorating for fall, or Halloween, or both?

Bookworm Style -- DIY Poe Shirt

I've been slow to get on the graphic tee bandwagon . . . but I'm more than willing to climb aboard nowadays, especially for a nerdily bookish graphic tee like this one.

I made this Poe-inspired shirt for myself this week. I mean, the kids have all sorts of cheesy Halloween stuff to wear over the next month. I want something spooky, too. And Poe . . . Poe is spooky. If you don't believe me, go listen to it read by James Earl Jones. *shivers*

Hop over to Delicious Reads for the full tutorial, and get the cut file freeeeeeeee to make this for yourself if you're lucky enough to have that crafting tool that puts all other crafting tools to shame: the Silhouette.

DIY Curious George Shirt (Be a Good Little Monkey!)

My kids are hardcore Curious George groupies. And that's totally fine with me. I think it's such a cute show. Let's be honest, there are some kids' shows that are just awful to watch, or even to hear in the background while you're busy doing other stuff. (Don't even get me started on Sid the Science Kid.) But I think Curious George is as sweet and adorable as they come.

Forrest was the original George fan in our house, and now Darcy is crazy about, too. I love seeing them sitting side by side to watch George together. And it's not uncommon at all to hear Forrest telling Darcy to 'be a good little monkey!' (If you don't watch the show, that's what the man in the yellow hat says to George in nearly every episode.)

So I figured Curious George inspired shirts were in order for my little monkeys.

I'd like you to know that Darcy ate 2 and a half bananas in the 5 minutes it took to get these pictures. Girlfriend is insatiable. They were meant to be props, not snacks! She is indeed part monkey.

Making an important call on his banana phone, I guess? I don't even know.

These cute tanks were really simple to make with my Silhouette Portrait and some heat transfer vinyl.

I started with store bought shirts--I picked these up from the toddler boys' section at Walmart. Then I downloaded a font that was as close to the Curious George font as I could find. It's called 'Wrexham,' and it is free at Urban Fonts.

Step 1: Lay out your design in Silhouette Studio. Make sure to measure your shirt so you know how large to make the words. I made my first line of words just shy of 6", and the second line between 7-8" to fit Darcy's shirt (18 months). For Forrest's (4T), I stretched the text box about 1" bigger. Remember to mirror image the design so that it cuts in reverse!

Load the heat transfer vinyl into the Silhouette and start cutting. Weed out the excess vinyl after cutting is complete, and you'll be left with just the design, cut backwards, on the transfer paper, as shown in picture 1 below.

Step 2: Lay out the design on your tank. The plastic backing is slightly tacky, which is awesome since you can play with the positioning and just press it down when you're ready so it won't slip as you iron. (And you can't see it in my picture there, but the plastic backing is, in fact, still there.)

 Step 3: Cover the shirt with a thin cloth and iron over it (follow the vinyl package instructions). I ironed it a little longer than called for, just to be safe.

Step 4: Slowly peel off the glossy backing to reveal your awesome completed shirt.

Forrest was really excited about his shirt, and eagerly put it on before the fabric had even cooled down from being ironed. And I expected Darcy to put up a major stink about having her clothes changed (because in her world, a wardrobe change is only a baby step away from child abuse), but as soon as she realized that her little shirt matched her brother's, she was frantically clawing at the outfit she was wearing so I could take it off and put this on her. I think she might like matching him. Much tears, many sad at the end of the day when the monkey shirt had to come off so the jammies could go on.

Yes, that picture's blurry and as such is probably not blog-worthy . . . but it was one of my favorites anyway.

Do you have any Curious George fans at your house, too?

Aquarium Themed Juicy Gels Snack

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SnackPackMixins #CollectiveBias

Forrest loved going to preschool this past year. Absolutely loved it. He loved his friends, his teachers, the lessons, the field trips--it was a fantastic experience for him, all around. And I won't lie, I loved sending him off for a few hours each week, and enjoying a little peace and quiet while I knew he was having a blast at school. 

But now we've hit the summer break, and he isn't used to spending full days at home anymore. He talks fondly about preschool almost every day, and I can already tell that he's starting to forget some of the things he learned there. 

