OCR week 6 : THE REVEAL

Mia's NEW Room

So six weeks ago, I decided to take part in the One Room Challenge, set by Linda from Calling it home as a linking participant.

I've been doing up my five year old daughter, Mia's room, and you can see the entire process from inspiration to design concept ,through my little and large projects and processes to, finally today, the reveal of the final result, by clicking on the thumbnails in my sidebar---->

I love a challenge, and have really enjoyed this project, as it has been so much fun to do together with Mia, who has been very involved right from the start.

On a very limited budget ,we've had to come up with some creative solutions to get the look that she wanted!

So from sugary pink to fun and modern, we've totally transformed her room.

You can see what the room used to look like HERE.

I must warn you: This is a very picture heavy post, but here it finally is:

Mia's new look Room:

The previously pink and purple walls was repainted in a peachy pink (Crown honey fever) and a pale grey (Crown seldom seen)...

And integral to the look she wanted, Me and Mia made a whole bunch of funny cushions to fill her bed with..

....and filled her wall with art !

I planned to get some new storage for this corner wall:

But I never found anything suitable, so the old shelves went back up again (for now).

But we updated this corner by getting this new star night light from IKEA, that I spraypainted black...

And I also made this cool little moon phase wallhanging, above.

Mia's kept her rabbit light, which I love and was one of the first things I bought for her after she was born! You can find similar here.

Behind the door,We've tucked in a few Ribba picture ledges from IKEA, ideal to keep her books on, now that her reading is coming along so well...and this also freed up her underbed storage for other toys...

And having this entire wall painted in blackboard paint is conducive of creativity:

 

Some details:

I made this Origami lampshade for here ceiling light, see how in my tutorial here.

And of course the Potato printed feature wall, inspired by the half moon wallpaper from Ferm Living makes a real statement, and was integral to our original design concept.

The MIA letters we already had from Mia's baby room, I just gave them a lick of paint to fit in with her new colour scheme. The artwork is a DIY picmonkey job!

And another little detail is the pom pom garland I made...

The curtains are actually made from a cheap bedding set I found in Primark, and is perfect in the colours. I find it very expensive to buy material, so I figured I'd just cut a duvet cover in half and sew it up as curtains, which has worked very well.

We created this little creative corner for Mia, with a DIY fold down, wall mounted desk, painted with blackboard paint at the front for impromptu creativity!

...meaning we could make use of the floorspace underneath for storage.

Notice the bracket on the wall underneath the desk....

...it hinges out from the wall to create some additional support when the desk is folded down.

The stool is an upcycled charity shop find, and doubles up as a bedside table.

This area is now perfect for Mia to sit and do her drawing or homework...

With built in shelves for storing pens and colouring in books....

...even a roll of drawing paper. 

Those cute storage jam jars are from Rose and Grey, and are perfect for storing colouring

pencils and hama beads etc...

I made Mia's desk using plywood, then painted the inside shelves in colours matching our design concept.

You can find the plans on how to make your own on the amazing Ana White website.

I've attached a clip on light from IKEA to the shelf above the desk for some task light..

....the fun House cork board is from H&M

And along the wall to the side of the desk I've hung an IKEA PS wall rail system with hooks, a mirror and a handy cup for storing chalk for Mia's chalk board wall ....or to use for water should she fancy doing some painting.

Mia couldn't wait to try out her new desk....

 and got straight to work creating some hamabeads suncatchers for her window:

Which adds the perfect finishing touch to her new and creative room!

So that's it!

I'm pretty sure this room will be thoroughly enjoyed by Mia....and will probably not stay this tidy for long...LOL, but as with any room in our house, it is now grown-up enough, in a fun way, to evolve with her as she gets older...

And Mia loves that it's all to her own design...with a little nudging help from mum!!

So what do you think of Mia's new room??

Would you go for a potato printed wall in your home?

Do you love that wall mounted fold down desk?

Do make sure you check out what the PRO's did for their One Room challenge....find the links here...and also visit the Calling it home ORC link up to check out more fabulous room makeover by the other linking participants.

How to: Make your kids drawings into a cushion...

(And more potato printing )

 The One room Challenge: Week 5

Ooooooh....nearly there folks!

One more week until the big reveal of my efforts to make over my 5 year old daughter Mia's room for the One Room Challenge!!

I am a linking participant in this awesome challenge set by Calling it home, to design and makeover a room in our home in 6 weeks. You can see my entire design process and follow the makeover by checking out my previous posts , links in the sidebar ---->

Be sure to check out the very inspiring and talented Official ORC participants makeovers here and the other linking participants progresses here.

Anyway: Don't get too jealous folks, but I'M DONE!!

Pretty much...just need to style and get it ready for the photoshoot next week!

I am itching to show you all how it's turned out, but as I don't want to jump the gun, today I thought I'd show you all how I turned Mia's drawings into some funky cushions to complete the look!

Mia has been involved with the design process of her new-look room right from the start, and it has been so much fun doing this together: From browsing pinterest finding inspiration and putting together the moodboard, to picking out furnishings and art, this makeover has all the elements that SHE wanted....

....including a plethora of funky cushions on the bed!

So last week Mia and I set about designing some fun designs to be made into cushions:

We came up with a handful of funny designs we liked, then set about enlarging them:

Mia working on the large scale drawing of one of her cushion designs

I then taped down the large drawing onto my work surface, covered it with an ironed piece of plain white fabric (that I also taped in place). I then used a fabric pen to trace the drawing onto the fabric and drew a line approximately 1" around the design to represent the shape of the cushion...

(It's not hip to be square in this case!!LOL)

 

I then mixed up some fabric paints to create the colours we wanted...

 ...and carefully coloured in the design, taking care not to go over the lines. 

TIP: Mix a little bit of water in with the paint to make it easier to paint onto the fabric, but do change to plain paper underneath the fabric before applying, as the ink on your design may bleed into the fabric!

Use a small brush to paint around details.

When I had finished painting in the colour on the fabric, I blasted it with a hairdryer to dry and set.

Then I re-drew and neatened up the lines with the fabric pen...

...and added some funky stripes to Mia's "tiger horse" for an added bit of detail.

Before ironing the finished design to set.

As I believe that the secret to all good design lies in the details,

I then set about recreating the half moon print I did on Mia's feature wall on a piece of fabric to use for the back of the cushion....just to tie in with the look of the room:

Again I used potatoes to make the pattern.

But this time using black fabric paint, and a fabric pen.

I drew up some lines, 5 cm apart on a piece of paper that I taped onto my ironing board, then placed a piece of plain white cotton on top, securing it in place with tape...

I then traced the lines onto the cotton using a ruler and the fabric pen...

Then I cut the potatoes to shape and simply painted the fabric paint directly onto the potato, before pressing the potato and printing the pattern onto the lines...

 ...when I had finished printing one section of the fabric, I blasted it with my hair drier to dry the paint, then ironing to set, before moving onto the next section of the fabric...

This way creating enough of the half-moon patterned fabric to use for Mia's cushions.

I then sewed the back panel to the front cushion design along the line that I drew up around Mia's design , using my tiny weeny sewing machine :D

If you have never sewn up a cushion before (Stop me if I'm offending you now!) just remember to pin the front and the back together facing eachother....and leave a gap along a straight bit of the seem, big enough to get your hand through.

Then I inside-outed the cushion, stuffed it with plenty of wadding and sewed shut with a hand stitch.

And that's it:

 

Mia is so proud of her cushions that she designed...

And here's a little sneaky peek as to how some of her new "monster family" of cushions look on her bed:

Fun hey?

Mia fell asleep cuddling them all last night!

I think they're a hit!

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