DIY Chalk Play Table

Surprised little caterpillar with this fun little blue table the other day, she was so excited. Last Xmas, I made her a little black board, and she played with it all the time, actually she really enjoyed making a mess and wiping it clean. I still have most of the chalk paint, have been looking for ways to use it. Then I remembered this little blue table I found on the side of the road. It's just a simple, cheap blue table, with metal legs and platic top. Nothing really wrong about it, just looked sad. Forgot to take a before picture, but you get what it looked like from this underside.

 I just spray painted the legs and the edge of the top, primed the top two coats, then painted it with the chalk paint three coats. This is how it looked when I was done with it.

Now bring out the chalks and have some fun with it. Drew some roads on it,

put some little cars along the road, (Can you tell that mommy loves wooden toys?)

How cute is this?

Look, it matches all the other blue funiture in the living/play room. In case you didn't see it, the inside of the toy shelves is blue too.

Oh, not just cars and roads, we have an airport in the center too.

Then wipe off the roads, drew some lines, it just became a little writing table. Now little caterpillar can practice her ABCs without wasting any paper.

Hmm, what wlse can we do with it? Whatever we can do with regular blackboard and play table. Now what else can I paint with this chalk paint?

Scored Again!

Went thrifting this past weekend, and MAN, was I in luck! Here are everything I got, for just $24 and some changes. Can you believe that? It's about the price of one pair of those baby shoes, or that sweater dress!

I actually went to look for some nice bowls. We don't have enough bowls in the house right now. We are Chinese, so we use bowls rather than plates. Little caterpillar has been naughty, broke lots of them. So, I cannot really leave dirty dishes in the sink or dishwasher, simply because we got nothing to eat out of. I am not running the dishwasher half full, wasting energy. Being pregnant and bedresting, I am not going hand wash them either. So solution? Get more bowls! It does not really fit in my declutter plan, but I have to survive this pregnancy first. I was so excited when I spotted these big IKEA soup bowls! I was hoping to find some of the smaller ones, I have seen one small IKEA bowl there before. Well, big ones will do just fine. And the $.89 price tag made it even sweeter.

Oh, I also found a small IKEA bowl, a CORELL cereal bowl, and 3 more cereal bowls. $.69 each!

Then some nice white mugs caught my eyes. Simple, yet elegant. And the best of all, all white. Then I found a stack of little plates, matching the mugs! All from JCP Home. Even though there were only 7 mugs, I still got 8 plates, hoping next time I will find the last mug. There were lots of IKEA plates too, but like I said we don't use plates as much, I just passed them by. The mugs were $.69 each, while the little saucer plates are $.35 each!

I already got some shoes for my baby boy, but when I saw the shoe shelves full, I just had to check them out. There were so many cute ones for a girl, but too small. What a pity! But my boy is not born yet, so I can buy any size I want. And just my luck, all 3 pairs were white tag, which means $1 each!!! Sweet! Just that one pair of Strike Rite retails for more than $40! Ha!

Also found this beautiful Old Navy sweater dress for my girl. Well, it's a little bit too big for little caterpillar now, but she will grow into it. It looks like brand new, and only $3.99! I also picked up a coral red cardigan for myself, white tag, so only $1!

One hat for me also, just $.99, and a super cute one for my girl, only $1.99.

This pair of GAP pants for my boy is only $3.99! So cute! They normally sells for at least $25 in store. I am not spending that kind of money for something my kids only going to wear for one season at best.

There you have it. All 24 dollars of them! Are you tired of my thrifting posts yet? Well, if I continue to find whatever I had my mind on, I will continue bragging about it. Kids are expensive, all the daycare cost and other activities, I have to save any place I can. How is your thrifting luck lately?

