Room redo - part 1

Yes. McKena is soon to be sixteen. With that she really wanted to have an updated room, one in a more mature style, one that fit her interests and growing collection of clothing & make-up. McKena is really into clothing and make-up. Her room was decorated in the shabby chic look that was ever so popular several years ago. She is ready to let the lace, froo-froo, and flowers go. Here's a pic of McKena with her make-up as you would see her everyday though she's started wearing the mod eyelashes now too.

So a couple of months ago, we bagan this process with her searching Pinterest for ideas. To find her likes and dislikes, to define her style. She made a mood board with all the elements she would like to see in her room.

May I remind you, we recently relocated 2,000 miles and are currently living in a lovely rental house here in Oklahoma, so there are limits to some extent of what we can do. The paint and carpet in her room are a tan color with and ecru color paint on the doors and trim. Nice and neutral. The closet however is awful. It is in sad shape. Here's what it looked like when we moved in.

You can see here that there are holes all over in the walls and the closet organizer is hung poor rendering some of it useless.

After viewing all her ideas for the room redo, we decided to make this closet a dedicated make-up area. It's one of her hobbies and she spends quite a bit of time with it each day.

We also decided to give her a "closet" that runs along one of her walls out in her room. But we will come back to that in another post.

She wished for more of a french feel to her room. So we set off to sand and repaint her worn, weathered, and wonderfully shabby chic furniture (it was white) all black. We thought it would be a nice contrast to the tan and ecru in the room.

The closet breakdown- We removed the closet organizer and all its hardware from the closet leaving us even more holes to deal with. Without being able to paint, we had to get a little creative here. So off to the fabric store we went.

There we found a satin fabric we liked and it was only $2.99 a yard. We bought 9 yards and took it home to hang. The tools required were a drill and molly based hook, staple gun, hammer, 1" trim and some finishing nails. The entire closet turn make-up area cost under $40.00. The fabric was just under $30, the trim was $6, and the hook (came 2 in a package) was $3. We already owned all the furniture, tools, and had nearly a gallon of black paint left from another project.

Here's what we did-

We emptied the space.

We hung the hook for the lighting first so that the dust from drilling a small hole in the ceiling wouldn't make a mess and settle on the hung fabric.

Using a staple gun, we attached the fabric and chose to create pleats by simply overlapping the fabric from time to time. This is the look we got.

This fabric was three panels of 3 yards.Then we used finishing nails and the 1" trim to give it a polished look at the ceiling. Super easy! Using that much fabric also created enough extra at the floor to "pool" rather nicely.

Next I hung the light and mirror that we already had. The mirror was in her shabby chic room. The light was stored away. We had used it in our old apartment but had yet to find a use for it here. I'm happy she did. Then we placed the freshly painted desk into the closet and she loaded it up with all her schtuff. It is now home to all her make-up, lotions, perfume, polishes, ect.

It may need a few more touches to personalize it, but for the most part, its done and oh so pretty. We'll be back to document more of the room redo in the weeks to come. Thanks for stopping by!

I've started my 2012 scrapbooking

In this layout I used the January 2012 BYOC kits over at The Lily Pad.

And in some other exciting news, I was published in this months Digishoptalk Insider. If you are interested in getting a copy, you can download it here for free.

I began reading a new book recently. It's a different read for me but so far I am really glad I am reading  The Hunger Games. What are you reading now? I would love to try more new reads!

Happy New Year!

I spent New Years looking back through the pictures I took over the last year. What a fun walk down memory lane. :)

Last year, we lived in a small apartment. I had no room for a scrappy space. There was a closet in the kitchen/dining area that we didn't use well so we decided to convert it. When I found those pictures last week, I thought it might be a cool thing to share here.

Here's how we created the space. First we cleared out the closet. The two top shelves were already there. We added the wood striping at desk level to support a  desktop area.

We added one more shelf up here also to utilize the space best. Then we painted everything a crisp white.

We hung lights in the closet so that I could see what it is I was working on. A word of advise.... be careful of which lights you hang in such a small space as some lights like these get hot while in use.

Last I gathered up my scrap crap and filled the closet. Othere than the purchase of wood for the desktop and shelf, this project cost us nothing. We utilized things we already owned.

And it was some simple renovations that easily could be removed if the landlord wished for it to be when we moved. It was a perfect solution to small space or apartment living.

A chair fit in here too. I just moved it to take pictures. This was a great scrappy space. :)

I hope this gives you some inspiration if you are an apartment dweller looking for a dedicated craft area.

Merry Merry Christmas!

May your holidays be merry and bright!

A crafty post

I thought I would do just one crafty post to share the things I've made this fall. Some are digital layouts and others are hybrid projects which I used kits from the wonderful Valorie Wibbens.

I love scrapbooking. Thanks for stopping by!

Brace yourself

I'm back and hope to begin blogging regularly again. With the relocation and getting everything in order, the blog took backseat. I haven't blogged for most of the last three months. So from here, smaller more frequent posts may be better to help "catch up" with you all. What have we been up to? Well, earlier this month, darling daughter got braces. Here's a before and after pic at the office.

And I am still scrapbooking. This was may lastest layout created and I was told yesterday it will be published in the January edition of the DST Insider. Pretty cool, huh?

I love Oklahoma. The weather here overall suits me much better. Of course, this summer when its 150 degrees out, I'll whine and tell you differently. But for now, I can get up and do my hair everyday without consideration of it being ruined in the rain from my front door to my car. (Remember I moved from Washington state where I was born and raised.) I have even learned how to put those big loose curls in my hair. Love!

We made it to Oklahoma!

The very evening we drove (yes we drove the 2,000 miles) into Oklahoma, this was the beautiful sunset that greeted us. Darling daughter and I were in awe of its beauty and she couldn't resist snapping a picture from the moving vehicle.

Once we got here, we stayed with my husbands family while we house hunted. They all showed us such hospitality and we are so very grateful. A week later we were moving into our home, getting the kiddos back in school, and doing all those crazy we've relocated type of things. It all really went pretty smoothly until a week or so after we were settling into the new place. Then one of our two fur babies became ill.

It was terrible and awful. She became ill on Friday, Saturday we tried getting her into a vet, however, because we were new to the area and weren't established with one yet no one would see her until Monday. The nearest pet hospital was just short of two hours away. Sunday she had really taken a turn for the worse so we decided not to wait until Monday and made the drive to OKC. Lucy didn't make it there though. She had a seizure and passed just before we arrived. To say we are deeply saddened is an understatement. We miss her and her spunky personality very much.

So we moved into this house three weeks ago today. It's been a whirlwind. Oklahoma is beautiful, the weather has been fabulous, and we really love the house we found, The kids are doing well in school, teachers only have nice things to say, and they are now on fall break. They have the rest of the week off from school. Darling daughter is spending her break taking traffic safety school. She is stoked to go get her permit next week. I'll leave you with a picture of darling daughter and some of her new friends who went to Homecoming dance together the first weekend we were here. McKena towards the front in the silver dress.