Dress-Up Clothes Storage Conundrum

We are up to our elbows in dress-up clothes. We’ve accumulated quite a bit of thrifted Halloween costumes, fancy dance outfits from the consignment store, handmade goodies, and awesome hand-me-downs.

Dress-Up Clothes Storage

Currently the play silks, crowns, dresses, wings, feather boas, and tutus are stuffed into this handmade basket that is entirely too small for our costume collection. I believe it’s time for something larger!

Here are some storage possibilities:

Featured above:
1. West Elm’s Curved Storage Baskets
2. Land of Nod’s Charming Baskets
3. Lands’ End’s Canvas Hamper
4. Pottery Barn Kids’ Large Canvas Floor Tote Storage (currently on sale)
5. IHeart Organizing’s DIY Rope Basket looks as fine as the other baskets, but costs a small fraction of the price. That’s mighty tempting to this frugal mama.

What do you think?

Colorful Little Girl Room Updates

Last year we transformed our spare room (i.e. junk closet!) into a colorful and personalized room for our daughter:

Ribbon chandelier in our daughter's room

I want to share with you two small, colorful additions to our daughter’s room, both projects from her birthday extravaganza in January that have been rather shamefully hanging in our living room for the past three months until now:
– festive and colorful ribbon chandeliers and
– collages featuring photos of our daughter and her friends over the past four years.

Ribbon chandelier in our living room after our daughter's birthday party

We took our ribbon chandelier (i.e. ribbons hung on an embroidery hoop) and placed it around her light fixture, dressing up an otherwise very hum-drum light (ah, the downside to renting!).

Ribbon chandelier in our daughter's room

After two months hanging in the living room over the couch, we’re so glad to no longer be bumping into the ribbons every time we sit down.

We hung the photo collages of our daughter and her friends above her bed:

Photo collages to personalize her little girl room
Photo collages to personalize her little girl room

Such a sweet space for our daughter:

Butterfly princess daughter jumping and dancing on her bed, loving her room

Click here to see all of our posts about our daughter’s room transformation, including our handmade felt banners, embroidered portrait, nerdy posters, and repurposed photo wreath frame.

Another Fabric Dying Project

After not having a bedskirt on the queen sized mattress in the house for eight years, we decided to shake things up and finally check this one off the to-do list!

Purple bedskirt dying project - bedroom before
Our daughter’s bedroom before, without the bedskirt

A friend gave us a bedskirt that had been slightly stained by their bed frame.

Purple bedskirt dying project

We decided to dye it (using the same dye and process as the pink sheets project).

We left the color choice to our daughter who shocked us with her choice of purple.

Purple bedskirt dying project

Yes, you read that correctly.

Purple bedskirt dying project

She actually picked pink first, but mama vetoed that. Too much pink in that room. We needed something to complement it. I suggested orange. She choose purple. And that’s that.

Purple bedskirt dying project
Purple bedskirt dying project

Adorable!

Curious about the rest of our daughter’s room? Click here to read about how we transformed this space from a messy storage room into a playful little girl’s room.

Simple Bedding Transformation

Our adventure began innocently enough, “Mama, I want pink sheets.” That sounds easy, right?!

Simple Bedding Transformation with Pink Fabric Dye

Evidently not so much. We found finding affordable, plain pink, organic sheets to be a challenge. So we reused some older white organic sheets that we already owned, and threw them in the washing machine with pink fabric dye and a cup of salt, and ta-da!

Simple Bedding Transformation with Pink Fabric Dye

We have beautiful, bright pink sheets, perfect for a three-year old.

Simple Bedding Transformation with Pink Fabric Dye

An easy, quick project with satisfying results.

And now I keep thinking, what else can we dye?!

Simple Bedding Transformation with Pink Fabric Dye
Simple Bedding Transformation with Pink Fabric Dye

There’s nothing like making a simple request come true to illicit an “I love my room!” romp-around. Sweet, sweet girl.

Hey, her room’s coming together!

Repurposed Photo Wreath Frame

Holiday Photo Wreath from Christmas 2010

Remember our holiday wreath that we made using an embroidery hoop and clothespins?

Repurposing our holiday photo wreath

We decided to repurpose it for the rest of the year, until next December when we’ll fill it with holiday cards again down in our living room.

Repurposing our holiday photo wreath

For the time being we’ve decided to place it in our daughter’s new big girl room, in the last bit of free wall space, next to a nerdy baby poster, her embroidered portrait and toddler artwork, and above our photo banner with glittery clothespins.

Photo wreath in our daughter's room

We intend to place photos from our recent travels (to New Mexico and New York) in the frame, but in the meantime we’ve clipped some older favorite family photos to the wreath for now.

Little girl room

A perfect fit for the space!

Now I need to work on updating her linens. Perhaps some embroidered pillowcases are in order or a tie dye project for the sheets. What do you think?