Our Christmas Project

(Can you tell I've stayed home from church with a sick little girl?? I finally have time to update my blog...)

Santa required a little help pulling off one of Mary's presents this year. She's been wanting a bed for her dolls. We've considered stealing my sister's old one that is still at my parents' house, but then granddaughters couldn't play with it when they visit. We've seen a few in Target before, but either they look really cheap or they're like $40, which seems extremely outrageous for a doll bed.

So one day in like October or November I decided to go to a nearby thrift store. I certainly didn't have a doll bed in mind. I was looking for some good, cheap clothes for the kids and maybe a crockpot for me. (Mine is falling apart and is frankly on the big side for my family.) As I was wandering around with Adam I noticed this little toy cradle thing for $3.43. It was plain white with these huge primary colored balloons on each end. (Sorry, I didn't think about a before picture until about 2 seconds ago.)

So since I've never repainted anything I got advice from my friend Katie who's quite experienced and this sort of thing. So we knew we had to sand, prime, and then paint this thing to make it fancy enough for my girl.

It takes a bit of trickery really when your 5-year-old only has morning kindergarten. Obviously you can't let your 5-year-old see it and then not be confused or figure out the Santa secret if he sees you painting a bed that his sister gets from Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. So we'd take Alex to school in the morning and hurry and sand it or prime it or paint it with one coat or so at a time then let it dry and then bag it up before he was picked up. It took at least 2 weeks to get it done, but it turned out pretty good.

Then I found these stickers at Dollar Tree that are actually designed for decorating walls and such, but they work well on doll cradles too. So I bought a couple sets, and Santa let her make her own design.

Here's what we have now...

She put stickers all over that bed, but she still had a bunch left that she used to decorate her room.

We also hung some little lights from her ceiling.

So instead of getting doing one project for Mary for Christmas, we actually got two done. She really wanted something more than plain white walls, but I've got no time to paint (and very little desire frankly) so now she's happy with her new room. She's even moved the butterflies around a few times. Plus Dollar Tree has several more styles of stickers so if she gets bored with this I'll just take her there and spend a few bucks and give her a whole new room again. Talk about decorating made easy, huh??? That's right up my alley. Too bad I can't get a cute living room out of it...