DIY Dress Up Station

I have been searching and pinning a way to store all of the dress up things that seem to explode all over our house on a daily basis. When I saw this dresser out on the curb for garbage day, I knew I had the makings of my dress up storage project.

And to give credit where credit is due, my cousin Jeri did A LOT to help me with this. I would still be staring at the dresser on my deck if I didn't have Jeri's expertise. OK, so here's what we did.

1. We cut out all the insides of the dresser.

2. Went to Home Depot and bought that cute paneling to go inside. We used a dremmel to cut the paneling to fit perfectly inside the dresser, and by we I mean Jeri.

3. Since we are going to use this upside-down, we cut a new top from a piece of wood at Home Depot and we used liquid nails for the new top and the side paneling.

4. Calked, sanded (not very much) and primed the whole thing.

Since this is the bottom of the dresser that is now the top of my dress up case, I had to do something about this ugliness.

No problem, I just bought a piece of wood to cover the sides up at Home Depot. I painted the whole thing with several coats of bright white paint.

The hardest part was screwing the mirror onto the door. I turned it upside down and lightly pounded nails to make sure it would stay where I wanted while screwing the mirror onto the door.

I bought a curtain rod at Home Depot for $7 and installed it inside.

A little vinyl to add the pink that is a requirement for anything Faith owns.

And here is my dress up station. The door was a bigger challenge than I anticipated. At one point I was hacking away at the frame trying to pry it off so I could recut the dang door for the hinges. Luckily Doug figured out a way to hang it as is so I didn't have to rebuild it (just fix the spot I ruined). I absolutely love this door. I got the door as a piece of leftover wood at Home Depot for two bucks. The moulding was pretty cheap as well. I got the mirror at an antique store a couple years ago just waiting for the perfect place to put it. I'm planning on putting cute baskets on the top to hold more of the girls' stuff.

The door knob was $5 from Home Depot.

And Voila! The perfect place to store dresses, tutus, glass slippers and everything else lying around our house. I am going to put hooks inside the door to hang jewelry, but other than that it is done. We love it!

St. Patty's Day

We had a lot of green around here.

Green is not a color in Faith's wardrobe.

Day in DC

We had a great five days with my cousin Jeri who came to visit us this week. We had to go see the sites in DC.

The Natural History Museum has an exhibit on the trapped Chilean miners. James is checking out things made from copper.

Spencer is wearing the helmet of the first man who went down to rescue them.

That is the actual capsule the miners rode in to get out of the mine.

Magnetite and the boys.

Harry Potter's Gryffindor robes.

At the American History Museum, the kids didn't want to leave this message board where they could write what they'd say in the first telephone call.

James had to bring his class's pet along. His class seems to have a lot of pets.

Faith at the doll house in the American History Museum.

Our last stop before getting on the metro was a visit to Mr. Lincoln, our favorite. We were all sad when Jeri had to leave to go home. Faith asked first thing the next day where she went.

Field Trippin' with James

James' class picked me as one of the lucky chaperones for a field trip to the Natural History Museum in DC today.

I was in charge of taking these four boys through the museum for two hours.

James with a Madagascar hissing cockroach.

The way they complained that they were starving the whole time, I'm pretty sure lunch was their favorite part.

A beautiful day for a field trip. Thanks, James!