Turning my house into a Casa dei Bambini...

That's what I've been doing for the last month or so.  I've done very little else, other than sew a very simple and quick dress.  Since we don't have a room available for school, I've had to get creative with my storage.

The pantry has sensorial-on the floor-A box with towels for folding(will be adding clothes and hangers next week), Geometric Cabinet, well, I plan on making a cabinet for the drawers, which are made from 1/8" plywood and the inserts and frames are painted foamboard, pink tower(bought), Red Rods-square dowel rods cut and painted.  On the shelf, knobless cylinders-round dowel rods cut and painted, color tablets-cut foamboard with paint chips glued on them, and top pieces for the pink tower.  The shipping price for the knobbed cylinders and the brown stair are killer, but since Lex will be ready to use them soon, I'll have to break down and buy them.

More sensorial in an upper kitchen cabinet-Open and close box, pouring, polishing, touch boards, tactile tablets, tasting, smelling, and sound boxes, all homemade.  The lower left shelf has Childsized Masterpieces, origami, lacing, and music stuff.  I'm sure I'll have to move things around to get the best use of the space.

Even more sensorial in a lower kitchen cabinet-Constructive Triangles and Geometric solids.

My buffet has two largte lower cabinets, and two drawers for school storage.  One of the lower cabinet has cultural, seems I have more books for this than for anything else!

Math drawer, once I get the Bead Material we'll be using a section of the cabinet below for math.  Again, most of this was homemade.

Language, most of this was homemade, and I think all of the language will fit in this drawer.

So, I've been making and preparing school materials with a single minded focus, because that's the only way I know how to do things, work on one thing until it's done.  Even tho I have so much done, there is still so much left to do.  As well as the knoweldge that E is going to be moving on from 3-6 to 6-9 in the next year, so I may as well just keep moving with the material prep.  It's comforting to know that A will be able to use these things as well. 

Oh, and the sewing room has been demolished, as you can see.

This happened b/c as I was cleaning the rest of the house, I broke the cardinal rule-instead of putting things away, in the proper place, I just tossed them into the room and kept moving.  So now I have avery big clean up job in front of me, if I ever want to sew again.

Seriously, never thought I'd have a room this chaotic.

The playroom is finished!

Ta-Da! The kids have been playing in here since we moved the dressup cabinet in, so it's been done as far they are concerned. This has been one of the biggest DIY project's I've ever undertaken, but very satisfying.

Okay, so I suppose a window treatment is needed.  This is where A's  toys go, right now the rotation is on Little People toys.

Ahh, the lovely pinboards!  I tried to use magnetic paint, however, the magnets just did not stay on.  I didn't realise the mirror was so dirty! 

The book slings and pillows!!

And a dog sleeping in my thinking chair.  That's happened to me too.

Everything was so fun to make, and we get compilments on them all.  The bookslings are from Apartment Therapy; there's a tutorial, or you may still be able to buy them on etsy. 

I couldn't say what my favorite part is.  It came together just as I saw it in my mind, so I suppose that's the best of all.

Happy Thoughts!