So I'm making it a goal this summer to do fun activities that I know he'll enjoy, and try to keep him excited about learning until school starts again in the fall. 

One of our first fun summer activities? We're planning an awesome, educational day at the aquarium with his best buddy, and psyching him up for it with ocean-themed activities, snacks, and books. So I used some tasty goodies to create an ocean-tastic snack for him. Nothing says preschool fun like themed snacks, am I right?

To create these adorable edible ocean scenes, I started out with Juicy Gels snacks and ocean creature gummies. 

I used ReddiWhip and food coloring to create blue ocean waves for our snacks. I just sprayed the ReddiWhip into a bowl, topped it with about 6 drops of blue food coloring, and stirred gently to incorporate the color. 

Then open the snack packs and press a few gummy fish into each container to create some underwater life. Top with a generous scoop of blue whipped cream to mimic ocean waves, and place some more gummy fish or an octopus on top.

5 minutes total for a fun, themed snack that got Forrest absolutely psyched for his upcoming aquarium trip, and got us talking about some cool sea creatures he'll be seeing soon.

I mean, I'm no preschool teacher, but I suppose I can be fun on occasion.

If you have a little ocean enthusiast in your life, pick up some Snack Pack Juicy Gels at Walmart to recreate this fun themed snack! And while you're at it, grab a great coupon for the Juicy Gels, as well as a coupon for new Snack Pack Pudding Bars. You'll find them in the baking aisle!

What fun themed snacks have you made for your kids? 

Fireplace Makeover: From Old Orange Stone to Crisp White

From the very first time we saw our house, it was obvious that something needed to be done about the fireplace. I remember wondering, when we decided to buy the house, what we could possibly do to improve it, and all my brainstorming got me nowhere. It was just so big, and so dark, and I couldn’t come up with any ideas to improve it that didn’t involve a lot more time and money and talent than we have. But we got distracted by more pressing needs in the house—new carpets, new floors, new paint, new kitchen—and I more or less forgot about the fireplace until my mom mentioned recently that she thought it might look nice painted white.

I was a little nervous about this, but one of the side effects of having an interior designer for a mother is learning to just agree with whatever she says without thinking too much about it. She’ll always be right. It’s like when people try to argue with Stacy and Clinton on What Not To Wear. Come on, folks. Even if you don’t see the vision, just accept that these people know more than you and go along with it. Trust the professionals.

Even though I trusted that my mom was right and it would be better after we were finished, it was a bit of a nerve-wracking project. The stone fireplace was ugly to start with—I don’t even like this stone on the exterior of the house, and certainly don’t want it inside—but painting it felt so permanent. What if it looked silly? I doubt we’d be able to undo it.

Luckily, I don’t need to worry about undoing it, because it turned out beautifully. (Mom was right. Thank you Mom!)

Now that, my friends, is a change for the better. Mama knows what she’s talking about. I shouldn’t have been nervous. Even the TV, which I’ve never liked above the mantel (but there really isn’t anywhere else we can put it), looks like it makes more sense up there now.

Once again, I will assault your eyeballs with the unappealing image of the ‘before’ fireplace. This is what we started with when we purchased the house. Pardon the small child walking through the frame. (Look how teeny he is!!!)

You can barely see, on the far right of that picture, that there was a very awkward wall partway through the room that blocked it off from the rest of the house and gave the room a funky shape. We knocked that wall down, which opened the room up to the hallway and a few stairs that lead to the kitchen, so this room is now partially visible from the main floor (which should have been an incentive to get moving on making the fireplace look better, but wasn’t).

We also tore out the carpet and replaced it with a dark wood laminate, painted the room a soft blue (a little softer than I had intended, actually—I don’t think a single paint color in this house came out as deep or impactful as I had planned), and replaced the big, dated fan with a pretty schoolhouse light fixture from Barn Light Electric. The room was definitely improving by leaps and bounds, but the fireplace still just seemed like an eyesore. I never could figure out a way to decorate it that made it seem less gigantic and intrusive, so I gave up and ignored it for a long time. Two and a half years, to be exact. (And once again, the universe gets a nice chuckle over Jeff and I thinking when we purchased this place that we would be done with our renovations within 4 months of moving in.)

