Dressers

 

Here are a pile of dresser makeovers

 

 

 

Calmed down the spray painted black of that dresser with some flat black craft paint and gold spray paint to make the charm of the curves stand out.

 

This next one was a lot of tedious work, but I tend to love the time consuming ones more!

 

 

I tried sanding out the scratch on the top of this one. The other dressers had easy mars like cup ring stains on the top. But this had a nasty gouge. So I sanded away.

 

One of the handles was missing so I replaced it with some I had. But I refinished the dresser in a gray and white shabby chic style and the handles were modern and industrial. It was a bad combination. 

So I did some metallic over it all and went for the faux zinc. I need one finishing smooth dry brushed coat to make the dresser look right but I wondered if it would sell as is and maybe I don't care. We will see. If it doesn't sell right away I'll have time to give it that last layer and then I will like it :)

 

Next, was a night stand. Simple and sweet.

 

 

This dresser I was going to resell as is, but it got a scratch on the top when I was hauling it in the van. And then one handle was lost (you'll see it missing in picture below, but I didn't want to wait to take the picture so oh well)

 

 

 

 

Since I had to paint it, but liked the wood and it was in good condition most places - I just painted part of it in gray and some black distressing. I sort of liked this style as a modern and older quality piece... would be fun with trendy antler art above. Or a little southwestern flair like a cowhide rug and Aztec throw pillows.

 

 

 

So that was my last effort of furniture flipping before the cold weather. Goodbye autumn.

Minecraft Party

This is a good spot to put the birthday party photos from April too

My son wanted a "minecraft-lego" party, those two elements specifically combined.

 

 

The cake was created by my talented exchange student. She used a lego to make the imprints on her fondant so that it would combine "Stampy Longnose" and "Steve" and Legos. It's going to be hard to make cakes after my boys got used to her special creations.

 

My boy was thrilled. He and his brothers also loved making their own decore for the party.

 

These guys seem a bit creepy, but birthday boy was proud of them.

I kept party favors simple. Didn't try to match the theme, which I do sometimes. Just a jar full of squirt guns for them to all take home.

 

We did minecraft posters and word art for the rest of the decore. And big balloons - though my son pointed out that round shapes don't happen in minecraft.

 

The game is what made the party a hit though. We have tons of duplo legos, which I named various components of minecraft (red is lava, blue was water, green was leaves, and then I forget what colors nether and other unfamiliar words were). It was a large group of kids so they were in several teams and had to stack their own 6 layers of lego to win. (My son was turning 6)

 

The trick was, you had to stay together as a group because the ender dragon (is that what its called?) which was Papa, would be able to send you back to the starting line if he caught someone on your team. To protect yourself, the whole team had to hold hands in order to be spared from the dragon.

 

This help the kids to run all over our huge lawn without the little ones being left behind. The teams really worked together with as a team, studying their clipboards and stacking their six elements.

We had some minecraft art time somewhere during the party too. It made a happy birthday boy, but I'll admit, big parties with a lot of kids is rather exhausting!

 

 



French Detective Party

I've had a lot of boy's birthday parties. All themed. I sometime wonder if it's possible to run out of birthday themes with 4 boys using them up. Anyway, this last one was a French detective party. The invitation was printed on 8x10 and delivered in a top secret file folder.

 

 

 

When the children arrived they played some games and then I told them it was time to eat cake - but alas it had disappeared and in its place was a shoe print and a pink toothbrush.

 

Everyone was given notebooks and pencils. Since the majority of the kids could not read or write well, this birthday was wordless. We drew pictures of each clue and I didn't leave any written clues - they were all objects.

 

The three questions Detective Quentin asks: Where? Why? What?

 

So pink toothbrush

Where does this go? (It's moms, it goes in her bathroom)

Why is it here? (Maybe whoever stole the cake left it)

What do we do next? (Let's put it back and find out if there are any other clues)

 

And of course in the bathroom there was another clue - a spoon, so off to the kitchen, then a shoe so off to the cubbies, a book so up to the bookshelf, and all over the house. We took a moment to draw out our clues and ask the three questions because engagement and repetition makes things fun by building familiarity with the game and anticipation.

 

The last clue led them to the culprit - Papa.

 

We asked our three questions.

WHERE is the cake? Here with Papa

WHY did he take it? His answer, "I thought no one would share with me"

WHAT should we do about it?

 

We had a little board meeting and decided to forgive him and share.

And that was the end of the activities, off for cake and gifts.

I kept decorations simple - just set up my mantle as if it were the office of Detective Quentin

These are my guiding rules for parties:
- group games where everyone is moving is easier than waiting in line for your turn
- keep decorations simple by going large. a big area - like my chalkboard wall or mantle, makes a quicker statement then a lot of little details everywhere. I usually have one main spot of décor and skip the rest.
- the boys love to help with party prep by doing big posters for the party, and this makes fast easy themes
- morning parties are nice when our day has multiple bookings. sometimes we offer breakfast (cinnamon rolls as a cupcake in the paper wrap with the topper)
- kids wont care that you spent money on the matching napkins and plates. Have your wow factor and skip all the add ons.

Now time to put up autumn mantle again!

baby shower

I went to a friends baby shower and wanted to share some of the decore detail - it was darling.

 

First, because the colors were mint and blue and coral, these flowers were SPRAY PAINTED so that they would match the flow. Isn't that commitment?

 

 

Because mama-to-be was on bedrest, this pillowpile was a literal bed for her to cozy down on during the shower.

 

 

 

 

 

Hand painted feathers and sweet arrow art were in detail all about the shower

 

 

 

We will look more at the desserts later - this is just to show you the arrow and feather detail on the cake pops.

But speaking of "pop" the food area theme was "Ready to Pop" and there was also a popcorn bar, with appropriately designed popcorn bags!

 

 

Each window was decorated with quotes and canvas and arrows and decoration, but all the decorations were ready to use in baby's nursery after the shower, since his bedroom "theme" was arrows. Notice the items in the photos below and how perfectly they'll go into a nursery!

 

One activity was "baby's first year bucket list" and even the bucket full of fun suggestions will match the room's style.

It was a well done shower and I love the idea of putting time into shower decore that will then go straight into the nursery. Dual purpose makes me happy!