Exhausted

Sorry I haven't been around for a while. Lots of things happened. First we found out it's a boy! Yay! Then 2 minutes later we were told I had cervical insufficiency, had to have an emergency surgery the next day, otherwise I could miscarry. Glad Stubborn was there with me that day, I was so nervous. My surgery went pretty well, but it took me more than 5 hours to recover from the spinal. Little caterpillar was such a champ, stayed with stubborn in the waiting room for all that time. After the surgery, I was supposed to be on bedrest for the rest of my pregnancy. Well, that was not going to happen. 2 days later, little caterpillar got really bad diarrhea, pooping more than a dozen times a day for 4 days straight. Even though Stubborn was there taking care of her, I still had to clean up and doing laundry. Then there was about a week wonderful time, she was healthy again, eating great, and gaining back the weight she lost. Then all of a sudden last Mon, after I picked her up from daycare, she started acting strange. 20 minutes later, I realized she was having fever, almost 104F! How could the daycare teacher telling me everything was fine? You don't get a 104F fever in 20 minutes. Anyway. I called the nurse, and of course all of us thought she caught the cold or flu, so I was told to give her some ibuprofen and watch her for 24 hrs. By the third morning (about 36 hrs later), I couldn't wait any more. I took her to the doctor's office. And lucky we went, because she was diagnosed with Pneumonia! Poor thing had fever up to 103F for several days, finally 3 days after taking antibiotics her fever came down. I have to sleep in her room, since Stubborn normally won't wake up at night, so wouldn't know if her temperature goes up again. Then he had to go to a conference out of town for several days! Imagine how busy and tired I have been. But at least my girl is much better now, and went back to daycare again. Finally I can get some rest. She is still on antibiotics, but I can tell she is recovering. She has no more fever, just a little bit coughing and running nose, and she has been sleeping and napping like a hibernating little bear! Well after all these, now I am coming down with something. Hopefully it's just a cold, and I can tough it out without using any antibiotics or anything that might hurts my baby boy.

OK, enough complaining, here is something else has been going on. I went thrifting the other day, and found some cute winter clothes for my boy. I thought boy clothes are boring, but they can be quite cute. Don't you think?
These two little jackets are so cute. I just love that little bear, it made me smile everytime I look at it.

The shirt/sweater vest set to the left was from Children's Place, and brand new! The green shirt was brand new also, and from Gap!!! The blue vest has a fun fishing applique on the front. I can see my boy wobbling around in these, looking like a little gentleman. How cute will that be?

The Elmo overall was from my last thrifting trip, this front one is the new found. It's hard to see in this picture, there are dinosaur design all over it.

The smaller pants is from Gap, and very thick. It will be perfect for his first winter. The green one has a little monkey applique, it supposed to be for 2T, but I am sure I will fold the legs shorter and let him wear it early on. Well, I want to try fabric diaper this time, so he needs some of those big butt pants. =)

Found some fabric from my stash that can be used for boys. Surprise! I cannot wait to make some summer shorts or pants for my little guy.

The best part is some of these are brand new, babies grow up so fast, even if they did wear some clothes, they all look pretty good. And most of the ones I bought are nice brands, they will be quite expensive to buy from the stores. All above clothes were about $2-3 each, so I spent total about $16 for all these, less than the cost of that Children's Place shirt vest set! Am I done with stocking up for this little boy? Maybe not. I am sure there will be more cute boy stuffs waiting for me next time I go to our local Salvation Army.

It's A Boy!

Oh yeah! We are having one of each, a girl and a boy! What a wonderful news! We all went to my big ultrasound last week. Little caterpillar was excited about all the equipments in the hospital, she wanted to touch everything! When I laid down on the bed, she had to climb up and sit on my legs. These days she just wants to be close to mommy! We were so excited when the sonographer told us "it's a boy!" Caterpillar had been asking for a baby brother for several days, even though she has been saying "no baby sister, no baby brother" for quite a while. Guess she figured it out way before us. And you know what, right after we told her she is going to have a baby brother, she looked at us seriously and said "baby sister"! What?! Well sweetie, you just have to accept the fact that you are stuck with a little brother for ever! Mommy is not having any more munchkins! Two is absolutely the limit. And you don't really want to have one more siblings to share the attentions. There were other no so good news that day, but that's another post. Oh, it's not the baby boy, he is active and strong.

