Playground Love

Finally- after how many months? I’ve pulled my finger out and finally finished A’s bedroom. Ah- as part of the purging process we’ve been going through since the new year (15 bags donated and counting, + countless items posted on Craigslist and at work, 3+ bags for consignment and several bags of trash) I felt ready to finish A’s room. And all it took was hanging up a magnetic board (repurposed from my sewing nook).

And cleaning her room.

And sorting her toys.

And wiping the walls of some funny foot gunk.

While it doesn’t quite look as finished as if a real designer had taken over, I am really pleased at how it turned out. And the irony is that A will probably only have about 10+ months to enjoy it on her own before we meld her and her brother into the same miniscule space. That will be a challenge. So anyhow- guess how much this whole endevour cost, even with second hand bed and new comforter? Supplies cost $184 plus tax (mostly fabric and electrical stuff) + $60 for the comforter set + $100 for the bed. Less than $350 for a whole new room. Fantastic. I long ago lost track of the stuff I sold to conteract any costs I had to incur to complete the projects, but I’m faily certain that I broke even.

Enjoy!

Our fabric tree complete with roosting owl (made by me), a birds nest (made by A) and several fairies (made by S+E) made of fabric flowers

The green book shelves- love these!

While it's true that the tree has seen better days, it's kind of nice that A is interacting with it so much- pulling leaves off here and there and re-sticking them.

All boxes repainted with orange paint (from the master bedroom) and rehung with fun little objects tucked inside

The closet that was a reading nook.

Some vintage treasures from my childhood

More treasures from my childhood (turtle bank) and from M's (lamb night light)

Another vintage treasure hand-made by an aunt and the multi-purpose magnet board for hanging art, etc.

The repurposed/ re-used list:

Pennants:

• felt, twine

Owls

• fabric scraps, batting

Patchwork blanket

• fabric scraps, interfacing, wool blanket

Doll crib + highchair

• repainted crib, recovered dolly mattress, made cushion for highchair out of fabric scraps and left over batting

Book shelves

• re-used paint, wall plugs, screws

Pouf for reading nook

• reused fabric scraps

Fabric wall decal

• fabric scraps, used old box shelves from bath/living room and repainted with paint from master bedroom

Reading Nook:

• repainted shelves with old paint, re-used rope light, mesh curtains, felt, curtain rod and cup hooks

Magnetic board

• repurposed from my sewing nook

Well- this is it. This is what I’ve been wanting to put up on A’s large wall in her room for ages but wasn’t sure how to go about it.Thanks to Sewing for Scarlet for the great how to. When I initialy tried this, I found that the decal left a stain because I immediately tried to pull it off the wall. Once the fabric has had a chance to cool off from the iron, this will peel off nicely without marking up the painted wall beneath!

So the challenge for me was working with something so large with limited amounts of fabric and even more limited amounts of Steam A Seam 2, which is the iron on adhesive used to stick the whole thing to the wall. It turns out, I had the perfect chocolate brown fabric just right for the tree trunk lurking in my fabric stash. The two panels used for the tree were the bottoms of curtains I made shorter a while ago.

First I figured out how big (roughly) I wanted the tree to be and what shape I wanted it to be. I googled tree wall decal images and picked something that I thought I could replicate easily enough. I cannot draw free hand for the life of me, so this is how I do things…

Then I taped together pattern paper and art paper to the size of the tree I was going to draw. I drew it out, making a few adjustments here and there. I cut it out and then hung it up on the wall in A’s room to see where I’d want to centre it.

On the floorl, I laid out the fabric for the tree trunk/ branches and overlaid the paper template on top .On top of this, I placed my one small roll of Steam A Seam 2- you can see the skinny white rectangle covering the middle of the tree section below. I was going to try to avoid seams as I wanted the decal to be one whole piece, but that’s not the way it worked out. The SAS2 is not the same size as the fabric or the pattern, so it will be in sections, which looks fine.

So once everything was laid out on the floor, I traced the pattern onto the roll of Steam A Seam2, taking care to make a mark on each branch where the Steam A Seam 2 didn’t cover. I cut the branches off of the paper pattern and set them aside. Then I cut out the pattern on the SAS2 only. Laying one side of the sticky steam a Seam 2 onto the fabric, and smoothing it out, I then cut out the entire trunk. Remember that if you are following these directions, the fabric will be stuck to the wall in reverse- very important if your fabric has a good side and a bad side or if you are doing letters. If your fabric has a good side/ bad side, make sure to place the SAS2 on top of the bad side.

It’s up on the wall in three sections so far- the trunk and the top branches, and one side branch. I’ve run out of Steam A seam but will probably try to pick some more up this weekend to finish this off. I think I’ll only need another 2 metres of this for the 3 other branches and 50+ leaves I’ll be making to cover the branches.

