My Daughter's Room - The Final Tally

First of all, I think it is HILARIOUS that my "bird poop printable" is the #2 viewed post of all time on my blog. And yet hardly anyone comments on it. Why is that?

I revealed my precious daughter's room yesterday. Today we'll go over the items and figure out what I spent. I have no idea, so this will be good for me to review.

Here are some pictures.

The pink furniture was mine from my single days. Originally purchased from a garage sale, it was blue, and I painted it cream. The set got this special pink makeover just for Delaney. The original nightstand to this set is actually in my (the master) bedroom.

Vanity and chair. Vanity was from a second hand store. Here is what it looked like before. It was $30. The chair was just a "spare" that used to float around the house. The cushion was existing, I just covered it with leftover fabric and some ribbon that was lying around.

On top of the vanity is a pretty bunny. $2 from Goodwill.

I made the picture. I bought a frame for $1 from Salvation Army, painted it and made the print (about $1 to print at FedEx).

Can't see it very well, but the lamp was on clearance from Target. $10 I think. And perhaps another $5 for the shade?

Bedspread was existing. Originally on clearance at Target. We used it when this was my middle son's room. We used it on the other side, which is blue.

White sheet set from Target. $35?

I made the pillows. Find out how here and here. We'll say about $4 for the teal one, and $3 for the pink one.

The flower lights are IKEA. I think they were $10 each, so $30 total.

The fabric (Small Talk by Waverly) was by far the biggest investment in the room. I bought 11 yards at $12 yd on sale. $132 for the statement piece of the room. Not too bad.

I made the white curtain rod with wooden supplies from Lowe's and some leftover white paint. $20.

Crib and mattress were existing from other kiddos.

Crib set was "vintage" Pottery Barn bought at an auction. $35

Bright pink sheet, Target/Circo. $8

Special gift blanket from my grandma.

Lady frog, local thrift store, $2. Wearing a dress I made from fabric scraps.

Panda pillow pet, Christmas gift.

Delaney letters are from Babies R Us. $5 each I think? $35.

Flowers were left over from elsewhere in the house. Found them at Target and sprayed them green.

Pink wall basket is from a local antique mall. Found it on this trip. $9.

The bright animal knobs were a gift from my mother in law. She actually gave them to me years ago. They were meant for the boys, but I like them here better. I think they came from Target.

The wicker hamper is an oldie. I've had it forever. Sprayed it with some white spray paint I had laying around.

The beautiful inlaid jewelry box was a gift from Delaney's foster parents.

The little blue ceramic shoes were existing. I've had them for years. I originally bought them at a local antique mall.

Can you get over those gorgeous paintings?! Not prints. These are gorgeous paintings on... I don't know. I think it looks like silk. My mom found them years ago and didn't know what to do with them. So they are on loan here "indefinitely". hee hee Thanks mom! I added the fabric. Let's say the fabric was $10.

The Korean doll was found at an antique mall too. $12

Korean flag was a gift from our Korean adoption agency.

Lastly, paint. Paint colors are:

Yellow = Beach Umbrella by Valspar (2 gallons = $60. I should have primed first. I would have saved $20.)

Bright Pink = First Kiss by Valspar (1 gallon = $30)

The Vanity's Dark Green = Dark Meadow by Valspar (1 sample = $3)

I also bought 1 can of bright green spray paint and 1 can white spray paint. Let's say $10.

Let's total it up!

Furniture = $30.

Bedding = $85.

Window Treatments = $152.

Paint = $103.

Accessories = $117.

Total $487

Not too shabby!

My Daughter's Room Reveal

When you have the most beautiful daughter ever, she needs a room to match!

Delaney is almost a year old. She was born in South Korea and we adopted her. She's been home about 3 months and is doing great!

Her room has been done for months, but I hadn't gotten around to photographing the results. But I finally got it done! Who wants to see?

This is the layout of her room.

Check out the layout of our whole house in the Home Tour.

This is what you see when you enter the room.

We kept the full size bed in this room because we thought we might need to sleep in the same room with Delaney until she became more accustomed to us, our home and her new room. And we're leaving it because, well, time flies. In another year or two she'll probably she sleeping in that big bed. This way, the room is ready to grow up with her.

The crib lines the opposite wall, next to the door.

The dresser.

And some of the sweet details.

This jewelry box came from Delaney's foster parents in Korea.

The vanity/desk next to the bed.

The bed.

I made these pillows. Learn how to make your own here and here.

The crib.

My grandma (Delaney's great grandma) made this sweet little blanket.

I love this so much. My grandma just turned 90. Who knows how much longer she'll be with us. It will be a special keepsake for Delaney. But I have to admit, I have one problem with it. All the babies on the blanket have blond hair. Argh. My Dutch grandma made everyone blond. I just might change their hair color somehow.

Next to the crib, is this basket.

It holds hair pretties and pacifiers. :)

I searched high and low and I did find one before picture. This is when the room was a guest room. This is the wall where the crib is now.

Big difference, right?

That's it for the room tour. Tomorrow I'll let you know sources, paint colors and how much I spent. So come on back.

This project was featured on Domestically Speaking.

Dressing up the Dresser

I went on an antique outing the other day just for fun. Sometimes I'm guilty of thinking you can't get many good deals there, but that was definitely not the case!

Soon after walking in I stopped dead in my tracks. A Korean doll. Worn, but still beautiful. Wearing a hanbok (traditional Korean dress, worn on special occasions). I don't know that much about traditional Asian dress, and the differences between cultures, but in this case the striped sleeves were a dead giveaway (not that all hanboks have striped sleeves).