Anyway, I had been eagerly waiting for this news, so I could start preparing. We have way too many clothes and toys for little caterpillar, mostly from my sister and friends. I just love hand-me-downs, they are so soft and loved. We also have some brand new baby girl clothes from family and friends, that little caterpillar never got chance to wear them, wrong season or due to the fact she grew up too fast. We thought we were having another girl, and she can wear those cuties. Well, not any more. We just have to box them up and hope one of our friends will have a girl soon. (Most of them have boys!) Some of little caterpillar's clothes were gender neutral, so they are fine. And since the new baby will stay in the house with me most of the time, I think he won't mind to wear some of big sis's girly clothes. But I do need to get some cute boy clothes that he can go out with. Stubborn and I had reached an agreement, (very rare) that we are not buying new clothes for kids any more. They just grow out of it too fast, and frankly quite a waste of money. So I hit my local Salvation Army the other day, hoping to find some good stuffs.

And I hit the jackpot. I found 9 onesies for our baby boy and 4 pairs of shoes for little caterpillar. Oh, and a super cute nursery lamp, a brand new king-size flat sheet, a elmo jumper, and two very boyish books.
Just look at these onesies, aren't they the cutest? All of them looked like new, I guess whoever donated these must have a little boy grew so fast he didn't even have chance to wear them.
I just love these cute dinosaur onesies. The front two are from Carter's, have the same "dino allstars" design, with dinos playing football, basketball and soccer. And the one on the back is from Gymboree. This one is long sleeves, perfect for the cold New England late winter early spring days.
These two are so darling. One says "Daddy's #1 draft pick", the other says "dad's team"! Well, Stubborn didn't like the first one that much, since our little girl was his first pick, this boy will only be #2 pick. Haha!He just loves our girl too much. But at least they are both on daddy's team.
This Elmo jumper is just so cute. Even though it's quite big (for 12 months), I am pretty sure our boy will fit in it pretty soon. Look at these tiny metal buttons, they even have Elmo's face on them. And I love those cute little pockets with "A"(ant) and "B"(bee) on them, I can just see my little boy putting some his favorite little toys in there. And the fact this jumper has 1" roll-ups (is that what they are called) makes it even more practical. I can just open the stitches when he outgrown it, and he can wear it for a couple of more months.
Oh, the books. One is all about dinosaurs, which is little caterpillar's interest right now. A girl likes dinosaurs? Go figure. But it does have some bloody drawings, my girl is very sensitive, so she almost cried when she saw those. Guess this book will be on the high shelf for a couple more years.
But this airplane book is so wonderful, we can play with it right away. Yeah, my girl is also into airplanes, cars, trucks, buses, and trains. We probably will have a townboy in our hand. This book is actually a big puzzle book, has 5 24-piece puzzles, all in mint condition, not a single piece missing! Once little caterpillar improves her puzzle skills a little bit, we will have so much fun with it.
I also found 4 pairs of shoes and boots for little caterpillar. I have been looking for a pair of sneakers to replace the pair she just outgrown, and a bigger snowboots. Well, I don't have a picture of the cute sneakers I bought for her, she is wearing them right now. They are those lit-up ones, the lights blink when you step on it. Little caterpillar loved them so much, she refuse to take them off for almost 3 days! I was a little bit disappointed with the boots. It says size 9 on the bottom, but when I got them home, they are about the same size as her size 6 boots! What?! These two were not on my hunting list, but they are just too cute to pass up. And they are a size bigger, so she will still fit in next year.
The lamp and sheet are gender friendly colors, so they can be used for either kid's room. I just have to decide the themes. Already have the design for the boy's corner in mind, yeah, he will be in the master bedroom with me. I have a list of items on my thrifting list, not spending hundreds of dollars on some decorations.

All in all, I did pretty good that day! Total about $30 for all of these. Here is the detailed prices:
lamp - $2.99
king size flat sheet - $3.99
boy jumper - $1.99
onesies - $.49 each
books - $.75 each
shoes - $2.99 to $4.99 each pair

How is your thrifting luck lately?

Thrifting Scores

Well, technically, these are not really thrifted, but bought brand new. The reason I think they should be in the thrifting section is because I paid less than thrift store price for them. You don't believe it? I paid $1.90! Not each, but total! Total $1.90 for 6 pieces of new clothing for my girl! 4 shorts and 2 tshirts for next summer. Can you believe that? Stubborn actually felt embrassed and waited for me in the car. Ha!

