Today, I gave birth to my firstborn, 12 years ago. A little girl, who we named Arianna Grace.  She was 6 days late, and I self induced with Black and Blue Cohash, an herbal formula that my midwife gave me.  Not only was she late, but her labor was long, and difficult. Nothing went according to my birth plan, and I had all the drugs that the hospital could give me, despite me being dead set against any type of meds in labor. A natural birth just wasn’t meant to be that time. When she  was finally born, I was so doped up from the medication, and I wouldn’t of been able to deny it, because I have pictures to prove it…and I am not going to show them!  But I was thrilled with her. She came into the world pink and screaming, and full of life. All I wanted to do was hold her and comfort her. She was perfect, despite her little cone head that formed from the vacuum extraction. (Another intervention in labor that didn’t go according to my birth plan). The cone head was gone by the next day, by the way. 😉 When she was born, we were in the middle of many crazy transitions, that would take too long to explain here. The point is, about those transitions, I never had the opportunity to decorate her a pretty little girly nursery like I had always dreamed about.  Then, two years ago, we moved to Texas into a very nice house….with really ugly furniture.  For the first time, Arianna was going to have her own room.  In our old tiny house, she and her younger sister shared a 9×9 bedroom with a huge bunk bed. When we moved here, we separated the bunks and used the top bed as a twin size bed for Arianna’s room. About 2 weeks ago, Arianna and I were having a…um…disagreement about her room. The disagreement centered around on the importance of keeping her room clean and neat. She kept telling me over and over again, that it would be easier to clean if she had some good storage. Well! I guess she was right. (Sheepish face). Suddenly the idea came to me. Decorate her bedroom for her birthday! What a neat way to transition from “little girl” to “Big Girl” with her own fancy bedroom. And maybe, just maybe, she would be a little more motivated to keep it nice if it looked nice! So I made plans. I had her sister, Bella, go and fish information out of her of what she would like in her dream bedroom. Arianna described every detail to her, and she came back and reported it to me. Bella, also told me that Arianna had said, “But this dream room will never happen”. I made plans with my mom to take her for about five or six days. This was an exciting idea for Arianna…to go away alone from her siblings for almost a whole week. 😉 My mom picked her up on Tuesday evening and we set to work! To see any of the pictures  enlarged, just click with your mouse. 🙂 This is a before shot of her room from the door. She had arranged the furniture in this room. 😉 Her bed is against the window. Next to her bed is a bookcase that we got for $15 from a store that was closing down. I never had put the rest of the shelves in it, and it was just standing there against the wall. Right next to the door, directly to the left, is one of those small and cheap bookcases from Wal-mart. The room is messy, but that was from me pulling everything out and cleaning in prep for painting. HOWEVER, it often looked like that. 😉 The tall dresser with a drawer poking out, has moved onto Bella’s room, and I am going to refinish it for her little sister’s room in the future. This is another shot of the before of her room. Sorry for the blurriness. I posted a question on facebook, asking my friends for ideas on how to find pretty furniture for the bedroom, as I was on a budget. I got some great ideas on how to make a pretty headboard, which I might do with Bella’s room.  Several friends mentioned Craigslist, but I was scared of Craigslist due to me buying a table that was full of German roaches. No kidding! They almost infested my nice, brand new house last year, when I “got the deal” on a kitchen table. I had nightmares about the roaches for a long time after that. So the thought of buying a bed off of Craigslist was even scarier. What if it had bed bugs? I did glance around Craigslist and found this adorable bedroom set above that a lady had hand painted. It was in the exact colors that I wanted! It had been posted on Craigslist for 14 days, so I assumed someone had already bought it, but I contacted the lady anyway. She hadn’t sold it, but decided to give it to her granddaughter a few hours before I contacted her. So nope. No go. I was running out of time. In the meantime, I headed off to the Plexus Convention, and didn’t have time to shop around for furniture for her room. When I got home from convention I had a total of one week to plan her room, get the items and put it all together. Thankfully, I did buy her bedding before I went off to Convention. Monday came and I actually went and bought a bed from a friend that saw my post on Facebook. I still needed a dresser though.  So I went and looked on Craigslist for a white dresser. I wasn’t having any “luck” at all. I was getting discouraged.  I decided I needed to pray, and so I did. I prayed a really heart felt, “God you NEED to help me here! I have to get started on this tomorrow!!”, type of prayer. I went back on Craigslist, and noticed there was a section that said something to the effect that there were items similar to my search in other surrounding areas. So I clicked on those links. I found a white dresser that looked promising, and then I found a DREAM bedroom set…. all wood! None of that particle stuff! It even came with a cute all wooden bookcase shaped like a doll house! When I looked at when the listing had been posted, it had only been posted for less than an hour! AND It was a price we could afford. Less than the hand painted furniture, and more pieces…including a mattress and box spring! (OK, way too many exclamation points, but hey I am pretty excited that Craigslist worked this time! There I go again.) I emailed the lady, called my husband at work (I try not to call him at work, as he is on the phone all the time with customers at work), and sent him the link to the furniture. I begged him to go look at the furniture to make sure there were not any roaches or bedbugs infested in the furniture. So the next day, he drove an hour away from home, so he could look and make sure the furniture was usable and buy it.. He also picked up the other white dresser that I had found on Craigslist.  