And then comes mom and her crazy ‘paint it white’ theory. We got together last week, distracted the kids with snacks and Netflix, and got to work. We wiped down the stone to make sure it wasn’t overly dirty or dusty, and taped off the firebox and edges of the fireplace. We taped around the mantel, too—we originally planned not to paint the mantel, and changed our minds later. We started with a coat of Kilz Premium Primer, and let me tell you, those first few strokes were scary with a capital S. (And by the way, we brushed everything on by hand with 2” brushes—the rocks were too bumpy and craggy to use a roller, so it had to be done by hand . . . and yes, it was slow going. Thank goodness Mom was willing to help out.)

After the primer dried, we followed it up with 2 coats of Valspar Ultra Paint + Primer. The hearth required 3 coats of paint. I had thought, when we started, that I might like it with the mantel left natural, but after painting the fireplace and peeling all the tape off, neither of us liked how the natural mantel looked. So we went back and primed and painted it, too. (And while we were at it, we repainted all the trim in the room, too—it looked so dingy and yellowed next to the bright white fireplace.)

My mom has had two older, espresso-colored ladder bookshelves sitting in her garage for a few years, unused and unloved. She donated them to the cause, and we gave them a few coats of white spray paint while we waited for the fireplace paint to dry, then brought them in and put one on each side of the fireplace. My mom styled them (sadly, I have no talent for this sort of thing), and we couldn’t resist decorating for Christmas just a little bit early.

This room is sort of long and skinny—out of frame in the picture above, we have a very old piano (we think it’s about 100 years old!) (and has probably been tuned about 3 times in those 100 years—just another item on the to-do list). And I couldn’t take pictures with the piano in the frame because it’s currently covered in toys and all the fall decorations we took down to put up our Christmas décor.

This picture is horribly out of focus but I had to include it because I’m so excited to finally have a use for these adorable Coke crates I’ve been hoarding for years without ever using. The Coke boxes were the perfect way to bring some color to the shelves and keep some books corralled. I can’t even tell you how pleased I am that all my books are actually part of our house/décor now, instead of being hidden in boxes in the basement.

What do you think of our fireplace’s facelift? And what was your scariest home makeover project?

Dare to be Thankful: Thanksgiving Tree

Week one of Dare to DIY is here (and the linkup is over at Shift Ctrl Art)! This week’s theme is Dare to be Thankful, and I did the most original, mind-blowingly creative, never-before-done project.

Or maybe you’ve seen thankful trees done a million times before, but hey. Go with it.

Forrest is finally getting old enough to really be excited about holidays. Up until now, I haven’t done a whole ton of holiday kid stuff—when I’ve tried to encourage holiday excitement or start traditions in the past, he mostly waffled between confusion and ambivalence. Hardly worth the effort on my part. But he’s been very interested in holidays lately, and it has been so fun to fuel that excitement. So a week or two ago, we capitalized on his holiday excitement to have a little family lesson on being thankful.

I used my Silhouette Portrait to cut two different leaf shapes in a variety of colors, and gathered a few twigs and sticks from the backyard. I dug these two pots out of my garage, as well as some leftover moss and foam from older projects. So this turned out to be a free project, pieced together with leftover bits of other projects—is there any better kind?

So one evening after dinner recently, we talked to Forrest about what it means to be thankful, and we each took turns naming things we felt thankful for, and writing them on our leaves. I used hot glue to attach each leaf to the tree.

I didn’t change much in this little vignette from my Halloween decorating—I just swapped out the candy corn hurricanes for the thankful trees and called it good. I like how they turned out—those twisted branches are pretty dang cool, if you ask me, and it’s fun to look at the words on our leaves and especially to remind Forrest, if he’s being grouchy or rude, of the things he wrote on his thankful leaves. Forrest was not feeling particularly deep the day we did our thanksgiving tree activity, actually—most of his leaves are devoted to gratefulness for various toys, his blankie earned a whopping 3 leaves, and apparently none of his family members deserve a spot on the tree (although our little neighbor Abigail got a leaf). #offended

Make sure to check out the other cohosts’ projects for some awesome inspiration, and visit Shift Ctrl Art to link up YOUR thankful projects!

