A Little R&R For Roz & Rozario

Finishing Roz's bed last week had me feeling pretty good about my progress, but I couldn't forget the "functional" part of my promise. She was definitely going to need a place to hold her nighttime things. It had to be the right height for reaching the reading lamp from her bed, be big enough to hold her current book and glass of water, have a storage drawer to securely stow her wand, have display space for more books and tchotchkes, fit into the limited bedroom floorspace and still feel "feminine". Oh Boy! I had my work cut out for me! I got some measurements then got to work designing the perfect nightstand in Design Space.

Once the pieces were cut, I decoupaged strategic sections with some very pretty scrapbook paper and assembled the chipboard parts. I made trim pieces with cardstock to overlay on top. The tabletop is finished with the leftover fruitwood stain from the Chrysnbon table kit I made for the breakfast nook. Waste-not-want-not, right? The chipboard takes this stain nicely. I added a fancy pull to the drawer and Ta-Da! Very pretty and yet "functional", too! The solid purple cubby gives a nice contrast to but will not compete with whatever Roz decides to store and display in there. As you can see, I had assembled it before adding the rose buds to the bed posts. It still needed many accessories to make it "function" well for Roz. 

First we'll talk about her lamp. It was part of a Chrysolite Mantle Lamp kit set from my stash. I loved the compact size, but it needed a larger base. I added a fancy spacer bead to the bottom and then a small round wood circle, which I cut a channel into so the wire could exit the back. I painted it a unifying black, then gave it an aged bronze finish with glaze, burnt sienna and dark brown paint. Its aged bronze look matches all the other lighting fixtures in the project.

The alarm clock is a Playmobil piece that Birgit sent to me in a Christmas package. It is adorable, so all I did to it was add a bubble of "glass" (UV resin) to the clock face. The vase is made up of more mulberry buds and flowers and secured in the vase with UV resin. Little Women is one of Deborah's wonderful books from her Etsy shop. The bottom cubby is stuffed with books covered in pretty scrapbook paper and a potted plant I made. That should give Roz a good start to the "functional" part in her bedtime ritual!

When it came to addressing Roz's floor, I knew she needed a rug. Stepping from a warm bed onto a cold floor in the winter is not my idea of "functional" - it's enough to make you stay in bed all day!

 Unfortunately, I encountered loads of challenges trying to get this job accomplished. First was finding a rug photo for the round room. There is not much to choose from, surprisingly, when searching for "Round Purple Rug". Maybe I am just too picky?

I attempted to change the color of rugs with patterns I liked, but with unsatisfactory results. I learned how to change objects in a vector to a different color, but could not find a suitable vector image of a rug.

 I finally found a pretty purple rug photo, but it was layered on top of several other round rugs. This prompted me to learn how to cut out a circle shape in Inkscape (very helpful!). Unfortunately, my low budget, eight year old Canon printer thinks purple is the color of red wine. I have done all the tutorials to calibrate the colors, many times, with no improvement. It's just not that versatile.

As its final insult, it refuses to feed my velvet paper through regardless of the settings I choose. No nice piled rug is ever going to come from it. I won't even allow myself to contemplate the cost of the ink I've wasted all these years. 

Below you'll see the rug on the left is the one I sent to the printer, the one on the right is what I got... Yuck!

I am not one to give up easily. So, thinking through all my limitations and options, I decided to print a rug I liked in a light color scheme and then color several elements with markers. It didn't come out too bad but it still really wasn't what I had in mind.

Throwing money at a problem always helps, right? LOL! But I did finally break down and buy a new (and supposedly much better) printer. The rug I printed on the new printer using cotton printer fabric came out much better than the one from the old printer, but it's still not fantastic. Until I have time to play with materials and settings, I am calling it good enough, for now.

Moving on! The next functional element Roz needed for her bedroom was a place to sit. Since the floorspace was going fast I decided to make Kris Compass's Parson's Chair Tutorial from her website. If you are new or unfamiliar with Kris' tutorials, I encourage you to go explore. They are fabulous! I was able to reduce my pattern to a more appropriate size for Roz and her room. It is maybe 1:16 scale now - perfect!

Before we get to Roz's bedroom photos, let me share Rozario's nook furnishings. Aside from his bed, there will be a wall shelf and a floor shelf to house all his treasures. Because of the curved walls, I made the shelves out of Sonotube scraps, again. I primed, painted in a metallic purple and added gold Dresden detailing to match his bed.

Floor Shelf Back

Floor Shelf Front

Wall and Floor Shelf Primed

Wall and Floor Shelf Painted and Trimmed

I let Rozario go through my stash and take anything he liked. I also made him some board games and books. A special ~Thank You~ to Johnny's momma and to Birgit for passing so many of these great minis on to me. I will treasure them and make sure they are put into use, eventually! Here's what we made, gathered and spruced up in Rozario's favorite colors...

Toys

Books~Games~Family Photo

Board Game Printies

Rozario also asked to have a photo of his heroes, the dragons Draco and Tschang, to hang above his bed. He wants to be as honorable and as powerful as they are when he grows up. And if he feels like misbehaving, the photo reminds him to expect a little visit and some words of... encouragement from the pair.

And then Rozario and I got to load his shelves! We had a ball! By the time I got the camera, Rozario had, eh hem, "adjusted" some things. 😊 He is so excited about his new toys and his bedroom!!! If you've never seen a fire breathing dragon blow bubblegum bubbles, let me tell ya - it's a sight to see! We had to make an "outside only" rule for everyone's safety.

And here is the furnished nook...

And here are Roz's finished bedroom elements together...

