My office/studio take 3!!

The crazy fall updating continues here at Casa Tickled Pink.  You can see my old studio (the first one in this house) here and my inspiration for my studio here and here!  Phew!  Here is the room before:

  Here is MY finished product...

installed the chandelier!  yippee!!

the wall that was behind the bulletin board was very damaged, so I covered it with paper!

this is a trundle bed, so we can still accommodate guests.

close up of my ribbon/paint center (and the wrapping paper covered wall!!)

another one of my grandmother's dining chairs, and a desk I got at a rummage sale for $5!  fabric for the chair is from a shower curtain purchased at T@rget.

storage bins from bath section at T@rget.  hence the shower curtain..  Bins handy for tools etc!

Well, this is my space!  Oh, I will add a picture of the chandelier before once I get it on to my computer (it currently resides in my phone!)

All I want for Christmas...

Is my 2 front teeth!!!

How cute is he??  So excited!  The second one came out around 2:00 in the morning.  I sure hope he wasn't wiggling it all night....

Our Family Room makeover

You can go here to see the family room before before, and then our first after.  Here are pictures from our most recent after...
I had slip covers made for the striped couch and the two chairs, after being inspired by this and then TOTALLY lucked out by finding an existing slipcover for my other couch for $100.  That's right, $100!!!
I happened to have the curtains (from Target) on hand already, they used to hang in our attic in our old house, so all in all this was a fairly budget friendly makeover!

I still REALLY want to paint the brick, but John does not....sigh.

some fall decoration

love this whale!  A friend gave it to me for my birthday.

notice the leftover fabric from J's room???

this is my $100 slipcover!  Yippee!!

What I've been up to!! ***UPDATED***

Oh my, it has been quite a while!  I have been a busy bee recently updating our second floor.  (among a miriad of other things!!)  It seems that while most people get spring fever and do major overhauls in the spring, I like to make changes in the fall.  Coinciding with school starting perhaps??  heehee

After 5 years of sharing a room, J decided he wanted his own room.  We are fortunate to have 5 bedrooms, but John and I each had one of the rooms as office space, and the other room was being used as a small guest room (often referred to as my niece's room).  Let the switch a roo begin!  John moved his office into the guest room,  I moved my studio/craft room to his old office and my studio became J's room.  Here are the before and afters of J's new "big kid" room.  Pictures of the other spaces coming....

this was my studio, but we had already moved my stuff into another room.

another view before.  I painted this desk glossy black.  Will be seen later!

I really loved having pink and green walls, but J wanted nothing to do with them!

here is the after!  Our inspiration for the room came from the curtain fabric.  Not sure if you remember my valances in my studio, but I re-purposed them to be the green and white pillows.

I have 2 skateboards to mount as shelves above the desk.  They are just not up yet.

The bedroom set was my dad's!  Love that! Oh, and we have a mirror to add above the dresser.

I also got my grandmother's dining room chairs out of storage and painted one for J's desk chair.

before...

And AFTER!!  I am SO loving glossy black right now!!

FINALLY hung the prints...  Curtain fabric is from Jo-Ann Fabrics

love how the colors totally match :)

and added the skateboard shelves too. 

I got these 2 skateboards at Target for $10 each!  Just mounted them with "L" brackets

just a close up of the pillows on the bed.

So I think I have achieved a room which J loves, has a subtle skateboard theme, and will be a room he can be in for quite some time!

 I am also going to re do 2 more of the chairs.  One for my desk, and one for my vanity.  I may use the 4th for my SMALL desk in my kitchen, but it is REALLY small.  Not sure the chair will fit well...

I am planning to post some more before and after's once I have them finished!
xoxo

First Day of School (finally!!!)

I can't get this one in the right place...

J's first day of Kinder (I hadn't started doing the signs yet)

C's first day of nursery! (OMW how cute is he???)

Someone not being very cooperative!!

ok, that's better!

out take

Oh my word! They get big SO fast!!!  Here are this years photos: (taken very quickly before the downpour happened!  so much for walking to school...)

C was very excited to start his first day, and was very cooperative with picture taking as well (notice that wasn't so much the case way back on the first day of kinder)

I cannot believe how big J is getting!  sheesh!  But he still humors his mama and lets me take the pictures with the sign :)

and the two brothers!  They wanted to take a picture in their sweatshirts, because as I mentioned last year, you may see a theme throughout the years.  This year the sweatshirts are actually new ones....

It's the most wonderful time of the year......

Fun dinner out

The boys and I had an errand to do last night around dinner time and
since I seem to be uninspired to cook these days, we decided to have a
little dining adventure. We drove north until we found a place we
wanted to eat at! We ended up in Gloucester and had dinner on the
water. I really love a good adventure with my boys! It is really so
great that all we need is a full tank of gas and a little cash!! Too
bad John couldn't join us, but then again he isn't quite as
spontaneous ;)

Have fish. Will travel!

Sigh. After six weeks we are on the ferry leaving our favorite place,
Nantucket. Since we were gone so long, we brought our fish,
Snickerdoodle, along for the ride. Yes, she is named for a the
cookie. And her travel container fits nicely in a cup holder!

Here she is on the ferry amongst all our craft supplies. We are on
the slowest of all the ferries so we came well equiped! Clay seems to
be the activity of choice and we have quite the marble factory going!!

the Pan Mass Challenge

 A great friend and John after a century ride to benefit Juvenile Diabetes research

On August 7th and 8th, my husband John will join more than 5,000 other cyclists in the 31st Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, a bike-a-thon that raises money for cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.  This spectacular event raised more than $35 million last year by donating 100% of all rider raised funds to the DFCI. The PMC holds the promise of helping eradicate this disease which affects millions each year.
To help the PMC team reach their 2010 goal, John has been asked to raise over $4,200 to participate.
He will be riding 190 miles over the two days.  Will you please support this great cause? We are asking people to consider the following three donations:
•.25 cents per mile = $50
•.50 cents per mile = $100
•$1 per mile = $200

Although any donation at all would be greatly appreciated!!  Thank you!!!

Please go to his personal page to make your donation online to support this great cause:
http://www.pmc.org/egifts/JR0285 

Ahhhhhhh!!

A night out with John!! :)

Anyone know where we are now?

here we go surfin'!!

J had his very first surfing lesson yesterday!  We have had the fliers from The Nantucket Island Surf School collected from the past 3 summers, and finally decided that he was a capable enough swimmer to start some lessons.  Oh my!  He was THRILLED to be taking a lesson and he had a blast.  I think that C wants to try next week. :)  That will be fun because John will be here and will be on vacation as opposed to working remotely.  So much better.

"look mom!  no hands!!"

and even though he didn't want to take a surf lesson, C had a BLAST boogie boarding!