Tween Project #2

Little Miss Whimsy's bedroom re-do is in full swing.  This weeks project is about taking what you have and spiffing it up a bit to create a big change.  Working with budget in mind once more I debated just painting the back of two exhisting bookcases she has to bring more interest to them.  But even that seemed a bit boring for my 11 year old with stars in her eyes.  Although I love wallpaper and I mean love it I was not interested in buying it for this project.  The reason being I wanted to do each section of this bookcase in a different pattern and while most wall paper ranges in price from $15 to $50 per single roll (you buy minimum two single rolls when buying paper) that was really not an option budget wise.   I had Mod Podge on hand as well as Elmers white glue.  It was time to take a trip to Michael's to see what

I could dig up.

It did not take long to discover all the lovely patterns the scrapbooking section had in their scrapbooking paper.  Just the right colors too!  The best part is it was on sale.  Not that it was out of budget to begin with but it is always nice when a project only cost you $8.00!

So with glues on hand I went to work.  I spread a thin coat of the watered down Mod Podge on the shelving unit itself and one on the back side of the paper.  Then once the paper was down to give it an even look I did one final even layer of the glue on the finished side of the paper.

Although you can't see it in this photo this paper was fantastic and was a shiny silver!  I did not worry about matching up patterns exactly.

Fun Tiffany blue stripes!

The glue drying so it looks a bit uneven here. 

Some black Damask pattern to livin it up!

She hsa two identical book shelves but I did each section on each one a different paper just

in the same color way.  I did repeat the black Damask and the silver on each side though.

Shelves side by side in contrastin papers.

Here is one unit done.

Little Miss Whimsy was in charge of the photography for this job and I just realized she did not get a good shot of the shelves done side by side.  Below is the best that we have.  I will make sure when I feature the completed room I take a better picture!

I hope you gathered some inspiration for a project using scrapbooking paper!  I am linking up with the following bloggers this week:  A Big Thank You to them all for hosting!

Susan's Metamorphosis Monday

Between Naps on the Porch

Make it for Monday at

Cottage Instincts

Twice Remembered

Peeking Into The Study

Welcome to my study.  I like to spend mornings here.  This room faces the sunrise so it provides bright mornings of solitude.

I I have a large cabinet against the back wall of this room.  It is a piece I love.  It holds a lot of stuff too,  which is always a plus.  For this Tabletop Tuesday I thought we could take a peek at a few vignettes from the shelves of this cabinet.  The brass piece is an antique thing a majigger of Mr. Whimsy's.  He is a Geologist and this is something they use out in the field.  As you can tell I have no idea what it is,  but it looks very nice up on my shelves accompanied by some greenery and an interesting clock.

Books of course are a given.  I found this lovely porcelain piece some years back and it found a perfect home front and center on my shelves.

There is just always something wonderful about hard back books.  I have a thing for them.  Placing a simple distressed wood piece next to them adds interest.

A brass Golden Retriever piece sits watch.  I find it commical that the book he sits on is entitled "The Face of Assassin" when the Golden Retriever is such a wonderful and mild breed of dog.

Just look at all those goodies dressing up my shelves!

Hope you enjoyed taking a peek at some of my study shelve vignettes.  Please join Barb over at Grits & Glamour by clicking here for more wonderul Tabletop ay Vignettes.

Project by Project Tween Room

We want it all but on a budget.  So begins the story of my daughters room.  She has a gorgeous room now.  Wow did it cost me a pretty penny too.  But now that she has hit middle school classic sophistication in toiles is not her dream.  WHAT?  I have slowly had to let go of my vision and move past MY dream room for her.  I am a visualizer which comes in quite handy in my field of expertise ~Interior Design.  As I lie on my daughters bedroom floor I visualize what it would be like to be 11.  This time around however I plan on doing it on the cheap.  After all Little Miss Whimsy has two counterparts Master Whimsy 1 and Master Whimsy 2 both who have big plans for a new space for themselves as well.  Looks like this mama is going to be busy in projects for awhile.   

 So begin the projects leading up to this dream room.  Here is the first one I tackled.  She had picked out some storage boxes from PB Teen.  $59. for a cardboard storage box.......really?  When I spotted these storage photo boxes at Michaels 3 for $5 I decided maybe we could do something fun with them.  Something that did not cost $59.00!

