Her own space

by Amy My husband and I just bought a house. We will be moving in May. This means a lot of purging and a lot of re-thinking. We’re going to have to get organized all over again.

It also means planning my daughter’s room so that it’s something she adores and something she can grow up in – and with a brand new mortgage to think about, it has to be inexpensive. (I would say cheap, but my mother hates that word).

Painting will be simple enough – though right now when I ask her what colour she wants her room to be she says pink, and then purple, then orange and then green.

So now I’m looking for simple ideas to give her a wonderful little girl’s room that won’t cost so much that I’ll feel bad getting rid of it when she outgrows it. Luckily, I have some places to look to help me with my design.

I have set up a board on Pinterest for the new house – I love Pinterest for craft ideas, recipes, and now home decor. One of the things I found there that I’m most excited to use for the kid’s new room is chalkboard paint on one of the walls. I love the idea of giving her some artistic freedom in her own space, but we can also easily paint over it if she wants us to. Pinterest helps me find ideas for decorating, and it also helps me find things I can figure out how to do by myself.

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time on UsedOttawa.com, looking for furniture we could use in the new place. It’s a site where we have found great stuff for the kid in the past, and where we’ve sold some of the baby things we don’t use any more. (It’s also where I’m planning on finding a new dining set for us).

I am looking forward to getting tips in the comments on this post for how you decorated your kids’ rooms for not too much money and what’s changed as they’ve grown up.

So please, comment.

Decorating for Valentine's Day

by Carly

The Little Man loves getting into the season, regardless of which one we're celebrating.  One of my favourite decorating "crafts" to do with him is very simple!  Since we don't really want him colouring the walls, I love turning him loose on the patio door windows with some window markers or crayons and some homemade window paint.

I bought the window markers and crayons at Michael's, but you can get them pretty much anywhere.  To make the window paint, I mixed washable tempra paint with a bit of dish soap and we painted away!

Jake was especially proud of the heart he drew with my name in it.  He also loves that he can easily erase his creations and start over again anytime.  The Little Man also specifically asked that I paint a Valentine's Day message backwards on the window so our backyard neighbours could read it too!

Have you decorated for Valentine's Day yet?

Carly has red hair and occasionally the temper to match.  She loves potatoes, rainy nights, photography, her husband, her five year old son, Jacob and her brand spanking new son, Noah. Probably in reverse order. She also blogs.