Carys's Room (details)

I had a lot of fun working on Carys's room.  I really like taking what I already have and making something pretty out of it.  I think it has something to do with my indecisiveness.   (I have a hard time making decisions.)  If I see a store full of stuff, my brain can't think and I can't decide what to do.  But if I have a few things already that I want to use, then I love to take that and see what else I have and make it all fit together.  For this room, I used this owl fabric for colors and ideas.

Here is a little explanation of how I did everything.  There are going to be a lot of links, because I used Pinterest to find most of the ideas.  

1.  Wall Collage.

I love wall collages.  It is so easy to take what you already have and make a cute arrangement.  I read the other day that wall collages are just now becoming popular.  But, I remember my mom making wall collages of things ever since I was little.  

Carys loves animals.  She already had the big dog print, the pig print, and had just bought the horse print with her birthday money.  She wanted to keep all of them.  I added some free printables from the internet (I'll talk about this in a minute), some other little paintings and things that she already had, painted all the frames to match the owl fabric and just figured out a cool arrangement.  This wall gave me some good ideas.

2.  Free Printables.
If you get on Pinterest, or even on Google and type in "free printables" you will find all kinds of cute things that nice people have made up and put on the internet for you to print and use.  I chose some things I thought Carys would like, downloaded them onto a pen drive and took them to a photo place and had them printed up in 8x10 size.
The cupcake hooks were bought in the US (in secret) and the "Keep Calm..." print fit great with them.  Carys loves sweets and loves to make cakes and cupcakes.

These are just two colorful prints with great messages.  "We're all in this together" is from High School Musical.  Carys loves musicals.  The owl artwork was a mask that someone made as a free printable.  I thought it was way too cute to cut up for a mask, so I framed it.

There is a website called Feed Your Soul where artists contribute a painting monthly that you can download.  This cute fox came from there.  In the morning she can switch the picture around to the Good Morning Sunshine side.  I made the frames from cardboard and fabric using this idea.

 3.  Reading Nook:
This was the most simple, tab curtain that I made out of what was left of the owl fabric and some coordinating stripe fabric.  I hot glued the pom-pom trim on and I don't even think I hemmed the curtain!  I hung some wooden curtain brackets painted green on the bottom side of her loft bed and cut a curtain rod to fit.  I want to get a comfy chair or bean bag or at least some fluffier pillows later.

 4.  Reverse Collage blocks.  A few years ago, I painted some little animal pictures for Giovanni's nursery.  He wasn't using them anymore, so I got the blocks and covered them with colorful scrapbook paper, putting a layer of glue on top.  Then I cut out some letters of little sayings from contact paper, stuck them on the scrapbook paper and painted white paint on top.  When the paint was dry, I pulled off the letters.  Carys had said that she wanted "little signs" for each part of her room (reading, studying, etc.)  This was my attempt at that.

Ansley painted this painting for Carys years ago. 

The flower painting was a gift from Aunt Melissa a few years ago.

Carys  and I made the crayon melt canvas back in February.  We got the idea here.

The crosses came from Hobby Lobby.

 5.  Stuffed Animal Solution.  Carys loves stuffed animals and she had just gotten at least 10 new ones for her birthday.  She had them all on her bed and was sleeping on top of the covers at night with barely enough room because of all the animals.  She told me that she still wanted all the stuffed animals on her bed, but I went ahead and painted these shelves we already had.  She is OK with them staying on the shelves but still has to have at least 3 at a time on the bed with her.

 I was going to put these LOVE letters above the stuffed animal shelves, but they ended up being bigger than I had remembered, so I put them above the bed.  The letters were bought at Hobby Lobby and painted with q-tips.  (really advanced painting technique...)

6.  Chalkboard.  We don't have chalkboard paint in Brazil (that I know of).  So I had to make my own using these instructions.  It turned out rougher than I had wanted, but it works!

 7.  String light.  I made this using these instructions.  It was messy, but easy and worked out great.  This is definitely the most popular room accessory among Carys and her friends.

When Garrett (our 15 year old son), saw Carys's room, he said, "Whoa, Mom rocks!".  That made me feel so good.  I asked him if he wanted me to do his room next.

"No", he said.

I guess I don't rock THAT much.