The Bear's Bedroom Tour, Part 1 updates and Part 2

Hi all, me again! I was originally going to post another part of the Bear's room but after having been at my parents house for the Easter weekend, I brought back a few things that were mine that I want to pass down to her which has changed the layout of a few things in her room and the playroom. So, here are some updated pictures:

I moved the rocking chair into the playroom and added the doll cradle
& rocking horse my Grandma made me in 1984. I thought K would play
with Lilly in these but so far only Buzz Lightyear has slept in it. LOL!

Here's another view of the cradle. The bedding inside is a doll sized sleeping
bag and pillow my Mom made for my Cabbage Patch Kids back in the early
80's (they're in her closet waiting for the day that she is interested in playing
with them.) The bear was mine when I was born. I called him Freddy Teddy
but she calls him Ted and Daddy calls him Max :)

I moved the beautiful pink blanket made by K's cousin
to the door of the playroom and put up the tutu and
fairy wings from K's Great Aunt.

So here's the next part of her room, the bed!

The bed, bedding and light above the bed are from Ikea (a lot of our stuff is
from Ikea.) The white blanket at the bottom of the bed is her Grammie Blanket.
From the title you can probably guess that my Grandma made it for her and it
used to be the only blanket K would let us use on her. She's gotten better
about using her bedding because now she likes to hide under it. I'm just glad
she's using the bedding because at least it's long enough to cover her and
it generally stays on her through her tossing and turning all night.

The pictures above the bed are canvases I bought from Michaels & painted
blue. The owls, branches, flowers, and hedgehog decals are from the Target
Circo Love and Nature collection. My inspiration was from Project Nursery.
The rest of the decals from this set are in other places in her room and in the
playroom. I really like how they turned out.

The picture above the bed is also from the Target
Circo Love and Nature collection. On the pillow
is Lilly (of course) and in front is her collection
of mini Toy Story beanies. At any given time there
are between 8 and 12 stuffed friends in bed with her

At the bottom of the bed are the bigger Buzz and
Woody pals. There is "Little Hoot" (the owl from
the Target Circo Love and Nature collection) and
the two Build-A-Bears (the blue one is Gumball
and the pink one is Lotso.) These were gifts from
some dear friends for K for Christmas. She is in
love with that store now. Every time we go to the
mall we have to visit Build-A-Bear so she can hug
the bears. By the way, please ignore how wrinkled
the duvet cover is. I was going to iron it before I
took the pictures but I knew K would just jump all
over it as soon as I put it back on the bed so I
didn't even bother. Sorry :)

Well that's all for this post. I'll get the last section of the room up, hopefully, tomorrow. I can't wait to get to the playroom! These two rooms are my favorite in the whole house. Actually, all three bedrooms are really nice. Well, they are in my opinion at least :)

The Bear's Bedroom Tour, Part 1

Howdy!

My beautiful, wonderful, bestest buddy who up and moved away from us to CA [insert sad face] has been on my case for quite some time now for pictures of our new house and since we've been here 6 months now I figured it was about time. Plus, my Mom and I collaborated on a birthday present for me that I absolutely love and I finally got them hung in K's room. I originally got this idea from Ohdeedoh (I love that website. It's always full of great ideas.)

Not only was it very fun working on these with my Mom but they have a personal meaning to me. I was born on the first day of Spring and my nickname has been 'Sunshine' for as long as I can remember. "You Are My Sunshine" is one of my favorite songs and I have been singing it to The Bear since she was born. The image was purchased from iStockphoto and then Mom worked her Illustrator mojo on them until they were perfect.

The bees and butterflies are from the classic Winnie-the-Pooh wall decal set I had in her nursery back in IL. I added the bees flight trails with brown eyeliner. That way when it's time to move I can just wipe them off with an Up & Up Erase-Away Multi-Use Eraser.

You really should check out the link to the original iStockphoto image above.
I think the changes my Mom made are awesome!

The color is a bit off but this is a close up off the Sunshine side.

