Organization Projects – Page 6

Curtain Swap

In an attempt to make our daughter’s new room more light and airy, we swapped out the dark brown, light-blocking curtain on the east facing window and replaced it with the same curtain material as her bed canopy.

That simple switch has let so much more light into her room during the day. (We keep that window shade closed during the day because the view goes right to the neighbors.)

The old brown curtain was so drab! We still have two brown light-blocking curtains in her room, but we typically keep them open during the day and close them just at night. That south facing window is the one with the view.

We’ve also been hanging more artwork: a nerdy number poster (by the same illustrator who made the oversized alphabet poster hanging over the desk) and the embroidered portrait I made. We have more artwork that’s currently in-progress to hang up and share with you soon.

It’s starting to really look like a little girl’s room up there. She loves it!

Gorgeous Boxes and a More Realistic Option

Another post in the never-ending arts and craft storage organization saga…

If money were no object, I would immediately snatch up these beautiful, handmade Serena and Lily boxes for our arts and craft storage:

Alas, $88 for a set of three (on sale!) seems pretty steep for a budget organization project, especially when I’d need several sets. Besides, I like the patterns now, but I may not care so much for them in a couple years. I don’t know about you, but my taste changes over time. And those are some crazy, vivid patterns.

In the meantime, these more affordable boxes from IKEA are growing on me:

I was hoping for something other than cardboard (thank you all for your fantastic storage tin suggestions!). Unfortunately after several (unsuccessful) trips to various container stores, I’m slowly reconciling myself to the idea of cardboard storage boxes. I especially like this green color and the various size options. I’m concerned about the construction and how they’ll hold up over time. I also think they look, well, cheap.

I prefer these PVC-free scrapbook storage boxes from Amazon, but I am not sure the sage green color will match the IKEA boxes and these Amazon ones only come in one size (that I can find):

Maybe we can make this size work. I think we’ll need a bunch of them though. We have a lot of art supplies.

Updated to add: Be still my heart! I found them in other sizes (though they are still on the small side). Finding the boxes in the sage green color (without paying outrageous shipping costs) may prove to be a challenge though. Is it worth it?

To shake things up even more, I saw this garden storage cart in the April issue of Country Living magazine:

I love the re-purposed wooden crates with the chalkboard painted sides. I even have chalkboard paint in the garage waiting to be used. I didn’t have any luck finding the crates at the thrift store today; maybe I’ll have better luck at a flea market. I like the idea of spray painting them turquoise too.

I actually like the idea of incorporating both types of boxes — mixing and matching the green archival boxes with the charming (bright blue!) wooden crates.

What do you think I should do?

Nerdy ABC Poster

When I ordered this clever alphabet poster from Nerdy Babies I took a risk. The site didn’t list its dimensions and I rather foolishly thought, “how big can it be? I’ll just order it and it will be fine. I don’t have time to email the artist and wait for a response right now.”

Two days later it arrived. Enter the worlds largest poster that my daughter ADORES and won’t let me return.

It’s clever, creative, nerdy… and gigantic!

The space where I had originally planned to hang it (above the photo banner over the bed) was too small, so we decided to hang it above her desk instead.

She LOVES it!

I think I would love it more if it were smaller and framed, but she’s three years old and that clearly doesn’t matter to her, so I’m letting it go. We’re enjoying both its beauty and brilliance. Besides, it’s the perfect size for this space. The end.

The Reading Nook

David built this sturdy, double-sided bookcase for our daughter. For the past two years it’s been in our living room overflowing with books (the following photo might as well be the “before” shot from 2009 back when we had only that many books).

After boxing up and putting away many of our beloved board books, we moved it upstairs to our daughter’s new bedroom.

Here’s the shot from before we started the transformation from spare bedroom/office/junk closet to big girl bedroom:

Wow, does it look less cluttered now, though we have more work to do:

Remember this video of our daughter reciting her version of Eric Carle’s classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, from last week?

She’s reading in front of the bookcase in her new room!

One side of the bookcase has our before bedtime books and some picture book fiction,

the other side contains (mostly) a nonfiction collection:

I’m in the process of framing art from beloved children’s books to hang next to the bookcase, but in the meantime our daughter asked us to hang pictures from two of last years family calenders (one with pictures of her and the other featuring Eric Carle illustrations).

All that’s missing is a comfy cushion to snuggle up on and I have plans for that.

Embroidered Portrait Fun

I wanted to embroider something special to hang with the “create” felt banner I made for above the desk in our daughter’s new big girl room (similar to the “sweet dreams” felt banner above her bed).

I read about a portrait embroidery project in Country Living Magazine and couldn’t wait to try it. After printing out the photo that I would use as a template, I drew in pencil on the photo where I planned to embroider. I’m glad I used pencil because I drew and redrew the lines until I felt confident with the outline placement.

Then I taped the photo template to watercolor paper with scotch tape, placed it on top of some thick cardboard and used a thumb tack to punch holes into the watercolor paper to embroider. (See the Country Magazine link above for the complete directions).

Framed and ready to hang above her desk

I was nervous that the picture wouldn’t look like her, but I’m quite pleased with the final result. In fact, I like her embroidered portrait so much that I’m toying with the idea of making a family portrait for our bedroom.

Meanwhile, our daughter is busy embroidering a picture of her own design. I love it when inspiration hits!