Elephant Memories

Elephant Memories

For my birthday this year my grand-babies went shopping with their mom and got to pick out anything in the store they thought I would want for my birthday. Now before you think that was rather extravagant you have to understand that this was a dollar store where nothing in the store costs over one dollar. I love how 1 and 2 year old mind works. I got some pretty nifty things. The 2 year old scoured the store looking for elephants because she was sure that I wanted an elephant. Since there were none to be found she settled on a multi pack of play dough and a princess jigsaw puzzle for us to play with together, an orange pink flamingo cup for my juice and solar powered dancing flowers. These were a little disappointing because they didn’t dance like the flowers on cartoons. The one year old, who has always loved to pull off my glasses got me a pair of green fun foam glasses with birds on them, a shiny compact, bright green and pink  play dough that bounces and, with coaxing from her daddy, bubba teeth. Needless to say, we spent a fun filled afternoon rolling out play dough worms, balls and other strange objects, working the puzzle, trying on the glasses and teeth and admiring ourselves in the compact. It was a wonderful birthday and we didn’t get one picture. But that’s OK. The memories are there and I may take a picture of my treasures and just journal about the day.

HOLIDAY CAKES Cartridge

Since the oldest wanted to get me an elephant I made her thank you card with an elephant on it. I’m entering it in the 'Elephantly Speaking' challenge over at Bitten by the Bug 2. I used the Cricut Holiday Cakes cartridge for the elephant. The paper is from K&Company Itsy Bitsy Baby Girl Pad.

The Finished Room
The room is feat accomplished! We are very happy with the way it turned out. With addition of a double bed and a bunk bed the room will sleep 4 comfortably. Our daughter and GB's came last week and tried it out. Aside from having to remove the ladder to the upper bunk so the 2-year-old wouldn't keep climbing up and down, they loved it.

As you walk into the room.

Cozy corner

We found this cool rocker at a local used furniture store. We'd never seen one like it, and thought it was a great addition to the room. Hubby mounted a beaver plew in the old trapper style to hang over the chair. I made the window curtain extra thick so the room would be nice and dark. It must have worked because the babies slept later than usual.

The bunks and bed

For bedside lighting, Hubby took 2 candle lanterns and replaced the candle holders with electric candles. The warm glow is perfect for the feel of the room. The red chest at the foot of the bunks holds all the GB's toys. All in all we are very pleased with our Santa Fe room.

BEDROOM REMODEL
It's August and things have been hectic in our neck of the woods lately. Lots of projects in the works. My hubby has been remodeling our son’s old room. We decided on a southwestern theme. First he added beams. (see photo below) 

The beams are actually 2 x 6 boards that he roughed up to make look rough hewn. He started with some ugly, knotty, dinged up boards. The guy at Lowes was glad to see someone actually wanting the culls instead of going through the stacks looking for the prettiest boards. He then scraped and gouged them even more and then stained and sealed them. I thought they turned out great. It only took an evening for us to nail them in place. He then went back and stuccoed the ceiling and made the boards look they are built into the ceiling.

 

     The next step was painting. Funny how colors can fool you. We both picked the same color from the samples. When Hubby put the first coat of paint on I thought, ‘oh, no! It looks peach. I hate it.’ Fortunately once it dried overnight it was a perfect adobe color.   We decide to go with a traditional blue trim for the doors to ward off evil spirits or bugs, depending on who you talk to.  The first 2 doors were the perfect blue. Not to childish and not to harsh. Suddenly, when going over some missed spots on the first door the paint became lighter.  Like a robins egg blue, lighter. The guy that mixed the paint hadn’t let it shake long enough and it didn’t mix properly so most of the blue pigment was at the top of can and the white had settled to the bottom. Try getting that matched! The color formula didn’t really mean much of anything since it hadn’t mixed. After 3 trips to the hardware store and 3 shades of blue later, Hubby gave up and experimented with the color himself until he came up with an almost perfect match. You can see the blue swatch he was working with on the door on the left.

The doors are almost finished. The walls and ceiling have been painted and the trim is up.

 I have to brag on the doors. These 2 doors are actually hollow core interior doors. Hubby set his circular saw on a very narrow setting and cut grooves in the doors from top to bottom so it looks like planks. He finished them off with a top and bottom cross beam to make them look like old doors you would find on a log cabin. They turned out great.
Next time, the finished project.