Again, the color is a bit off and you can see some reflection from the
glass in the middle bottom but this is the Gray Side. She reflected the
original image and made the cloud with a silver lining. I love it!!!

This is looking at the prints on the wall and the back side of her bedroom.
The space where the rocking chair and beanbag chair are was originally
where we were going to put the crib so I haven't really done too much with
that spot yet. It makes me happy to have my new pictures there though.

I wanted to fill her room with things that have meaning, either hand made or family heirlooms. From left to right: The Twilight Turtle. I love this guy! His name is Edward (my tongue-in-cheek nod to the Twilight series books) and he was a gift from a very good friend and coworker at our baby shower. He has lit her room with a dreamy, starry sky every night since coming home from the hospital. And if someday she feels that she has outgrown him, he is living in our room.

Moving to the right is a two-fer. The Gromit stuffie was made by my extremely talented and incredible SIL for The Bear's 2nd bday. He is SOO cute and has really helped K become a Wallace and Gromit fan (yay!) The rocking chair belonged to my Mom and Aunt when they were toddlers. I believe my Great Grandfather made it but I'm not 100% sure so hopefully my Mom can confirm or deny this fact. My Dad had to fix a rung on it and used nails that belonged to my Great Grandfather. I love that kind of thoughtful touch.

Lastly is The Bean. It's a hedgehog beanbag chair from the Target Love & Nature collection. K loves to throw it, fall into it, hug it, lay on it... You get the picture.

Such a nice sunny day.

This beautiful blanket is hanging on her bedroom door. It was made for The Bear by her amazing cousin when she was only 11 (she turned 12 in March) and was given to K this past Christmas. I'm so jealous that she can make such amazing textiles at her age when I can't at mine.

So soft and pretty.

This lamb Jumping Jack toy was given to us at K's baby shower by our wonderful friends. It's hanging on the wall opposite the door, below the light switch. I got the idea of hanging it from a cabinet knob from Simply Modern Mom. It's an awesome idea. I love the lamb because it reminds me of these Christmas ornaments my brother and I have that are probably 30 years old. They were always some of my favorite ornaments and I really like wooden toys. Plus, it's adorable and K calls her Lily (of course).

She's so adorable.

The last stop on the room tour is a beautiful frame my Grandma made for me for my 9th birthday.This hangs on the same wall as the lamb Jumping Jack toy, above the light switch. Grammie chose a different Precious Moments picture for each of her grandkids. There is a lovely message wood burned on the back commemorating the occasion and year.This had been hanging in my bedroom until I moved out of my parents house. The picture then moved with me until it ended up on the wall in K's nursery in IL and now here in OH.

I can't believe this is 26 years old. Sheesh!

So that's the back wall of her room. I'll make some additional posts with the other spots in her room. It's pretty funny that I have to break up a post about her room since (other than the bathrooms, laundry room and closets) it's the smallest room in the house. I guess I just talk too much =D

Oh Geeze...

Man, I meant to keep up with this better but here I am over 2 weeks since my last post. Ugh, sorry :(

I actually have several super cool things to post about and just haven't had the chance to take pictures of them. However, I do have some VERY cute pictures to show you instead:

This is Sid! He is hilarious and adorable and the coolest bunny EVER!!!

Oh my gosh, seriously, can I tell you how much I love this bunny?!?

I mean, just look at that butt!!! He's SOOO cute!!!

*sigh*  Love at first sight <3

Our latest project

Over this past weekend we made the trek up to the folks house for a joint birthday celebration for me and my sister (in law). [Woot! Birthday Princesses!] While we were there I asked Dad to make a Kitchen Helper based on these *FREE* plans from AnaWhite.com. We spent just shy of $45 for the entire thing and I have seen these sell at many other stores (including OneStepAhead.com - I love that store) for a whole lot more. I'm REALLY happy with the results and so is Daddy and most importantly, The Bear! Besides, it was SO much fun to make a project with Dad. He is really great at this stuff and I learn a ton and get to hear cool stories about him as a boy and about his Dad. It's really nice :)

The lumber (1 1x8, 4 1x2s, 1 1x3)

The hardware (2 sizes of screws, 2 sizes of hinges)

I am nothing if not safe.

