A Rainbow of Fun x 2

A while back, I took advantage of this deal posted at Hip2Save and received a free 20 issue subscription to Disney Family Fun magazine:  

We love this magazine around here.  Lucky and I often flip through the pages and read the articles together before she goes to sleep.  On Saturday night, we found an idea involving an egg carton, paint and a nature hike.  We were already planning a nature hike on Sunday, and we had an egg carton in the fridge, so we decided to do a little painting Sunday morning:

We packed up a picnic lunch and headed to a local park.  Our goal was to find one object in nature that matched each color in our newly painted egg carton.

We didn't fill every space, but we did pretty well:

In other colorful news, we also made a 'glow in the dark' bath this weekend courtesy of a great idea from a friend (Thanks Erica!) and some $1 bin glow sticks.  I think our kids would have stayed in the bath all night long:)!  They had a blast.  We'll be doing this again soon.

I hope you all had a colorful weekend too:)!

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Did you know that this marker:

works on mirrors as well as white boards?

Bill and I have leaving little notes and pictures and jokes on the mirrors in our master bathroom.  Can you imagine what it's like to get ready in the morning when your mirror looks like this?:

(It's a little tricky to see, but I've been wearing a crown, holding a scepter and seeing a dialogue bubble that reads, "I'm #1".  Pretty funny.  I can't help but smile every morning:)!)

Or to wake up on your 'sleep in morning' to see this:

(Bill and I take turns sleeping in on the weekends.  I get to sleep in on Saturdays, and Bill gets to sleep in on Sundays.  Our early rising kids make sleeping in a big deal around here.)

Here are a few other simple messages:

(We have the world's best initials x 2, I know:).)

 And let's not forget a couple inside jokes:

One of us wore mismatched shoes to Church a few months ago:).  Whoops.

One of us is especially funny:).

Mirror marking is so much fun...and those markers come in 2 packs at the dollar store for $1:)!  Cheap fun is the best kind:)!

Have a fantastic weekend!

Dollhouse Master Bedroom

We've started work on the master bedroom of Lucky's dollhouse (She this post and this post for the other two rooms that we've started.):

 

I found the small canvas at Joann's.  It was in a pack of 3 for a couple bucks (I think that they are 5" x 7").  I just painted a simple, sweet sentiment on the canvas and then made a border around it so it looks framed.

The 'wall paper' and 'rug' are both sheets of scrapbook paper attached with double sided tape. Bill made the bed with a wooden plaque and dowels.  We still have to find a lamp for the night stand, and we may add a headboard too.

Three rooms started:

One big room on the bottom floor to begin:

This house needs a kitchen and a dining room and a family room.  I'm anxious to see how we will cram it all in there:).  

Hope you are all having a great week.  We are in super garage sale preparation mode around here.  I can't wait to start my 'fun' projects again:)!

Easter Take Two

Aunt Kiki and Cici are here for a long weekend, and we're having a blast celebrating a belated Easter!  We made footprint Easter Bunnies:

Cici's

Lucky's

Charm's

It was hard to get a picture with them all looking my way:).

We did a little shopping this weekend too:

If you liked the black and white striped Olin rug that I posted about in our front room, you may want to check out Home Goods where I stumbled upon a huge pile of flat woven rugs that are almost identical to the Olin rug.  They were available in black and white, grey and white, and several other multi-colored options.  Prices were fantastic at $7.99 for the 2' x 3', $12.99 for the 30" x 50", $29.99 for the 4' x 6' and $49.99 for the 5' x 8'.  

Also, Gymboree had a fantastic sale going on.  I picked up several pieces including this sweater dress (the picture doesn't do it justice!).  The dress was on clearance for $9.49, down from $43.95, and since an additional 25% off was taken from the lowest sale price for clearance items, and I had a coupon for my purchase as well, my cost for the dress was $3.78 (over 90% off)!  Lucky will get a ton of wear out of this next winter.  I heart deal shopping!!  

I hope you all had a nice weekend, too!

Charm's Closet

Even though Charm's Room has been "done" for a few weeks now, his closet was looking a little rough.  I didn't take a recent 'before' shot, but his closet is identical in size (orientation is different, however,) to Lucky's closet.  They even share a wall, and I have an old 'before' picture of Lucky's closet to give you an idea of what we were dealing with a couple years ago:

It was a good sized closet, it just had all of the California Closet shelves and hanging racks removed prior to the purchase of our home.  (Read more about our house buying experience here.)  We installed a Harmony closet system in both Lucky's and Charm's closets.  Here is how Charm's closet is looking now:

I keep his outgrown clothing in the blue boxes that were clearance scores from IKEA.  The white plastic bin is full of Charm 'memories' like birthday cards, special art projects, etc.  The numbered grey bins were from Target for $0.56 each 'as is', but I could find nothing wrong with them:).  They hold miscellaneous stuff.

