'Flower' Room

Remember Peyton's 'Under the Sea' room? When Ella was very, very little, she got an extra-painted room, too. But hers was a little more subdued. 

First we painted it pink. I knew I wanted her room to be pink and brown, but I also wanted some extra color, too, and lots of flowers and butterflies.

So I went around and painted simple and colorful flowers all the way around the base of the room. It was easy! If I can do it, ANYONE can do it.

The white one is my favorite because it looks like it's dancing.

Ack! Uncovered outlet! Uncovered outlet! What the heck is going on in this picture? CRAZINESS!

I stuck some colorful flowers into white Ikea pots. Then I glued on some pretty coordinating ribbon.

And I stained some inexpensive Ikea frames and filled them with flower pictures. See the cute little butterfly? I nailed a whole bunch of those colorful butterflies around the top of the room. I don't have any good pictures of them from this room, but you can see them in Ella's Plink Room.

James had just put in the beautiful moulding and we were still in the process of painting when I took this picture. But look how little Peyton and Ella were! The cuteness! Does it count as a walk-in closet if kids can walk inside? I think so.

Right now Peyton and Ella are sharing a room, and it's super temporary, so I'm making zero to very little effort to cuteify it. 

But I CAN'T WAIT to see how their next rooms turn out!

Colorific

Do you remember how I told you that we recently moved from Iowa back to California? And how, in Iowa, we had 2 kid rooms and 1 basement space worth of toys? And how now all that nonsense needs to somehow fit nicely into 1 small apartment room?  Lordy.

One of my favorite storage solutions is this white cube organizer from Target. What's actually going on in this picture is two 8-cube organizers and two 2-cube organizers. We've been collecting them over the years and I love them, although I'll totally admit that they never actually look this organized unless I'm prepping them for a dang picture. 

Anyway. Check out the books!!! Do you see how they're all sorted by color?  

This is the first time I've ever done that. I've sorted by size, by Ella's books/Peyton's books, and by size again, but they always looked messy. I love that my kids have tons of books, but the disarray-look wasn't working for me. And, more often than not, when it was time for the kids to put their books away, they would shove them on top on the others horizontally and it just about drove me bananas.

And then I had an epiphany! I've had my books in my room sorted by color for years because I like to be all grown-up and fancy like that. Why can't my kids be fancy, too? I had an hour to spare, so...

I love it. The kids love it. Our kid library no longer drives me to drink. 

Wait. What? Never mind.

The only bad thing about these cubes is that they can sometimes be a little small for the big stuff. Our biggest books don't fit, so they have their own basket under the bed.

Anyway, back to the not-freakishly-large normal-sized books. I started the color-coded awesomeness by dumping out all the books into one horrific literary mountain. Then I took a deep, cleansing breath and started tossing the books into loose piles according to the color of their spines. And then I had to figure out how to make those 8 or 9 color piles fit into the 5 cubes I had available for them. 

And, yes, I do know that you could figure out how to organize your books by color if you wanted to. Because you're totally smart like that. But in all honesty, after I had those books sorted by color, I wasn't quite sure how to work it all out so that they looked good. And if I can save you a little bit of figuring-it-out time, then my job here is done.

I tried to do it rainbow-style first - you know - "Red, orange, yellow, green, blue. Don't forget, there's purple too!" Thanks Mickey Mouse Clubhouse song, for taking up that valuable space in my brain.

But the rainbow scheme didn't really work as well as I'd hoped because of the colors we had - mostly blue, yellow, and white, and hardly any purple or green, so I went from dark to light instead. It totally works. 

And it looks AWESOME.

And it's totally educational because I'm pretty sure that's how libraries organize their books. 

Well, it's how libraries would organize their books if they wanted to look amazing and be cool like us. Losers.

I'm just kidding! I love libraries! (I don't want the library people to come after me.)

At bedtime, when it's time for the kids to pick out a story, I make them choose by color. "Tonight you have to pick a yellow book!" They think it's totally fun.

And when it's time to put the books away, they know they have to do it by color and height. "Color and height! Color and height!" I'm drilling it into their heads. It's much easier than our system before. Which wasn't a system at all. It was a bibliophilic disaster.

But now! Now it's all color-coordinated gorgeousness.

And our kid library has looked like this for an ENTIRE WEEK!

I know! That's like an entire year in kid clean room time.

New Lion and Lamb Party Favor Kit

So, this really awesome mom contacted me about making some Lion and Lamb Note Holder party favors for her son's 1st birthday. I love making party kits!

While I was in the middle of making her order (you can see the old version of the party favor here), I decided to switch up my party favor packaging a little. Because I'm ca-raaazy like that. I am so thrilled with how it all turned out! I LOVE IT! 

Here are the lions:

And the lambies:

And a little bit of a combo:

And the sweetest part - the back! All cute-ified and personalized for the birthday boy. SERIOUSLY. I LOVE IT!

Each birthday party guest gets to take one home! 

Are you noticing the color-coordinated yarn on each one? Because I love that part.

And, of course, I include a birthday message to be used as a table topper or birthday card:

And it is all wrapped up in a cute box to be opened before the party:

It's party time made simpler!

Magnetic Pen Holder

Oh, Martha Stewart, you think you're so fancy with your vintage tins. And how you turn your fancy vintage tins into extra fancy refrigerator pen holders. And all I have is this old mint tin.

(Cue Beastie Boys) KICK IT! 

I took off the lid:

And measured out some paper to match my desktop organizer:

And Mod Podged away:

 And folded around:

Like so: 

I made little cuts in the corners and folded the top in:

And folded the bottom around: 

So it looked like this: 

And then I added some little beaded sticker embellishments:

And a magnet:

But that wimpy little magnet wasn't strong enough to hold the tin when it was holding pens. 

So I plastered the back of that sucker with magnet tape:

And it became the little tin that could:

I went all out and bought some extra fancy pens at the Dollar Tree:

And I put it next to my favorite little desktop organizer:

Vintage tin? I don't need no stinkin' vintage tin.

All I need is a used mint tin and my trusty crafting supplies!