So I bought some fun stamps to use and pulled out the craft paint and sticker letters and Little Miss Whimsy and I had some mother daughter time making some fun storage boxes.  Total cost was under $10.  I am a perfectionist who knows when to let perfectionism go.  This was the case when it came to this project.  After that first stamp I quickly decided that precision along with perfectionism would not play a part in this project!

A quick and easy project to accomplish.  This room is going to be one big transformation and this is only the tip of the iceberg.  I will be featuring all my fun, easy and money saving projects for this room each week.  I hope you visit and get some ideas along the way as we go from Classic girl room to Hip and Funky Tween room.  I am linking up to:

 Between Naps On The Porch Met Monday

Cottage Instincts

Twice Remembered

It's So Very Cheri

Making The World Cuter

Tales From Bloggeritaville Thrift Thursday

Cabinet Top Vignettes

For this weeks Tabletop Tuesday hosted by Barb over at Grits & Glamour I decided to share some cabinet top vignettes.  These photos were taken quite a time ago before I became the professional photo taker that I am now (wink wink) so they are not the best or the clearest but I figure they are fair enough to share.When we first bought our home one of the things that was never a favorite of mine was the fact that the cabinets in the kitchen did not go straight up to the ceiling.  I am not a huge fan of space above cabinets.  I could appreciate the custom cabinetry as well as the varying heights to create interest but blah, didn't want open cabinet tops.  Mr. Whimsy assured me that this was no reason not to buy a home.  Ha ha!  Silly man.   I have made sure since buying this home to let him know weekly how much I dislike my cabinets.  I will save that story for a rainy day though!

Of course one always makes the best of every situation or at least trys to and in this case so did I.  There are only two cabinets wide enough and low enough to really display anything on top of in my kitchen to begin with  so I figured they were a good spot to place two of my loves.  Pewter and transferware.  I did need to add a couple more goodies to balance it all out.  One of my favorite pieces of all times is my transferware rooster.  I have had this fella for years.  He used to sit on my island in our old home but he was quite happy to hop up on top of that cabinet and take watch.  He is joined by a pewter tea kettle a topiary and a platter my sister in law gave me from Southern Living at Home.Across the kitchen from that vignette sits another.  Here I have a pottery finial a topairy, one of my Spode Blue Room transferware plates and a pewter bunny.  We all know how I love those bunnies!

Please join Barb over at Grits & Glamour as she hosts her second Tabletop  Tuesday.  You can find more wonderful vignettes by visiting Grits & Glamour by clicking here.  Make your week a great one!

I Love Sharing With You, The Metamorphosis of a Blog

It came to my realization the other day that I have officially been blogging for a little over a year.  I am the first to admit that there have been some big gaps here and there with my ability to get on here and post as much as I would love to. Another is my trepedation with computer experience and just the lack of know how as to how everything works or can work if you know what you are doing :-)   But I do love doing so and even more than me sharing is me hearing from you all.  My followers and those who don't yet follow but are leaving me such kind praises.

I have been really thinking about all of you a lot lately.  I have been asking myself what is it that my followers and those not following want to see when they log on here?  What can I do for my blog that would make it better for all of you.  The amount of things going on out there in blog land from blog to blog are really incredible.  There are weekly events.  There are giveaways. There are estsy stores.  Sales.  Tear jerking reads.  I mean blog land really offers it all doesn't it?

So what would you like to See?  Hear?  Know?  About me or decor or anything I can offer?  What would be some elements that would help this blog along?  Do you love the weekly events?  Are you a fan of the give-away?  Do you like taking weekly shopping outings virtually?  Do you like being able to contact your blog owner by email to ask questions?

My metamorphosis for this weeks post will be the updating of my blog over the coming weeks.  You all are my compass.  So I encourage you to suggest and ask away.  Anything you want to know leave me a message.  Any suggestions you have, leave me a message.  Lets do some suggest and tell here this Monday on Southern Whimsy.

In the mean time let me leave you with a very small metamorphosis I did for a client back when I owned my Interior business.  This just shows how adding something can completely transform a look.  Working with that was there and making it all that better with little effort.  The client had installed the drapery panels and then had no idea what to do with windows in the doors.  Simple Roman shades with beaded fringe was an easy and quick fix.  Choosing the striped fabric added interest and a wee bit of drama.  Please visit Susan over at Between Naps on the Porch by clicking here for more transformations.  Please remember to leave me a message about everything and anything I forgot that I mentioned above.  Have a blesses week!

Welcome Tabletop Tuesdays at Grits & Glamour!

