Collette's First Birthday - Party Favors

Since Collette's birthday falls in December I thought it would be cute to do party favors in theme of the season. 2 years ago Anthropologie came out with mason jar "snow globes" and my mom and I made our own and they came out great. So after seeing some pink bottle brush trees on Etsy I had my inspiration. 

I found some little jars online at TomKat Studio, ordered the trees from Loveitshabby on Etsy and made a stop at Michaels. Initially I thought we would just do the jars but after recalculating our guest list a final time I came up 8 favors short. So while at michaels I found these empty glass ornaments and thought it would be perfect! My mom came over to help, we thought we'd just start them and ended up getting them all done in no time.

All you need is some "snow" glitter. Martha Stewarts is more expensive but after using it I thougt the bigger glitter flakes and color were prettier. I used a little jewel it glue for adhering the trees to the glass ornaments and jars, some ribbon/twine or any decorative touch you'd like! I also used a little jewel charm tied to the ribbon for some extra sparkle. The needle nose pliers were used because the trees.. even being only 3" were a little too big for the jars. They fit but it looked squashed so we used the pliers to separate them from the wood base, cut the trees wire a little bit and then reattached them to the wood base. It was an easy fix. The trees fit much better after. 

The trees were a little tricky getting into the ornaments. The wood base barely fit through the glass opening. First I straightened the tree, I applied the glue to the wood base, then carefully pushed the base through the opening, I used the pliers to lower the tree into the ornament and place on the bottom. I pressed on the tree until the glue squished out around the wood base and then in went the glitter. I used 2 bottles of glitter for 20 favors but I like a full look, you could get away with using less.

They turned out so cute. I made little tags and attached them to give the favors a personalized touch. I actually ended up "favoring" ... (too cheesy? Lol) the ornaments, the more I thought about it the more I liked them. Every year when we decorate our tree we will be reminded of Collette's first birthday. That year filled with firsts for all of us and the fun party where family and friends celebrated together.I hope it's the same for our guests.

Finishing Up The Trailer

The cabinet doors are finally back on. We decided to reuse the old hinges. We spray painted them with the same bronze spray paint. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Above the dinette I decided to do something a little more custom. I removed the mirrors with the gold flowers from the cabinet doors.  I started by braking the mirror and then I cleaned all the edges with a razor blade. It was fairly easy and not too time consuming. I found these graphics on Etsy from Vintageretroantique. Then I used Printmoz and had them printed on backlit film the exact size I needed and then siliconed them in place with a piece of glass in front of them. The clear silicone worked perfect. The graphics were around $15 and I think I had them printed for around $48, the glass was $12. I'm happy with how they turned out. Sometimes your vision doesn't come to life quite like you wanted but thankfully I didn't have that on this project! I still need to take a picture with the lights on in the cabinets at night. It is such a pretty glow and gives off just enough light.

 

 

 

We cleaned the floors and laid down the vinyl peel and stick which we got from Lowes for a very reasonable price. The floors are Antique Woodland Oak. We also used a glue prior to laying the peel and stick plank after reading some reviews about it not adhering well since the camper is subjected to extreme heat and cold.

 

 

 

 

We love this key/mail holder. After our first trip, asking ...where did you put the keys a million times we knew it was a necessity. This one is great because it hold both our cellphones too. I also ordered this from Etsy by Masterworks888. << I have an obsession with Etsy if you havn't caught on to that yet.

 

 

 

We had some trouble with the metal bar that holds all the spices in the kitchen as you can see. We have finally installed that but not at the time of the pics. We also mounted a small TV. It has a built in DVD player on the side and works great!

 

 

 

I ordered the table and legs from ebay. The table came in damaged so the company gave it to us for free and we were able to salvage it. Beats spending $100+.

 

 

The bathroom still needs some updates, I really wanted to install a new toilet when we were doing the flooring but we decided it could wait.

