Today has been a cold, rainy day, and my daughter has not felt well.  This morning I glanced the view through the living room window.

The view drew me to my sewing table desk and I sat down facing the window.  I mused over the fact that before my daughter’s room makeover she had a really cool art center.  (I’ll have to tell you about it some time.)  I like her bedroom better now because she has more play space and I love her  vintage furniture, but she needs an art center now more than ever so she’ll have something constructive to do while I am working.  It would also give us a place to work on doll house stuff together.  (As a working mom, I have found that an art station goes a long way in giving the children something meaningful to do while I’m busy.)

I guess in part it was the rainy day outside, but I was suddenly motivated to set up an art center again.  It’s actually something that’s been on my to-do list.

I took a heavy wooden door that we had removed from an old cabinet from a doctor’s office and laid it across the old suitcases.  Now my daughter has a work space and so do I — side by side.  Granted, it would be nice to have bigger rooms that would allow for more stuff — but without a cluttery feel; however, I’m happy with what I have.  It’s all just more stuff, after all.

We gathered up all art supplies from all over the house, sorted through every single item, sharpened pencils, threw out non-working pens and markers, cleaned out the desk drawers, and made everything nearly perfect!

In the rearranging of the living room I had to let go of a pretty shelf.  After some thinking, off it went to my daughter’s room to replace a basket of play dishes.  The dishes now have a pretend cupboard.

She loves it!

Once the art center was complete, my daughter and I went to work on some rugs for the doll house — hers painted and mine done with colored pencils.  After hers had dried, we took the rugs upstairs to determine which rooms to put them in.

I love this face.  She declared this rug in the children’s room a 3 on a scale of 1 - 5.  I am glad to say that placing the rug in the kitchen scored a 5!

This is the rug that ended up in the children’s room of the doll house.

We are waiting for our coat of mod podge to dry.  Then we’ll put another one on.  We talked about women who had to make real rugs by hand to keep their real floors warm — a lot of work!  It reminded us of the Virtuous Woman who “worketh willingly with her hands.” 

The kitchen rug is drying as well.  It won’t be long before we can put all the furniture back in.  Won’t that be nice?

Last of all, we took a tiny picture frame that we found at the thrift store awhile back for a quarter and we put a picture of the two of us in it.  Where is it?  You guessed it.  In the doll house den.

Overall, I’d say it’s been a pretty productive day.

Lynn