Charm loves playing with his Noah Ark set in his closet...he just loves pairing the animals up.

His drawer labels are chalkboard labels from Michael's.  (I purchased them last year.)  We love having our drawers built in to our closets.  It totally eliminates the need for dressers in our rooms!

I organize his shirts by sleeve length and color.  It stays like this for about 10 minutes.  I keep trying though:).  His pants and shorts are folded on top of his shirt hanging rack.  We put his socks and pajamas in the drawers on the other side of his closet.

The upper rack is full of clothing that doesn't fit Charm yet.  They are mostly clearance purchases from Target:).  

Spare diapers go on the top shelf in the corner.

It is feeling so good to go through all of our closets in preparation for our big ol' garage sale.  I've got a few areas left to tackle, but they are big ones: our utility room, our exercise room, our attic and our office.  Wish me luck and have a wonderful weekend!

Front Room is a Changing

Even though I just recently posted about the new rug I had picked up for our front room:

I've already switched things up.  The rug above is beautiful and I did love it, but after having it down for a little bit, something started to bother me about it.  I think perhaps the green in it was too subtle and made our green couch look strange in the room.  Or maybe it was just too busy.  Or maybe there was too much red and orange for my liking.  Or maybe it was the curves of the couch with the paisley print that made things just too curvy for me.  I don't know what it was exactly, but it didn't feel right, so it got returned.  I was a little sad because it was a fantastic deal at $199 for an 8'x10' wool rug.  Ah well.  

I replaced it with the Olin Rug from Crate and Barrel:

This rug was exactly what I had in mind after I landed on my inspiration image for this room:

Amber Interiors

See the black and white striped rug by the credenza?  Olin makes me so happy.  And while I don't have black chairs next to the credenza, yet, I did play with our floral Pier 1 chairs, so the room is currently looking like this:

The chevron pillows were from Target on clearance for $6.48 each.  The letter pillows were from this post.

Next up on the list of projects for this room:

1. Art on the wall behind the couch

2. Curtain Rod and Curtains

3. Perhaps a big mirror for singing productions by Lucky and Charm (They are mirror singers, and I love their shows.)

4. Black Chairs or Slipcovers

Has anyone else been return happy lately?

Another Dollhouse Room Done-ish!

Before we started to work on Lucky's dollhouse last November, Lucky and I had a little brainstorming session to decide what purpose each of the rooms would serve.  The first room we tackled was a shared bedroom for Lucky and Charm (per Lucky's request).  She wanted bunk beds, and this is what we came up with:

I originally posted about it here.  We added the rocking chair that I picked up at a craft sale for fifty cents.  The pink floor lamp we had in the dollhouse already.  We decided that it was time to complete another room, and the large room at the very top of the dollhouse was next on our list.  Lucky said she wanted it to be a party room!  We headed to Joann's together (with a coupon!!) and gathered everything we needed for the room.  It was one of my favorite shopping trips ever!  Lucky was so agreeable and giggly and just plain fun.

After bringing our goodies home and working for a bit, here's our latest dollhouse room:

We decided we needed a big 10 seat table to allow for big parties:).  Bill and Lucky made the table with some thick dowels and a piece of scrap wood.  Bill did it all with a hand saw.  I'm thinking we might need to invest in a real saw one of these days:).  The chairs are actually Christmas ornaments from CB2 called Igloo Chair Ornaments.  I picked up a bunch of them on clearance for 50 cents each.  The rug was made from fabric I had on hand already.  I just sewed a rectangle, and we had an instant rug.

The 'lounge area' is pretty simple right now.  I found the coffee table from the dollar store.  The chairs were also Christmas ornaments from CB2, but they aren't available currently.  

We decided that if we were going to throw big parties at our dollhouse, we really needed a place where our guests could sleep, so this room also serves as a sleeping quarters once the tables are removed and some extra beds are put in place:

Bill and Lucky made the beds using wooden plaques and dowels, again with a hand saw:).  I sewed the pillows with some duck cloth I had on hand, and the bed spreads were made using fabric that Lucky and I picked out together.  The night stands were from Joann's in the 'wood aisle' and were $1 each, but we had a 'take 25% off your entire purchase coupon', so they were 75 cents each.  The 'Sunshine' sign is a thin wood plaque (from Joann's) painted with chalkboard paint (no surprise:)) and attached with a 3M Command Strip.  

The garland was made with some baker's twine, 3M hooks, mini clothes pins from Joann's and shapes cut from various pieces of scrap book paper we had on hand.  

We still would like to add another rug or two in this space and perhaps some lamps or an overhead light or both.  Perhaps the night stands will get painted too.  Who knows how it will change by the time we're really done:). 

I hope you had a nice weekend!!  Why do they always fly by so quickly?