The project wasn’t so scary once I figured out what I really wanted and what I had to work with. This coming weekend is going to be a busy one. HappyFather’s Day to all the terrific dads I know!

xok

I finished the reading nook this weekend and am really happy with how it turned out.

First, I took the closet doors off. This gave us more space to work with (yes, A’s room is that small that folded up doors take up too much room). I repainted some shelves that were already in the closet and found some nice lime green baskets at Walmart ($7/ each)  that complemented the colours in her room. I reused a green basket that was holding some fabric and packed it with books. The turqouise baskets and Ikea boxes were already in the closet, but now look really nice with the contrasting colours of the other baskets.

To make the backdrop inside the closet, I reused a lightweight mesh curtain panel from my bedroom. I traced different sizes of circles in the same felt colours as the pennants I made earlier.  I cut them, pinned them to the area I thought they’d work best and then sewed them.

This was not the easiest fabric to work with because of it’s feel and size. I hand sewed some felt dragonfly and butterfly decals left over from A’s 2nd birthday crowns. Next, I attached the curtain panel to the bottom shelf with a staple gun and slid the shelf onto it’s brackets.

I reused some old rope light from M’s former rock n roll glory days. It was such a happy coincidence that the rope light fit so snugly in between the bottom of the shelf and the top of the supports. I didn’t need to use anything to fasten this and it gives a really nice even line. I plugged this in to a dimmer switch around the corner and behind the dresser (this was M’s idea- what a great way to give A some control over the light and keep it safe). The dimmer switch is so that A can turn the light on and off without having to plug anything into an outlet (since the rope light doesn’t have an on/off switch). I’m not so comfortable with electricity and a toddler.

I used some cup hooks to guide the rope light up the wall and over to the bottom of the shelf and the shelf brackets do the rest.

I furnished the nook w ith the pouf that I posted last week and added another of the same white mesh curtain panels to act as the closet “door.” Instead of using curtain rod brackets, I used fabric squares screwed directly into the inside closet wall. This is so that if A or her friends trip on their way in or out, the panel will not fall down.

I didn’t want to use curtain rod brackets either since I needed the rod to lie flat. I taped the extendable curtain rod into it’s widest position again so that it wouldnt fall out and bonk anyone on the head. I’ve held the curtain back with some fancy ribbon and when A wants some privacy, she can let it out fall shut.

Cost:

• $16 for the dimmer switch
• $0 for curtains
• $0 for green book basket with circles cut out
• $14 for 2 square green fabric boxes
• $0 for a curtain rod
• $0 rope light (pilfrered from M’s long forgotten playing- live-shows-in-the-band box of props)
• $0 paint, hooks, staples, staple gun

Total: $30

I think I’m going to take a bit of a break from the Zero Cost Challenge for a few weeks. I’ve got a tonne of re-painting projects that are lingering in half finished states or projects that I haven’t started yet and feel a bit overwhelmed with trying to get these done. So I am taking the pressure off and focusing on my community garden plot (red peppers, tomatoes, butternut squash, green onions, strawberries, basil, carrots, peas and beans) and on a heap of sewing projects. It’s a bad thing that Fabricana is so close by, and is in fact, the only fabric store anywhere nearby at all. I’m working with an fushia organic cotton jersey that will be a wrap skirt for me. I have a really neat reversable one-piece smock-type dress for A and a birthday gift and a few dresses and tops for A that’s I’ve created recently (and that I’m really proud of!). Thanks to Elsie Marley for the sewing inspiration!

Project 6 of the Zero Cost Challenge in A’s room is the start of creating a reading nook inside A’s closet. Our home is pretty small so I wanted to make the most out of this project and tried to give Amina a nice little private space where she could read books or just hang out.

I’ve been coveting the pouf’s (just a really fancy way of saying pillow) at  The Cross.  The how-to is quite lengthy, but if you are interested in making one for yourself check out the tutorial for the  morrocan pouffe.

I had done the closet up but am not happy with the way it turned out. I’m going to need to spend a bit more time thinking this one out before I post any pics, but I think it will be pretty neat once it’s finished!

I’ve been busy starting projects and only half completing them, so maybe I’ll get the chance to finish some up this weekend. A has chicken pox so we’ve been pretty low key lately. She’s great- hasn’t complained one bit and is not itchy at all. Seems to be a very mild case so we have been really lucky!

Here’s what we’ve been up to during our quarantine:

Playing with playdough: We’ve used the recipe from Mary Ann Kohl’s “Young at Art” and it’s super. I made this recipe about 2 weeks ago and A is still going strong with it:

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup salt
• 2 tsp cream of tartar
• food colouring
• 2 TB vegetable oil
• 1 cup flour

Combine water, salt cream of tartar and food colouring in a pot over the stove on low heat. Stir. As the mix heats up, add in the oil and the flour slowly. Keep stirring until the mix looks dry and starts to pull away from the side of the pan. If it’s not sticky, it’s done! We did this with pink and blue (A’s choice).

