Tent Playhouse for Bunkbed

Tent Playhouse for Bunkbed FINISHED!

I did it! I finished the playhouse panel for the kids' bunkbed. I love it I love it I love it! It turned out just as I imagined it!

All the apples and flowers are removable and can be placed in the basket at the base of the tree, and the mailbox opens and has 3 letters that go with it. I am in love with how it turned out!!! It was so fun to make and I can still add to it if I want to. I am thinking it needs a puppy and maybe some crawling critters.

I got the idea when I saw the card table playhouses that are all around blog land and thought "That is soo cute, but I am cramped on space in the kids room as it is." Then we built the kid's bunkbeds and while trying to find plans on how to build one I came across things like THIS. And then it just clicked! We built the bunk bed from plans we found on Knock Off Wood, and since then I have had the project swimming in my head.

I drew up plans and took it with me to the fabric store. I bought all the different colors of felt that I needed and it sat in a bag in the craft room. (Story of my life). This past weekend I broke it out knowing that in a couple weeks my niece and nephew would be coming for a visit and wanted to have something fun for the cousins to play in together. It's going to be perfect!

The kids discovered it a minute ago while I was writing this post and what I heard was, "WOW! ETHAN! LOOK! It's a house! Come here!" It made me smile and glow. Knowing I had made something special makes me proud. I am sure it will provide hours of imaginative play and story times together. I can't wait!

*please ignore the mess and the scuff marks on the top bunk bed posts, I need to touch it back up with some paint but didn't want to wait to show you the tent playhouse.

*And if anyone is wanting one I am thinking about selling some in my Etsy shop. I have an account set up but nothing to sell yet (sad I know). What do you think? Would anyone be interested? I need to come up with a better name for them too. Any suggestions?

Picture Frame Makeover into Mirror

Picture Frame Makeover into Mirror

This project is one I did a while back for my nieces birthday. I have been wanting to blog about it for awhile now but have just been on the busy side getting my Etsy shop up and running. I have made 2 sales so far! And it feels great!

For my project I took an old picture frame I had laying around from my husband's grandmothers house. The frame always bugged me since I am NOT a gold fan. But I loved the details in the wood so I kept it knowing that someday I'd figure out what to do with it.
I knew that I wanted to make a mirror as a gift and I was orginally going to build my own frame but I walked past this frame in my craft room and had an awh ha moment! Here's a picture of what the frame look like originally.

 The first thing I did was take the painting out of the frame. The painting doesn't bug me at all. I think it is pretty. It just needs a new home/frame now. But that is a future project.

 

For the mirror part I had some of this airline grade mirror scrap that the hubby had brought home from work (another thing that has been laying around waiting for me to come up with a project for). It is really cool stuff too. It isn't glass so it won't break. Perfect for an energetic niece too.

 I took the original painting and traced its size onto the back of my mirror scrap

And then cut it out with my jigsaw. It cut pretty easy too! I was sort of worried about how I was going to do it.

I then went back to work on the frame. I first painted it with some leftover house paint we had lying around. I didn't bother covering the black velvet stripe since I knew I'd be covering that later. And then I got some plain old craft paint and mixed up a dark turquoise color that I liked and painted the inner molding piece of the frame.

I let that dry and then with the left over turquoise paint, I added water to turn it into a glaze. I used that to brush onto the white making sure to get into all the groves of the fancy molding and then quickly wiped it back off with paper towel. Sorry I didn't take pictures of this step.

I was loving the effect! I then took some Light blue/teal grosgrain ribbon I had in my stash (I think I got it at the dollar store). I hot glued it over the black velvet and then added another skinny burgundy ribbon top of that. It still needed a little something so I added the bows on the corners. And TA DAH!

Isn't it pretty! I almost didn't want to give it away I liked it so much!