He is awesome, as he took work off to be able to do this. He had already taken 3 days of work off the week before, so I could go to the Plexus Convention. We chose a Paris/Vintage Barbie Theme to decorate Arianna’s room in.  The Eiffel  Tower painting above, is the inspiration we used to build the room around. And of course some cute ideas I found on Pinterest. Of course. 😉 Bella took to reproducing the painting. I chose this painting, because Arianna’s favorite style of art is impressionist painting. And a fun fact is, she noticed right away that the painting was done in an impressionist style. So without further ado, here are the after pictures!! 🙂 This is the same view of her before picture… with me standing in the doorway. As you can see, Bella’s painting is hung right above her bed front and center.  I am SO tickled with how this room turned out! The kids and I had a BLAST with working on this room. It was tons of hard labor, but I enjoyed it immensely! Again, this is standing from the same position that I stood in when I took the blurry before picture. I chose Sherwin Williams Verbena Pink for the color on the walls,but had Lowe’s color match it. Valspar paint is half the cost of Sherwin Williams…but I love Sherwin Williams colors. The color may not be “truly true” but I really liked how it came out, so that’s what’s important. 🙂 This point of view is taken with me standing in the door way,  but looking at the wall directly in front of me. This is the first white dresser that I found on Craigslist. I decided to repaint it, as the color didn’t really match the bed, and the original paint job, had much left to be desired. It also smelled a little cigarette smokey, so I painted the inside of the drawers to help mask the smell. I followed directions on how to paint it from this decorating blog. I turned the paint into what is called “chalk” paint by mixing a ratio of Plaster of Paris and water with the paint. On the dresser is a decorative dress form with a fancy pink dress that I found on clearance at Hobby Lobby. I also found the perfume bottle and dish at Hobby Lobby on sale. Hobby Lobby also provided the picture frames, Treble Clef, and the box on the floor next to the dresser, holding the stuffed animals. Everything on sale.  The pictures in the frames, I printed from online. They are Vintage Barbies in black and pink fashions. Arianna told me that she has always been eyeing the pink dress form from Hobby Lobby, but knew we could never afford it. She was right, it was pricey, but I got it for less than $12!Turn directly to the left, and there is a shiny black bedside table…again, on a deep discount sale from Hobby Lobby. I used my 40% off coupon to buy the lamp from Hobby Lobby. The Mirror was also on Clearance. Love Hobby Lobby!!! Another “God story” about the Mirror. It was the exact mirror I had pictured in my mind. Even the details of it are some of the same detailing on the bed. It was the only one there like that, and it was only $27. Regularly it was $70!! I made the monogram picture with scrap booking paper, and a fancy picture frame that was on sale. 😉 This is the old bookcase that we got for only $15. I repainted it in the same color as the Dresser. I then glued fabric to the background. I LOVED how it turned out! Directly next to the bookcase is the “new” doll house bookcase that came with the bedroom furniture. I repainted it in the colors of the room. Before it was cream and Blue. I gave a fresh coat of “chalk paint” in the colors  dark charcoal grey and the same white I used to paint the dresser and other book case.  The “art” hanging above it, is fabric I found in the colors of her room, that I inserted into embroidery hoops, and hung in a fun pattern. Turn directly to the left from the bookcases and in front of the bed is her closet, and the tall dresser that came with her bed. Hanging above her closet door is a wooden bicycle with a French Poodle hanging out of the basket. Another score from Hobby Lobby! 😉 Hanging above her tall dresser is a little multimedia piece of art that I made myself. It’s a vintage Barbie head.  Next to the dresser, are hooks that I found in the shape of a music note, and treble clef. I hung her ballet shoes and black leotard on them. But if she would like, she can take them off, and hang whatever she likes on them. Though she did tell me she likes what I did there. 🙂One more look at this angle. I made this simple window valance out of some fabulous textured fabric that almost looks like angle wings.  I found it at JoAnn’s This room was SO fun to put together for her. I just kept thinking over and over in my mind at how happy she was going to be. That thought also turned my thoughts to the Lord, because in His Word it says he is in Heaven preparing a place for me. If I was this excited about preparing a room for Arianna with all her likes in it, imagine how excited the Lord is at preparing me a place in Heaven? If I am this careful about planning and giving her things that she would like in her room, what is he planning for me that I like?  ♥ I tried really hard to upload the video of her reaction onto WordPress, but was having a tough time.  It kept turning my video sideways. So I  uploaded onto facebook, and you can watch her reaction HERE:  Her reaction says it all! 🙂