Dylan's Room

Since we are renters, we decided not to paint Dylan’s bedroom. This kind of makes me sad, because there are so many cute kiddie bedrooms out there with all those bright colors! So I decided that if I can’t paint fun stuff in his room, I was going to fill the walls with a variety of things. This also means that his room doesn't have one theme - unless the theme is lots of bright primary colors. But I kind of love the idea of a crazy mix of awesome things everywhere! I know that I’m not the craftiest person, but I continue to try! And I’m always looking for a cheap and easy craft to make. Putting Dylan’s room together has actually been a lot of fun for me.

If you remember Josh’s Father's Day Present, I painted SITKO letters, had Dylan pose with them and then framed them all. We hung the photo frame in the living room, and Josh hung the SITKO letters above Dylan’s door in his room.

When I bought the SITKO letters, I also got DYLAN letters to put above Dylan’s changing table. The letters are a huge hit! He loves them! Every time we finish changing his diaper, we read his name and point to each letter. Then Dylan points to his last name and we have to go read that one too!

Yes, that’s a huge banana! Josh actually won that 5-footer for me at the San Diego Fair a few years ago. We figured it belonged in Dylan’s room. And the rainbow quilt on the wall was actually from my childhood bedroom. My mom said that she thinks my Grandma Vi made it! It was a pattern that matched the rest of my bedding and room décor. How cute is that? And the quilt over the back of the couch is the amazing quilt that Cindy Drummond made when Dylan was born. It’s really incredible.

The lantern in the corner is actually a blue Chinese lantern that I made into a nightlight. I cut out over 20 paper stars and glued them inside. I originally mounted a tap light in it, but tap lights drain batteries like a Swede drinking coffee (if you aren’t a Swede and don’t get that reference - just know that Swedes LOVE their coffee!). So, the tap light only lasted one night. However, I must say that it looked really cute in the short time that it was working. I’m going to have to figure out a new plan for lighting. But until then, it’s just a floating blue ball.

One of the Coastie wives here has a craft blog, and that is one of the places that I like to look for crafty inspiration. I found this post on her site and I thought it would definitely qualify my ‘cheap’ and ‘easy’ craft requirements!

I used a few pieces of scrapbook paper that I already had, and then picked up a few more cute ones when Dylan & I went to Hobby Lobby with Katie & Elleah a couple weeks ago. So, overall, this fancy border that I made for Dylan’s room cost about $4!

I know you can’t see it perfectly behind the chair, but that quilt on the wall was from Jack, the guy who signs my paychecks! I was so surprised and excited when he sent it. It has the entire alphabet on it, and Dylan’s full name and birthday embroidered on the bottom.




I do have one more project in mind that I’m keeping a secret for now. I need to decide exactly how I want to do it and figure out the cheapest way to go about it. But if it all works out, I think it’s going to be awesome.

Josh's Father's Day Gift

I spent a lot of time last week working on Josh’s Father’s Day present from Dylan and me. Of course, Dylan helped immensely with his moral support and constant need to see what I’m doing. He also played a vital role in the actual present.

I got the idea from my cousin’s wife, who did this for my cousin Matt last year for Father’s Day. I don’t want to take credit, because she was the creative one. But I loved it so much that I had to do it too! I hope she doesn’t mind!

So it started with a trip to Michael’s to get the plain letters. I decided to not only get S-I-T-K-O, but also D-Y-L-A-N to hang up in the little guy’s room. I also had to buy paint and brushes since I am not currently crafty enough to just have those things lying around the house.

I had the perfect plan to get as much painting done as possible while Dylan was sleeping one day. Unfortunately, it was like he knew I was anxious to work on something important, so he waited an extra hour before wanting to take his nap. And then he woke up long before I was ready! But he let me get some done while having some snacks and watching Mama trying her best to be crafty. This trend continued on day two of painting.

I started with the blank letters and painted them solid colors:

Then I wanted to give each one a fun design:

But trouble started when I got out the red paint. The blue, green and yellow worked like a charm, but the red was out to get me. When I started painting I realized that the “Red Rover” color looked more like “Party Pink.” I knew that Josh would not be okay with me hanging pink letters in his little boy’s room. Maybe if I put like 5 coats on, it will look more like the shade of primary red that I’m looking for. Okay, first crisis averted.

Once all the letters were painted (and dried) we were ready for a big photo shoot. The Wednesday before Father’s Day, we went to the park by the Marina for some creative photo taking. I had the help and extra brain power of Katie, and the excited enthusiasm of Elleah. Crisis number two became obvious as soon as we set foot in the park. We were completely overrun by bugs! Instead of giving up, I decided to push through, wave my hands around in the air as much as possible like a crazy person, and get these photos taken asap!

Of course, my little angel was wonderful! I got several cute photos of each letter in record time. So crisis number three was trying to pick one photo of each letter.

So now we only had to print them and get them in the frame! It turned out great and I was so excited that I couldn't even wait until Father’s Day to have Josh open it. (I am truly my mother’s daughter - she gets super excited about presents too) He opened this afternoon and already hung it in our living room!

Photo of finished project to follow…