Just $12. Mine.

OK. Delaney's. I knew she'd look outrageously gorgeous in Delaney's room.

She had some lovely companions too, although I don't know their origins.





Even a little baby being watched over by Santa! ha!

I also found these baskets.

Already pink for $8.95!? Mine.

I mean Delaney's.

I thought it'd be perfect for hair pretties.

Look how pretty the doll looks in her new home, atop Delaney's dresser.

Turning out to be a perfect room for a Korean princess.

Does that green frame look familiar?

I bought it on my Thrifty Outing for 99¢. More on what I did to it later.

And how about those paintings above the dresser? I love how they turned out.

Here's a before.

Just one thing I'd like to do yet. The jewelry box looks like a big white blob with all the pretty patterns. So that will just have to change.

Do you have a pretty girl's room to share?

Linking to some of these parties.

Vanity Revealed

I decided the baby's room was looking a little too precious. Too pink and yellow. It needed a little funk. And sooooo....

Dramatic pause.

The vanity went a dramatic dark leaf green. It's called Dark Meadow by Valspar.

Remember I said there'd be a chair makeover? Can you believe what a coat of turquoise did to this chair?

Caught me. It's not the same chair. The arms on that one wouldn't fit under the desk. I had this other one laying around. I actually used it by my sewing machine. So I swapped them.

Color on the chair is Tidal Teal by Valspar.

FYI, I got these paints at Lowes. I got a sample size of each color for $3 each. Perfect for a small project like this!

Did you guess the vanity would be dark green? Me neither. Until recently. But now I think it's the perfect color for the room. Those drapes are really going to bring it all together. Have faith!

Once more. Before.

After.

More to do. Somehow I'm going to turn this into a curtain rod.

Painted Vanity

This cute little vanity/desk/table/whatever is destined for the baby girl's room.

I found it at a second hand store and it spoke to me. It said "Take me home!" So I did. Hey--when furniture talks you it's best to obey. Besides, I thought it was a steal at $30.

First I ripped an ugly mirror off the top and filled in the remaining holes with wood filler. Then I sold the stool that came with it on craigslist.

It had to go. It did not speak to me.

For the final phase it needs some exciting color. But first, some gray spray primer.

As always, I have someone interested in what's going on. And for once it's not a kid!

Quit eyeballing me, Kitty. It'll look cute, promise! And by the way, what in the heck are you getting into? Your nose is all dirty.

Nevermind. I don't want to know.

Anyway, what color do you think it ended up? Here it is again.

And here's the baby's room so far.

Just for fun, leave a comment what color you think I chose, and I'll show you the result tomorrow. Check back to see if you were right.

Till then!

DIY Mobile

I have seriously thought about making my own mobile for baby Delaney. How cute would these be?

Thank you, Martha. You rock.

Look how pretty they look in this room.

Check out that lucky girl's room reno at Life in the Fun Lane.

The only problem is Delaney's room is already so busy above the crib.

The poofs would hide her name. So I think if I do a mobile it has to be really delicate. Paper somethings (butterflies? flowers? birds?) hanging from the ceiling? Argh. I don't know! Do I even need a mobile? I don't think my boys used mobiles.

What about you? Are you in the mobile or no mobile camp?

If you would like a beautiful mobile, how about you make those gorgeous poofs (learn how to here) and show me how it turned out!

Pillow Talk

Ready for a quick easy tutorial?

I'm a novice, self-taught sewer, er, seamstress. Something. So this isn't hard. In fact it's SEW easy! (sorry, couldn't resist).

I knew I wanted a little more color (more? yes, more) in the baby's room, and I can sew a plain pillow in a hot second. So when I saw this fabric (Amy Butler's Midwest Modern Line), I bought a half a yard ($4.11) and promptly made this little number.

Not bad. But I wished it had a little more something. Detail. Then I thought "If I were cool I'd be able to sew a big ruffle on that". But I don't really know how to make ruffles, I didn't have much leftover fabric, I didn't want to buy more fabric ($$) and I didn't want to take the pillow apart.

Then inspiration struck.

I gathered this adorable helper. Well, not so much help as cute kid eye candy.

I took the leftover piece of fabric (18 inches, by about 5 inches) and I cut it diagonally with pinking shears (pinking shears have that zig-zaggy pattern). Then I cut around all the edges with the shears until I had two pieces that looked like this (sorry, this is a little blurry).

I put the two wide ends together, nice sides touching, and sewed them together like this.

The wide ends aren't the same width, but that didn't bother me. I was going for something sort of free form.

Next I took one of the skinny ends and folded it in half like this ("wrong" sides on the inside) .

Then I started it in the sewing machine, sewing the fold down. I'd also tuck random ruffles in the fabric every so often and sew over them.

Until I had something like this.

Well, not something like that. That's exactly what I had.

What I was going for was a free form, ruffly flower shape, similar to the shape on the fabric. So I started hand sewing the ruffle onto the pillow in a spiral shape.

I also strategically placed stitches to keep the ruffles open, making it look more half hazard. Here I highlighted the half hazard / free form spiral.

When I had it all sewed down I just knotted the thread off.

And here's the reveal!

Pretty! I'm so happy with the result!

Before.

After.

Close up.

This will probably fray with age, but that's part of the look! I think part of the reason I like this is because it's so similar to the pattern on the fabric. But I bet other fabrics would work beautifully too! Try it out yourself and show me the results!