Around the House

About six months ago, we moved to a new apartment (read that story here, if you haven't already). We were able to get mostly unpacked and settled pretty quickly, but with all the traveling we did last fall, there wasn't a lot of time to focus on decorating. The last few months have been a bit calmer for us, and I've had fun adding some little (and some not-so-little) homey touches to our new place. So let's go on a little tour of some of my favorite spots around our house. 

The first--and biggest--project was our "Reading Room." This flat has a cool little cubby area located between our school room and kitchen, and I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to make it a fun little reading area. We had the cushions made first, and then I painted some of the big designs from the pillows onto the walls. I love how it turned out, and how much time my kids spend reading in there!   

Here it is in action! 

This was another fun, and much less time-consuming project. We made little button bouquets like this for my sister's wedding rehearsal in January, and I wanted to make one for Sarah Claire's room. I think those little button flowers are so sweet.

(Yes, that's a really big canvas print of my baby. No, I didn't realize it would be quite that big. But she sure was cute!) 

Also, thanks to google, I recently recovered this lampshade for Sarah Claire's room. I was really excited to find this little lamp a while back, since finding non-tacky lamps here can be a tremendous challenge. I liked the lamp base, but the shade was black and white--not going to work in my princess's pink and brown bedroom. But I found a great little tutorial online and was able to recover it one night using an old crib sheet.

And finally, making one last stop in Sarah Claire's room, I put together this collage of her First Year Month by Month Monkey Pictures. It's not a great photo, but it looks good in person. Custom framing is much, much cheaper here than it is in the states, and the guys in the frame store know us well by now!

Okay, and here's one last little project--another lampshade. I needed a lamp for my desk, and, again, finding something decent (meaning it's not gold-plated or covered in tassels or some funky design) can be a challenge. But we finally found this plain red one, and I used some leftover fabric from the reading room pillows to make it a little more festive.

That same fabric also covers the bulletin board right behind the lamp, so it all ties nicely together.

Okay, thanks for letting me share! I promise the next post will have more pics of the kids!