 

 

 

The Before and After Pics

 

 

 

 

As you can see we have yet to recover the sofa/dinette so I'm hiding most of the sofa under a Pendleton wool blanket lol. We don't plan on doing those until next year but I can hardly wait, I already have all the fabrics picked out! Before our first trip we also put up all the old window coverings (not in the pictures above). We plan on replacing them with night shades... my parents new trailer has them and i'm jealous. They are excellent. Keep an eye out for my post when I redo the valances. Another day another DIY project.

 

 

This is our baby CC on our first camping trip with the trailer redone. It was a really nice trip, well ok the first night we barely slept and had to drive the baby around from 1am-3am since she wouldn't stop crying and we were afraid the whole camp site would hate us! But the second night....not a peep and it finished the trip off on a high note!

 

Collette's Room

Having a girl is such fun, I loved decorating her room. I love grays at the moment and most of the walls in our home are gray so it kept with the scheme. I knew I wanted a chandelier for her room but couldn't afford most of them! My mom and I decided to head to Ikea and I finally found a chandelier in my price range! It was $99 and super cute. Ikea SODER chandelier. I was worried about the light output, but once we had it installed it was definitely bright enough.

 

 

We picked up the pink crystal additions at the Rosebowl Swapmeet for $2 a piece. The shelves are from Ikea, the crib is from Potterybarn as well as the bedding for it.

 

 

Marie decal from Disney's Aristocats Movie is from Ebay. I'm a sucker for kitties.

 

 

We love the video monitor. I can't imagine life without it. It's from BabiesRus. The bunny bookends are from restoration hardware. Almost everything else is from TJ max.

 

The eterge is from Ikea, I just spray painted it gold. We replaced the top and bottom with glass and mirror.

 

The dresser we bought off of craigslist. It was the first purchase for the babies room and an exact copy of the one I had when I was little (wish I would of kept it). The ottoman I also found on craigslist and had it reupholstered in this sweet girly fabric. I spray painted the C above her crib white and used some of the fabric to match.

 

 

The tree decal was the last addition to her room and I love the way it turned out. I ordered it from Etsy from Thewhitetreestore. The decal comes in long strips and you cut the branches into sections and apply one at a time. It sounds like a long process but it was done in about and hour, maybe an hour and a half.

 

 

 My mom came over to help. She is very handy, and knowledgeable on many DIY projects. I can always count on her help and I know the project will turn out great.  Its so nice to have a project be fun instead of work.

We started at the base and worked our way up.

 

 

This decal came with almost all the tools we needed.

We did use our laser level to make sure it started off straight. Then we applied the decal and used the tool it came with to make sure its adhered to the wall, then peeled the see-through layer off. A few of the leaves wanted to come up with the paper. They give you extra leaves so we replaced a couple, everything else, as long as you move slow, adhered perfectly.

 

 

The baby is never far from our projects.

 

 

 

We had to cut some of the decal since I had a doorway. We also off set the decal a little. On the left we let it wrap around on the next wall. We were going to cut it to match the right side but liked the way it looked!

 

 

Easy project that gives great detail to her room!

 

 

My husband asked after the decal if Collette's room was done now ...that's a good question. I can't say because i'm always rearranging things, finding new things I like better so lets just say done for now.

 

To be continued...perhaps.

 

 

 

Travel Trailer Remodel

My parents gave us their 1993 Prowler travel trailer when they upgraded to a larger fancy trailer with slide out. My husband and I really wanted one but we just weren't ready to make an investment, especially with our little one only being 8 months. So when my parents gave us the Prowler we were so happy and saw the possibilities roll out in front of us like a red carpet. Hunting, beach trips, weekend in the mountains and many nights near Disneyland came to mind. The trailer was in great condition...it just looked, old. Chase wanted something masculine so I started looking into color schemes for just that. Between a little paint, some new light fixtures, and eventually reupholstering the sofa and dinette the trailer will really start to feel like our own.