I am excited about this new event.  I love that you can do vingette in no time and a vingette can be just about anything and anywhere.  With that in mind I just took some quick shots of areas around my home.  Above just a part of my mantle.

Here a simple bird and plant on a tray.A shot of an area of my built in bookcases.I love salt and pepper shakers.  Here is a quick shot of my green cabbage ones as they sit on my kitchen counter!Another shot of part of my bookcase.  See what I mean anything is a vingnette!

 I can't wait to see what everyone else has taken pictures of.  I am sure most will be a lot more intricate than mine!  Please be sure to join Barb at Grits and Glamour by clicking here and linking up for her first Tabletop Tuesday!

The Princess Suite

For this weeks metamorphosis Monday I thought I would dig back into my portfolio to a project I had a lot of fun working on.  I was called to the home of a couple who had sadly hired an interior designer that was making a big mess of things.  At the end of this post I will share three before pictures that will demonstrate what a big mess they had on their hands.  For now I will just share what I did to fix it!  The sign on the nursery door below fit so well by the time the project was done the sign had the perfect home as entrance to a room truly fit for a princess.

One requirement the client had was to keep the double sized bed they had already purchased for the room.  This did present a challenge since the room itself was not overly large.  But I had some ideas.  Here is the bed dressed in all the fabrics we chose for the room.  Pink toile, a lovely green rose print, pink gignham and the gorgeous embroidered silk....oops did I say silk?  No only faux silk here as 100% silk would not have been very practical in a nursery!  I loaded the bed with pillows one even monogrammed of course on top of a white matelasse coverlet.

Here is a larger view.  Luckily the client had already chosen the babies name so we had fun finding the letters to hang by ribbons on the wall.

We found a beautiful crib that was just perfect for this room.  Although you can't see it in the picture each end of the crib has beautiful caning and a raised carved roses.  The bedding is a mix of all the fabrics.  To cover the expanse of wall I had a coronet or "princess canopy" placed there.

Here is where the creative thinking had to come into play.  To make the room for the double bed to stay and still have all the needed elements in a nursery I had to figure out a way to incorporate a changing table, dresser storage as well as shelving so that the client could display her bear collection that she had been storing for the day she had a "baby girl".  I love design have I ever mentioned that?  In fact sometimes instead of Interior design I wish I had taken the leap and done architectural home design.  That said the wheels were spinning and I designed a built in wall of drawers, shelves and a changing table.  In order for this to work there were a few things that client had to agree to for safety reasons.  Since the changing table would be going up against a window I needed to have plantation shutters installed in the room with a split rail (the top shutters slats could open independently from the bottom) so that the bottom half could remain shut at all times making a barrier from the window.  She loved the idea and we moved forward.  The changing table part can later be removed and by doing that will create a window seat.  For safety reasons I designed drawers under this part instead of a lift up toy chest.  I also left the client with the lovely window seat pad ready to use with bolster pillows when they are ready to remove the changing table.  Under the changing table we placed baskets to keep diapers, and all the other goodies one needs handy when changing and dressing a baby.

Here is another view.  Some other things that I did was have bead board put around the room and we also added pink glass knobs to the drawers in the built ins.  In this picture you can see the lovely ends on the crib.

I had a rocker and ottomon custom made in the toile and green rose fabrics.  Every mother needs a comfy place to rock her baby!

Some close-ups of the crib bedding.

Custom changing pad in the changing built in.

I decided on balloon shades and incorporated the main two fabrics in them.

We added crown molding around the room as well.

A better look at the pink glass knobs and handles we added to the built ins.

As promised here are a couple of the before pictures I snapped before starting the project.  As you can see the former designer had started painting the room.  One wall was a vibrant hot pink and the other was a lavendar.  Woo was it bright! 

They had taken this paint around the room in a four square.  One wall lavendar the other hot pink and so on and so forth.  Here is the wall before I started and before I designed and had the built ins installed on it.  The fabric laying at the foot of the bed was the fabric the other designer had chosen for the nursery that never came to be.  The pink I chose for the walls was actually a blush of a pink color.  In my pictures the color looks bright but it isn't.  I admit these pictures are not the best.  This was one of the last projects I worked on before moving across the country.  Sadly I did not get to come in and stage the room and take completed pictures but thought I would share what I did have of this transformation.

I hope you enjoyed this little nursery journey!  Please visit Susan at Between Naps on the Porch by clicking here to see more fabulous Metamorphosis journeys!