Here is how I got this deal, in case you are interested. I get those $10 gift card from Kohl's sometimes in the mail, and it's a real $10 card, not $10 off $50 kind of deal. Even though I don't shop at Kohl's normally, I cannot just throw $10 away. My original plan was to find something for myself, but well, if you have kids you will understand, sometimes you just cannot resist those cute kids stuffs. So, I ended up digging through the clearance racks for little caterpillar. Not that she needs anything, just thought I couldn't pass on a sale. We got her this year's Halloween custome for about $5, which is selling for $38 right now! I was disappointed first, didn't find anything that I liked or her size (next summer). Then I saw some short on a shelf nearby. They were originally $13 each, on clearance for just $1.30 (90% off). I all of sudden got excited. I found 4 shorts (3T and 4T).I also found a couple of shirts which surprisingly Stubborn liked them too. So, the total plus tax minus $10 gift card was $1.90!!! How great is that!

I think now we are all set with her next summer's wardrobe. No, not just these 6 pieces, I also got her some tshirts and shorts from Target on clearance recently, and Stubborn's friend gave us a bag full of cute little dresses too. All I need to do is to add some embelishments to the dresses to make them unique for my girl! I love hand-me-downs, saves me tons of money (I didn't need to buy a thing for the first year!), but I don't want my baby to be just a copy of other kids. So, I have to put my touches on them. And since some of them has a little bit of stains here and there, if I cannot get them out, I will just have to cover them up. What's better than cover them up with some flowers or appliques or ruffles. I am sensing lots of before and after simple sewing projects coming up.

Recent Thrifting Finds

I have been kind of busy this summer, so didn't stop by many yardsales. But I tried to find time to visit local Salvation Army a couple times a month. Here are just some of the cool stuffs I found lately.


Fisrt, I have to show you this adorable Mickey clock! Isn't it the cutest you've seen? I was wondering around SA, checking random stuffs, the guy was putting new items on the shelves. Then I spotted this. Snapped it immediately, since there were several other ladies checking the same area. They didn't have battery for me to test it out, but for $2.99, I just couldn't resist. I tested it as soon as I got home, and was so thrilled that it works just fine. Little caterpillar loves her Mickey book collection, so she was more than happy to have a moving Mickey in her room. Also, it's not as loud as the clock I bought before (I had to take that one off, because Stubborn couldn't sleep). And I love the pop of red in her blue nursery.


I found this little jar on the same shelf where the clock was. Fell in love with the simple and vintage design. It was made in Finland. Once I clean up my sewing area, I will use this one to hold my bobbins, instead of the clear sauce jar I was using. This is how I knew it was made in Finland. Hey, just found a similar one (same size) on eBay, and it's about $70! And according to this listing, it was designed by Ulla Procopé & Raija Uosikkinen, and produced in January 1969, and is selling for $80! And this price is because it has a chip! Wow! Mine is in perfect condition! I think I bought it for only $1.69 + tax! I am not selling it though. This baby is too cute, it's mine!


I also bought this little creamer for $1.69 as well. I love white and blue, and this one is so lovely, I just couldn't resist it, even though we have no use for a creamer. There were two actually, similar style, the other one was all aqua blue inside. Very pretty, but had a chip at the tip area. I thought mine was perfect, but found a small chip inside the handle when I was cleaning it. Well, it still worth it. I am trying to collect enough cute tea cups, tea pots, little dessert plates, and all things related to a tea party for my little girl. The tea party table chair set I have been refinishing for her is almost done. They will be my secret bday gift to her. Look how pretty it is even from the back.


This set of coasters was purchased earlier this summer. We don't really use coasters in the house, but they are so interesting, and I was curious about their origin. I think the whole set was about $1. The coasters were separated by these old newspaper, but I couldn't tell what language is that. Anyone has any ideas?

(picture here later)
This little girl was purchased earlier this year. It was only $.69. It's just too cute. Immediately after I showed it to my girl, she claimed it as her new chewing toy! (she was younger then) Well, she was not chewing on it, just drool all over it. This girl was made in Japan.