We’ve also been busy with colouring pasta and incorporating this into our playdough and just transfering it back and forth into different containers for fun.

And lastly, A’s been making wonderful art: We started with oil pastels, added some tempera and water colour paints (water colours will resist where the oil pastels are giving a really neat picture) and then started adding tissue paper, printer paper and other fun mixed media. Voila- a mixed media collage!

A’s process is pretty interesting. She typically starts out with mommy, daddy or A faces and builds from there. There is a sun I helped her with in the corner. She’s been adding swings and slides and other things that we do in our daily routine. So fun and interesting to hear her verbalizing this and incorporating this into her art. Enjoy!

PS- Total cost for the pouf was $16 for the felt.

I had been coveting book shelves that display books for a while. I had been hoping to stumble into something at a thrift store, but the golden rule of thrifting is if you are actively looking for something, you will not find it.

So- I began looking around on-line and found some nice ones at Pottery Barn, but they were too expensive and a bit too vintage looking for the modern take I wanted to do with A’s room. Then I found display shelves just like these ones and came up with the brilliant idea of making them myself as part of this challenge! My father-in-law is a fantastic woodworker and I knew if I asked nicely he’d show me around his workshop and help me design and make these.

The dimensions of each display shelf are 30” long x 5” tall x 4” deep. The inside dimensions are: 29 x 4.5 tall x 3 deep. We went with a sheet of ½ thick plywood and made all the pieces with this.

I won’t go into a tutorial today about the shelves because I really don’t feel like I know what I’m talking about. Wood is not my medium, fabric is. I am really happy how these shelves turned out and was pumped to learn to use the table saw (very scary) and the mitre saw (fun!). R has fun tools like nail guns and an automatic sanding machine that made this a really easy process. It took about 2 hours to build and then many days to paint. There is limited space to paint in our house and it’s tough setting up and taking down each day, but the final result is great.

As A gets older, we can change the colour, the configuration and change up what gets displayed inside so great investment (of time) pieces!

Here are some pics with my father-in-law and me in his workshop/ garage:

Here are the completed shelves with A’s books proudly displayed:

Here’s some other pictures of other shelving I’ve put up on A’s walls and a big picture frame to highlight her art. The glass for the frame broke in the hanging process, which is actually probably a good thing. With my new-found paranoia of earthquakes, the last thing I want jiggling around on the walls is something with glass above A’s head while she sleeps! The frame is mounted to a hook and anchor, so it’s not going anywhere!

I also installed a reading light and a new lighting socket with cord. Unfortunately, we don’t have ceiling lights in our place, which makes installing ceiling lights really annoying as all we can use are plug in lights that are rigged to the light switches. There’s no way I can hide the cords, so I was excited to see that the cords come in green to match the décor of the room.

Book shelves:

$nice bottle of wine for the plywood, nails, screws, and hangers

$0- reused paint from kitchen and added white primer to make the colour limier

White book shelves:

$12 for wood

$0 for paint, anchors and brackets which I already had

Other:

$20- picture frame (well worth the splurge as this can highlight all the fun paintings that A will make)

$6- lamp cord

$19- reading light (also well worth the splurge)

It’s funny, I think this little triangle of space in A’s room is where I have spent the most money. Well- it needed to be done as the lighting is her room at night is pretty dismal. This will help and she likes being able to turn off the light herself now.

A’s room is really coming along now. I love how it’s turning out!

This week’s ZCC projects were quite simple- they mostly consisted of repainting and recovering.

My grandfather made this crib for his twin girls (my aunts). This got passed along to me (yay!) and when A was little, she actually spent a few naps in it while we visited in Winnipeg. All I did was repaint with some primer and white paint. My grandmother had made a crib mat and blanket to go with the doll crib and all I did was recover these in my favourite fabric. I saved the old stuff for a pillowcase dress or something else that will look lovely in vintagy fabric.

The highchair I scored from Craigslist ($10- the only cost for this project). The previous owners had already primed this  so I got away with one coat of the same paint I used on the crib. I made a cushion with tie backs on it with the same fabric as above and left over batting.

If you know how to sew a pillowcase, these are all essentially what I did. Instead of leaving room for the pillow to slip in and out, I sewed this part up.

Nice and cosy and looks great in the room. These two items get a lot of use. A has become especially involved  in feeding, shopping for groceries, pottying and napping her  ”babies” (of which she has about 7 popular babies in rotation- animals, hand-me-down and new dolls included).

This picture shows the seat cover for the highchair

crib + crib bedding: $0

Paint $0

Highchair $10