Girls Rooms - Matching Lamps

My two little darlings love to read their own books at bedtime so they each have a little kid friendly bedside lamp.  Isabells had a plain white shade on it while Lillian's was a very bright turqouise blue - of course this didn't match at all, so with a little bit of hot glue and their chosen Ikea fabrics we set about to make these match with the rest of the new decor:

Lillians Lamp:

1. Position your exisiting shade on the "wrong" side of your fabrice and roll it over the material and use a pin to keep in place while you mark around the inside with a pen.

2. Remove the pin, unwind the material and you have your basic pattern.  Add approx 2cm above the lines and cut.  Then snip the material every 1-2cm - this makes the fitting easier.

3. Glue one end of the material onto the existing shade and again roll the material around the shade - glue and secure the other end of the material.

4. Fold and glue the top and bottom of the material - pulling taught as you go.  Easy peasy.

The finished product:

Isabell's lamp:

1. I used the same process to make a band of material as I did when I made the curtains for the room.

2. I secured one end of the band to the lampshade with hot glue, wrapped it aroung the existing shade and secured the other end in the same fashion - again really easy and very effective.

Both lamps still give out enough light for reading at bedtime and now they look heaps better!

Girls Bedroom - Banded Curtains

One of the projects that turned out better than expected in the girls rooms were the curtains.  I'll let you in on a little secret - I didn't sew anything on them!  Crazy I know, but true.

I had seen a few tutorials on YouTube and various decorating blogs showing how to used Iron On Adhesive to hem and make curtains and although somewhat sceptical, I thought I would give it a try - so glad I did.

I purchased these curtains:

Ikea Alvine Flata Curtains

I think I may actually be in love with these curtains, so much so they will soon be making an appearance in every room in our house.  They block out the glare from our harsh Australian sun, without blocking the light - which is really important to me especially as the house we are renting is a bit on the dark side. 

The quality is surprisingly good and the price amazing - $29.95 - sensational, they came with a little pack of iron on adhesive heming tape and I also purchased another two packets to add the bands to the bottom of the curtains.

So it is as easy as this:

1. Hang and hem your curtains using the iron tape

2. Select and cut your contrasting material to the desired width - remember to allow an inch at the top and bottom to foldover.  Fold in the edges and press

3. Add some tape under the folds and press again to hold



4. Measure on and mark on the curtains where you want the band of contrasting material to go, again layout adhesive tape and iron on, fold around the edges of the curtain and adhere at the back with tape.  I used pins to keep mine in place throughout this process.

Finished product - pretty cute hey!

More posts to come on my little projects.

Girls Bedrooms Makeover

OK, so I would advise that you go and get yourself a nice wee cup of tea or coffee, possibly even a few bikies - then settle in for a VERY long post.

The major task of overhauling both of my daughters rooms in one weekend, actually ended up stretching over to two weekends, and that didn't include the wardrobes - mental note finish this weekend.

So lets see what we started with shall we:



Isabell's Bedroom Before

Isabell is my youngest darling daughter, who we lovingly refer to as the "fluffer"!  She can never find anything, always forgets things and generally "fluffs" around alot - but we love her for it!  Hence, her room looks like this most days.

This photo is really deceptive as Isabell's room gets only a small amount of light as that wonderful huge window opens onto the covered patio at the back of the house and those drapes are very thick and heavy.

I wanted to do a few things for this room:

• Get rid of the heavy drapes and bring more natural light into the room
• Get rid of the "little" desk in the corner - She wanted a big girl desk and at 8 was well and truely ready for one.
• Re-arrange the room to give her more play room and make the rest of the room more functional
• Make it look pretty!

So this is what we ended up with:

New Doona Cover, Throw Pillows, Curtains and Recovered Lamp

 

Isabells Re-decorated Bedroom including Ikea Fabric Frames

At this point I should point out that I am not very handy with a camera inside the house!  Outside, landscapes and people photo's are more my thing, so please forgive me if this isn't looking like anything really special at the moment!

It is pretty plain with just a little bit of colour - but that is what Isabell likes - she likes Ben 10, Scooters, Mario Bros and riding her bike.  She also likes pretty pink things, but only in small amounts.

So how did we achieve this and how much did it cost?  Well aside from taking two whole garbage bags of toys and clothes to the Charity Bin, we spent a lot of time and not a lot of money at Ikea and me and my sewing machine worked pretty hard.

But before I reveal all lets look at Lillian's room ... Lillian is my eldest Darling Daughter - 9 going on 19, and unlike her little sister Lillian is tidy and organised, even a little too organised at times.  She loves all things orange so that had to play a part of her room revamp, so again before:



Not looking very organised

With this room we wanted to

• Have lots of matching accessories
• Have lots of orange
• Get rid of old desk

So we ended up with:



New Curtains, and accessories

  

New Doona Cover, Ikea Fabric Frames and covered lamp





New Desk, Chair and covered Memo Board

 The best thing about this room was that Lillian told me it looked like something out of one of your "housey Mags Mum" - without a doubt the best compliment a Mum could get!

So just quickly I want to share the frames that we made for the walls:

Materials:

Ikea Nyttja Coloured Frames - 2 pack 13x18cm / 5x7"                                AUD $3.95
Ikea Nyttja Coloured Frame - single pack 21x30cm 8 1/4 x 11 3/4"             AUD $3.95
Ikea Fabric of choice - I used two of the Gunilla patterns @ AUD $9.95 /m about 30cm wide AUD $2.99


Hot Pink Frames for Isabell's room




Ikea Gunilla Fabric for Isabell's room




Ikea Gunilla Fabric in Orange for Lillian's room




Pull the frames apart to use the paper as a guide to cut your fabric

Lay out the paper to use as a guide to mark up fabric

Mark around interesting parts of the fabric and cut to size

The finished products - too cute!



1. Pull apart the frames and remove the white "Nyttja" paper.
2. Use this "Nyttja" paper as a guide and mark up on the back of the fabric where you want to cut.
3. These Nyttja frames are great for kids rooms as the "glass" is actually plastic so if one accidentally      falls or is knocked over you don't have to worry about broken glass.  Just remember to remove the clear flim on BOTH sides of this "glass".
4. Cut fabric as per markings and insert in frame, and re-assemble.
5. Hang - I use the 3m Command Picture Strips as we are renting and are not allowed to knock hooks into the walls!  If you haven't used these before check them out, the are amazing.

Simple, inexpensive and so cute - you could add as many frames as you want - Ikea have so many fabrics in one theme you could use all sorts to create a larger display.

I will put up the rest of the projects in coming days:

• Bunting - this isn't shown in the photo's as I hadn't taken any once I had added this to the rooms
• Recovered lamp shades
• Recovered memo board
• Throw pillows
• Banded Curtains
• Buget details

Thanks for reading - very interested to see what you think - so leave comments please and have a wonderful weekend wherever you may be!