The teacher and the apprentices.

The finished product.

The Papa and his Bear.

This is how it looks folded. Sweet, huh? :)

Sorry for the break in broadcast

Blargh! Sorry for the huge gap in time from my last post. We had so many leftovers from the lasagna and pizza that we didn't do any meal planning last week except to try and space out the leftovers so we weren't eating the same thing several nights in a row.

On the decorating front, I've finished with 2.5 projects so I thought I'd post some pictures of two of them (you'll have to wait on the third one for a few more days).

This project started out as 2 of these simple birch Bekvam spice racks from Ikea.

And ended up these stained front facing book shelves for K in our living room.
I used a dark brown acrylic paint that I wiped on using paper towels to stain them.
Now before I get hate mail about K using these as shelves to climb out the window
she isn't that much of a climber anyway and secondly it's on the first floor so if she
should manage to get onto the shelves and through the glass, she's only going down
about a foot  and a half (God forbid). I got the idea from this nursery on Ohdeedoh.com.

I stained the shelves to match this rocking chair in K's
room that originally belonged to my Mom and her
sister when they were little. However K already has 2
full bookcases in her bedroom and all of the lower
shelves on our bookcases in the living room are full of
toys so these provide the perfect place to store a few
books that can be rotated out with others from her
collection to keep them fresh.

The other project I finished today was hanging A's
Martin Backpacker guitar in our bedroom. As you
can see he also has a full size guitar on a floor stand
(and two more in cases in the closet.)

Back in IL we had them hung like this in large shadowboxes we made with
my Dad. We'll probably use these again when we're in a house where we
don't mind hanging something so heavy (although I may end up repainting
the boxes before they're hung again. Currently they're red with a black fleece
lining. I think maybe all black? Or leave them red? I guess it will depend on
what the room looks like where they eventually end up.)

In other news, we've been having a visitor to these parts recently.

This cute little fellow comes to our window several times a day.

It might be due to the fact that I leave cans of tuna for him.

But seriously, how could I not? Look at that cute face!

And he doesn't even mind an audience :) I've decided his name is Bob because of
his bobtail. We aren't sure if that's how it's supposed to be or if it was from a fight.

Mid-week project

Hello JAKS Place Blog Readers!

I finished up a project for K's room this afternoon and thought I'd share a few pictures with you. Plus, my girlfriend has been asking to see our house and even though it isn't *totally* finished, I figured I'd tease her with a few shots of K's bedroom and the playroom.

I saw this idea at Knock Off Decor which originally came from Be Sweet. If you want to make one of your own there is a tutorial at Be Sweet. It's pretty self explanatory though, in my opinion.

The cast of characters (and wire cutters for the fake flowers).

This is the finished product. I'm really happy with
how it turned out. I like the colors and how they
look in the room. K likes it and enjoys saying
hello to the bird, butterflies and acorns.

This is how it looks in her bedroom.

I wanted to make my mobile similar to this one that
my sis made because I love it so much. It's
incredibly adorable and I love the flowers and birds
on it.

Here's how it looks in the playroom.

And here's our beautiful turkey saying "cheese!"

Weekly Meal Plan - Week 7

Monday: Ham and Broccoli Quiche

Tuesday: Spaghetti Squash with french bread

Wednesday: Broccoli Cheese Soup in bread bowls

Thursday: Lasagna with sauteed spinach

Friday: Mushroom Bean Burgers on pretzel buns with wedge salad

Saturday: Veggie Garden Pizza (make it up as you go along)

Sunday: Leftover Lasagna

And just for fun: Rum Cake

Smashing a snowball on Daddy's head.

Chilly Papa (at Chili's). I love how K's foot is up-turned.

Tight squeeze hug for Daddy.

Building a tower out of puzzle pieces.