If you've been here very long at all, you'll know how much I love skirts and dresses. I practically wear nothing else! It's no wonder then, that I love the brand Chicwish for a lot of my wardrobe finds. They graciously reached out to me to work together on this blog post and I am so happy to share a full and honest review with you all! Read on to see the items I chose and my personal thoughts on them:
2022 Chicwish Clothing Haul + Honest Review
Thursday, February 24, 2022Lucy's Vintage Inspired Bedroom
Wednesday, January 26, 2022Every little girl deserves a room with pink walls, do they not? The big kids have been sharing a room since we moved into this house a little over 2 years ago, so you can imagine how excited Lucy was to finally have her own space!
BEFORE
AFTER
At a glance, it doesn't really look like we did much to change this room aside from paint the walls, but we actually completely gutted the old plaster walls and ceiling and replaced them with drywall. I love to preserve as much history as I can, but the plaster was crumbling and riddled with lead paint--for us, the decision to replace with drywall was the safest option. This also allowed us to close up a doorway that wasn't necessary anymore between this room and the boys' room.
We actually had this waterfall dresser at our old house with intentions to use it in our master bedroom, but our direction changed, we moved house, and it has been sitting in our garage since. Fast forward to Fall 2021 when my father-in-law calls from a thrift store to ask if I want a waterfall bed frame for Lucy for $10--uh, of course! I immediately remembered this old dresser sitting in storage and knew that would be the perfect start to her bedroom.
The nightstand was another find courtesy of my father-in-law. He actually picked it up on the side of the road for free and let me have it! I painted it with some of the leftover trim paint and swapped the knobs and it was all finished for less than $20! I love how it turned out!
And finally, I had to give my little bookworm the reading nook I always wanted as a little girl! I thought about installing a window seat there, but with the chimney next to the closet the spacing wasn't quite right. Then Preston found this chair on Facebook marketplace and it was the perfect match. It's her favorite spot in her room now and she wakes up every day and curls up in this little spot with her cozy blanket and a book.
Outside of replacing the walls and ceiling, I think this room makeover was around $500 total with paint and furniture. We lucked out with some really affordable thrifted furniture and turned this basic bedroom into a cozy, vintage-inspired haven perfect for a girl of any age! I really love how it turned out and I think it's going to be easy for Lucy to grow with it for years to come.
LINKS
Wall Color: Benjamin Moore Odessa Pink
Trim Color: Benjamin Moore Cloud White
Bed Frame: Vintage
Dresser: Vintage
Nightstand: Thrifted
Chair: Vintage
Bedspread: Amazon
Bedskirt: Amazon
Sheets: Target
Curtains: Amazon
Lamp: Target
Bookcase: Walmart
Throw Blanket: Target
Art: Thrifted and Clearance Finds
Lucy's Bookish Birthday Party
Saturday, January 22, 2022The apple clearly doesn't fall far from the tree in our family. My daughter, Lucy, is a huge bookworm and loves to read anything she can get her hands on. I love that so much about her! I had the idea to throw her a book themed birthday party this year and she was thrilled! Here is a peek at what we did:
THE INVITATION
Leave it to me to make the most obnoxious DIY, but honestly, stamping these all out was very relaxing! I got an alphabet stamp kit from Amazon and a pack of blank library cards and set to work one evening. They turned out so cute!
Pro tip: if you're stamping the same word on multiple cards, it's easiest to go one letter at a time across all the cards--it saved me a lot of time and struggle to find the little letters over and over this way!
THE DECOR
The book page flowers turned out so cute! It was a little time consuming, but worth it in the end. I'll be repurposing these into decor in my library and on Lucy's bookshelf in her bedroom. Here's a link to the how-to post I followed to create them.
We also added a little banner to the favors table. I stamped out a few favorite literary quotes by famous authors and strung them on a bit of twine. Super simple and cute!
THE FOOD
How can you have a book themed birthday party without a book cake? All we did was stack two rectangular cakes on top of one another and carve a little "v" in the middle to make the ends sort of slope in like the pages of an open book. I added a little fruit leather "ribbon", too.
For snacks, I thought we'd do a play on words with things like gummy "bookworms" and "smart" cookies. For a savory option, I used a permanent marker to make cheese stick wrappers look like pencils. Pretty simple and easy to grab and go!
THE ENTERTAINMENT
Every reader needs a good bookmark in their arsenal, so I thought the kids could make their own! Amazon had a pack of blank bookmarks and tassels and I just added a few crafty things I thought the girls would enjoy and let their imaginations do the rest!
THE FAVORS
I don't always do party favors, but when I saw these tiny composition notebooks at Walmart (3/$1!), I just knew they'd be the perfect thing for our bookish birthday party! I grabbed a box of alphabet cookies and a pack of cute pencils from Michael's (48 ct for $5!) and we were all set.
I think Lucy's little literary party was a success! I think it would be super cute to host a bookish party like this at the library, too! Maybe we'll consider that another year. What about you, would you host a book themed party?