Kids' Bathroom Part 3

I started hanging things up in the bathroom yesterday but then hit a creative block. Instead, I ran some errands to help get inspired and went through some old pictures I had taken on my phone when I was out browsing weeks ago. I went to bed refreshed and woke up this morning very pleased with how the bathroom turned out.
I'm still looking for a few things though. I need some kind of shelf for over the toilet and a bad ass toilet paper holder that looks like a branch or something. You can see why from the pictures. :)
The girls' bathroom is divided up into two rooms: the Jack and Jill vanity and sinks and a door that leads to the the tub and toilet. I still have some work to do on the vanity so that isn't pictured yet. That, and I'm not 100% done cleaning the tools and boxes off the sink. It was late. I was hungry.
KIDS' BATHROOM BEFORE:



KIDS'S BATHROOM AFTER:



You would never guess that I framed and matted a place mat, would you?


Here is where I need a cool toilet paper hook:


I just ADORE this wall of photos taken of my kids at different ages in the tub!


Here's a bow holder I made out of an old picture frame, ribbon and left over shower curtain fabric:


And here is my most favorite part of the whole bathroom!!!

Kids' Bathroom Part 2

I mentioned in the previous post that I bought some coordinating hand towels. Well, as I was hanging up the shower curtain I'd just made, I noticed that the bath towels I let the girls pick out 6 months ago actually matched perfectly. But it wasn't good enough. I had an idea how to make them BETTER! HA HA HA... I yanked the towels off the towel bars, began twisting that invisible mustache again and ran to get my scissors and sewing machine! This was gonna be good....
I started with a plain white towel and sewed ribbon I had bought onto the bottom hem.


I attached the wide ribbon first using a straight stitch.


Then I sewed on the rickrack with a straight stitch too.



I cut up the towel with the owls standing on end and I had 4 cute owls, two pinkish and two bluish.


Next, I pinned the owl in place, off center, and sewed it onto the towel using the longest stitch for a zig zag and the closest stitch setting.



This is how it looked when I was done:


Here are the towels I sewed with the hand towel I bought. I am very pleased with how all 4 towels came out looking!


Here's the best part:
4 bath towels = $12
hand towel = $1.20
ribbon= $4
TOTAL = $17.20
That's 4 beautiful towels for less than one at Pottery Barn Kids! God, I love making stuff!!!

The Kids' Bathroom Part 1

Every now and then, a piece of fabric catches my eye and a million ideas flash in my head of what I can do with it. This happened to me a few months ago when an apron at Kohls caught my eye. I always carry my phone with me to take pictures of "stuff" so I snapped a picture for color inspiration in a kid's bathroom and walked on. A few isles later, the same fabric was on a table cloth and I snatched it up and drove off giddy with a few coordinating towels. I had a plan!!!

I stopped off at my second home, Joann's, and picked up a few grommets, ribbon and drove home twisting my invisible mustache as I devised my plan of attack for the best bathroom EVER! I was turning that table cloth into a shower curtain! Here's how I did it:
You are going to need a hammer, a package of grommets that contain the grommet tool, a tape measure, a pen, scissors and enough fabric to give you a 60"x60" square. I have already sewed the 80"x100" tablecloth into a square too by the way.

I thought there was some way around the grommet tool but there's not, so but the package that has this. Skip on the grommet fastener because that thing is expensive and about as necessary as a bag of sand at the beach. Plus, once you have the tool, you can add grommets to anything your heart desires later.
Most shower curtains have 12 holes for hanging and I used the shower liner to make finding the hole location much easier. I measured down a little ways, as you can see, and put the grommet on the shower curtain and traced the hole with the pen. Make sure you trace the little hole, NOT the coordinating big one!


Next I simply cut an "X" in the circle I drew. I did this for all 12 circles I drew.


I pushed the male part of the grommet through the hole next.


Find a hard surface, I used a cutting board, and place the round grommet tool beneath the piece you just pushed through the hole. Put the female grommet (the big circle) over the male piece sticking out of the fabric and put the long grommet tool on top of that.


And now the fun part... take your hammer and whack the crap out of the grommet tool. Think about how your husband didn't take out the trash... AGAIN or how much it irritates you cleaning up after the dinner you spent all day cooking. Just whack away and it will look like this when you are done!


Do this for all the grommets and pat yourself on the back, for you have just made a shower curtain!

Worse than Waiting on Paint to Dry... Prepping for Paint

I decided that getting a room ready to paint is far worse than sitting back and waiting on it to dry. I mean, I can at least get a blog post updated or sleep while it dries! I was half way through cutting in all the trim in the kids' bathroom today when I felt like the YouTube sensation "David and the Dentist" when he said, "Is this gonna be forever?". That's when I threw my brush down and devised a trick much quicker and cleaner than blue painter's tape and an angled bristle brush. Now, I'm no painter and this is just my method and it's kind of like a "duh" tip.
I noticed that after putting that stupid painter's tape down, sometimes it would fall off the ceiling and sometimes it would separate from the trim and sometimes, paint gets behind the tape or peels up when I pull it off. VERY ANNOYING after going to the trouble to tape it off in the first place!
See here where I've pulled back the tape and it looks like crap?

I went and got my trusty, cheap, 2" foam brush and went to work using the technique I'm about to describe after I cussed out and removed the tape I spent a few hours putting on this morning.
First, dip your foam brush in the paint, only putting about 1/4" of the brush in the paint like so:

Then, starting about 1/4" above the trim, smear on a straight line.

Redip your brush in the paint to 1/4" again and hold it perpendicular to the line of paint you just smeared on.

Now, gently push your brush up and down in a small "v" pattern to create a straight line.

When you do this, the paint will be a little thicker right at the edge you are creating. (I will explain why this is so awesome later.) Next, Swipe your brush parallel to the trim to smooth out the paint. And ta-da, you have your first coat on and you are ready to fill in the walls with the roller!

Now, I said this will save you time and that there's an awesome part coming. Here's the awesome part! When you return to do your second coat, you can zip right through cutting the edges in because you won't need to go all the way to the edge. You can get really close, but it's already a little thicker so you don't have to follow the line exactly. Just get close enough to blend the second coat with the edge of the first coat and you literally zoom through the second coat of edging! I was able to finish two coats on the girls' bathroom and finish it entirely in one day. And you guessed it, I'm just waiting for paint to dry right now!