We started taking down all the window covering and cabinet doors on day one. It took longer than expected so we only were able to start priming the first coat but didn't finish. We used Zinsser 123 Oil based primer.

 

 

It was time consuming doing the primer coat but I felt like it already looked better, getting rid of all the ugly faux wood. We primed everything, we took the counter top edging off since we are going to spray paint that (not shown in this picture). We also took all the speaker covers and a/c control box down and spray painted with a white plastic spray paint from Home Depot.

 

 

 

After we were done priming we started with the wall color. Which looking back I wish we would have done cabinets and then walls. It has been challenging to cut in on the cabinets and not get the dark gray on the walls. If your not going to tape off then do cabinets first. The wall color is Valspar Montpelier Ashlar Gray in Eggshell. For the wall application we used a foam roller and small brush. My husband does the rolling and I do the cutting in when the baby is taking her naps. Excuse the mess please!

 

 

Here is a shot of the gray going on! Soooo this is where we hit a huge road block. We applied the cabinet paint, Valspar Rugged Suede high gloss latex paint. Waited a night and another night and ...it NEVER dried. It stayed a tacky consistency. We sanded it back down, primed again and had Lowes remix a new gallon for us since the first had many air bubbles as well. We thought maybe the paint was defective. We tried again...and, still tacky. Ugghh the frustration of working and working and making no progress. So after sanding again and priming again we went to Dunn Edwards for some professional advice since Lowes had no idea what to do. Dunn Edwards recommended an oil based paint. They said latex in high gloss sometimes has trouble drying especially in hot humid weather, which we were experiencing this week. So we had them color match the one from Lowes and we picked up the new oil based rugged suede in high gloss and began painting AGAIN. and.....It worked! Yes, we were so relieved. It dried completely overnight and looked great.

 

 

The project has come out of the nightmare stage and being able to see the progress is motivation. We started the first coat of gray and the second coat went on even quicker. We decided to do bronze hardware. We were contemplating black but loved the bronze against the gray cabinets. So we bought pulls from Lowes. 4 inch Center-to-Center Oil Rubbed Bronze Modern Rectangular Cabinet pulls. We spray painted everything else that was gold to match. The cabinet railing, the countertop edging, the bathroom towel holders, toilet paper holder, heater vent and a few other little things. It took us 3 cans of bronze spray paint. Home Depot had 2 choices for bronze, we went with the one on the left since we didn't want a gloss finish.

 

 

Once the second coat was dry we put on all the hinges, attached the doors, put the railings and countertop edges back on. We are starting on the floors in a day or two!

Baby on Board: Gender Reveal & Showers

When I found out I was pregnant, my husband and I had just booked our late honeymoon cruise to the Bahamas. What timing, so after cancelling and postponing the trip a little longer we went straight into baby mode. I was so excited for this new chapter in our lives to begin and tried not to get my hopes up that our baby would be a girl! We found out our due date would be in December YIKES! We already have my birthday, my brothers, my moms, my best friends and Christmas $$$ looks like we'll be putting a little more into our December fund this year. I already knew I wanted to do a gender reveal party, and as it approached I could barley contain my eagerness!

 

The cake is from Crème De La Crème Bakery in Riverside, CA.

 

I couldn't believe we were actually going to have a girl! My whole family is filled with boys, I thought I might never get a girl. I couldn't be happier. Chase was hoping for a boy of course, so instantly the dreams of a hunting buddy vanished. In came the bows, pink stuff and all things girly! Hip-Hip Hooray! Now we're just praying the next one will be a boy!

 

 

My mom, Christine and I made these invitations for the shower, it was by far the cutest we had come across and although they did take some time and effort we loved the way they turned out. After sending them, we got so many calls with compliments on the invites! We purchased the template from zoocutieprintables on Etsy for $12.00, and the sparkle paper and ribbon along with the other supplies came from Michaels.

 

 

Pass the prize was the best game at the shower. We made up the last few lines since we couldn't find any online that we liked. The game was fun and it gave all our guests something to talk about.