Merci Beaucoup vignette at Shift Ctrl Art // Crazy Thankful Sign at Décor and the Dog 

Thankful Trees (me) // Thanksgiving Thumbprint Wood Tray at Newly Woodwards

How I Made My Vintage-Style Groceries Sign

Last week, I showed off my new farmhouse kitchen table (if you missed it, you can see it HERE). The love burns on—I’m crazy about it and think it’s perfect in our kitchen. Big purchases are scary for me. This one worked out; no regrets. (So far.)

Seeing the new table in our dining space gave me a push to take on a project I’ve been thinking about for months and months. And since I love the modern farmhouse look ( <—is that a thing?), I thought a banged up, vintage-style sign could be perfect above the window. I waffled for months and months, wondering how it should look and what vaguely food-related word or phrase could go up there, then wondered how on earth to make the dang thing. But with the dual arrival or my new kitchen table and new Silhouette, it seemed like the time had finally come to go for it. I loved the look of this sign I found on Pinterest, and used it as a model for my own. So here’s how I made mine.

I started with a piece of scrap wood that’s been sitting in our garage for at least a year. Who knows where it came from. I bet it’s happy to finally have a purpose (other than having me occasionally run over it by accident with my car). It’s about 12.5” tall, and it was quite long—I had Jeff cut it down to about 54”. I gave it a very light coat of white paint and left it to dry while I set up my design for the Silhouette.

I planned to use vinyl to create a stencil, and I wanted to cut the stencil all in one big piece, but the Silhouette cut mat is definitely nowhere near the size of the wood I was using for my very long sign. A little googling revealed much coolness: you can tell the Silhouette that you aren’t using the cutting mat, and just feed the vinyl straight into it. You can adjust the height to anything you’d like and cut a gigantic design. Super cool.

In page settings, I set the height to 67” (which was way longer than I needed, as you can see——I scaled it back after I finished designing). I also selected ‘none’ for the cutting mat, and just inserted the vinyl right into the machine, straight from the roll.

I downloaded a new font that I thought had a great vintage look (I got it from Dafont.com and it is called Market Deco), and set up my letters just how I wanted them to look, then cut them from the vinyl.

My original plan was to lay the entire vinyl piece over my board, all in one go. This turned out to be way more difficult than I had anticipated. I believe Silhouette makes a transfer material so you can easily move vinyl pieces where you want them to be—I don’t have any of it. My solution was to cut my letters apart, then place them on my board one at a time, lining up the cut edges like puzzle pieces. I still think this worked better than cutting the letters individually—even though I laid them one at a time, they were spaced exactly how I’d designed them, so I could line up the cut edges perfectly. It worked great, although some letters were a bit finicky (I screwed up royally trying to save time by doing the C and E together, and ended up having to recut those two letters and do them again). I applied them all to my board and ran my finger over all the edges one final time before painting, just to be sure they were pressed down tightly. Then I used a sponge brush to lightly sponge black craft paint over the letters.

I wanted this sign to look old and worn and battered, so I didn’t worry about getting it perfect. My paint job was thicker in some areas and thinner than others, and I liked it that way. I didn’t go back over for a second coat or try and make sure everything was evenly coated. After painting all the letters, I peeled the vinyl off. A little tip: a seam ripper works beautifully to get into tight areas or to pull up smaller pieces.

At this point it was almost midnight, so I went to bed and let everything sit overnight. In the morning, I gave the whole thing a go-over with some sandpaper. I considered dry brushing some watered-down black paint around the edges to give it more ‘wear’—I still may. Our walls are technically gray, but they came out so much lighter than I’d planned and basically look white. And the sign is white, so maybe a little extra wear/color around the edges would help it stand out more. Maybe I’ll go back and change that someday, but I’m not sure if I care enough to re-start a finished project. Either way, here are the sanded-down letters up close:

I attached some photo-hanging hardware to the back of the board, and Jeff helped me hang it up above the window. I sure like it.

If you wanna see more of our kitchen renovation:

‘Before’ house tour
Initial kitchen changes
Adding color
DIY farmhouse table