And placed in her room. She hung framed photos here and there of Fluby, Rosey, Rozario and herself.

And with all the lights on...

It was a lot of work to get here, but finally, FINALLY! Rosalinda and Rozario will get to enjoy a little R&R in their new bedroom! I can't tell you how great that makes me feel!

They love their new spaces, and for the first time, maybe ever, Rozario didn't complain about bedtime!

If you have been keeping track, my friends, that leaves only the parlor to finish in the trunkhouse! Then it's back to work on the treehouse part of this project. Wayne and the girls have been so patient! But with the leaves rapidly falling, the need for indoor living space is becoming urgent! No time to stop and celebrate the trunkhouse progress yet. There's still so much more to do!

xo xo,

Jodi

Fit For A Queen Continued...

By royal decree I have finished the final bed for the treehouse, my friends! Now Roz can call it a knight! 🤣 Yes, I often laugh at my own jokes... In all seriousness, it feels like real progress!

 When last I posted about Roz's bed, before I switched to the other treehouse occupants' beds, I left off showing you a photo of the white primer coat. It was pretty just like that, but it wasn't Roz.

So, the next step was to paint it a custom mixed lilac shade followed by a glazing with a darker shade of purple. Roz just loves how the glaze coat makes the detailing stand out. It is really easy to achieve: just mix a ratio of about 25% contrasting paint color with 75% satin glaze. Brush on and into the crevasses, then dab away any excess with paper towel. Stippling also creates a wonderful texture with the right piece, especially rusty things.

With the bed frame itself completed, I could finally explore the bed style ideas I've pondered for months. There were so many that I couldn't incorporate them all into one bed! Luckily, Roz's requirements narrowed them down for me. She said it had to be very feminine, very frilly, adorned with loads of flowers and yet be as plush as a cloud. Being as practical as she is magical, her final caveat was that it would also need to be very functional. After all, what good is a beautiful bed if you can't be comfortable in it? A Fairy Beary Godmother, whose job it is to grant wishes, should have her own wishes granted, when possible, don't you think? I set out to check off every detail.

First, I built a frame to support a fabric dust ruffle with an overlay of 5/8" lilac lace. This would attach under the bed frame and add stability, as well as look attractive. The fabric is glued onto a strip of cardstock, then glued to the basswood frame. Then the lace is glued on top of that.

I built a matching canopy frame and a canopy top made from fabric covered cardstock. I used DMC floss to blend the seam where the canopy frame met the cardstock canopy top. 

I'd say those elements went a long way in achieving the "feminine" and "frilly" parts for Roz!

Now for the "cloud" part! I found this video on how to make fitted crib sheets and thought I could adopt it for a mini bed. I cut the fabric for both the fitted and the top sheet from some nearly sheer quilting cotton. Thanks to the tip Shannon left in last post's comments, next time I sew fabric this thin I will try using tear away interfacing.

I won't bore you with many details of my process, and who am I to give a sewing tutorial, but the video was enough to help me make Roz's fitted sheet. It is basically just cutting the corners out and stitching them together. I took photos to share, though.

I actually bought 1/4" elastic to sew into the fitted sheet, but decided it would only add unnecessary bulk under the mattress (or maybe I just chickened out). Instead, I tacked the fitted sheet down with Tacky Wax. This leaves it removable if I ever want to make different sheets.

Viola! It fits!

And it looks nice on the bed! Yippee! I hope this counts towards the "loaded with flowers" part!

Here is the rest of the bedding I sewed: A top sheet (with wonky stitching thanks to it catching on the feeder feet (again need interfacing!), two bed pillows (using the same ticking fabric as the mattress), a pillowcase that matches the sheets, a pillowcase that matches the duvet, and a reversible duvet that I've lined with tin foil so that I can arrange the bedding if the story calls for it. The dark purple thread is one of two choices I had in my stash. Being a novice, it did not occur to me ahead of time to have other purple thread options. I should have made a different thread choice but... hindsight! I am satisfactorily happy with my efforts.

I didn't end up liking the bed with both pillows for the photos. Roz can decide how she likes it for her purposes. The little crochet pillow was an Etsy purchase. You'll see later that I added a homemade tassel to it and a couple to the canopy. The bed looks pretty comfy, so that takes care of the "cloud" part!

Now for the "adorned with loads of flowers" part.  I didn't have any more purple mulberry rose buds, so I decided to dye some white ones myself. Using a couple purple alcohol ink shades and blending solution, I mixed four varying shades of purple to dye the rose buds. I mixed the color in a plastic condiment cup, dipped a paintbrush in and then touched it to the flower. The bud drank it up and the ink dried quite nicely. I dyed and used 99 buds on the bedposts. For the leaves, I used a mini leaf punch and leftover paper from flower kits that I've saved up. I dyed them with a variety of shades of green alcohol ink. You can also use rice, silk or tissue paper. I don't know how many leaves I used, but it was A LOT! Because I was listening to The Covenant Of Water on audiobook and got lost in the tale, the time sailed by.

And here is the "adorned with loads of flowers" aspect that Roz asked for.

With the pillows...

And finally but most importantly, what does Roz think? Is it fit for a queen? Or better yet a Fairy Beary Godmother? Roz thinks it looks too perfect to pass up! She's taking her wonderful new Little Women book from Deborah's Etsy shop, climbing in and reading until she drifts off to sleep...

Sweet dreams, Roz!

But wait! Aren't I missing something on Roz's list? Yes! the "functional" part! Not to worry - Next week I hope to have Roz and Rozario's bedroom completely furnished and decorated. Then I'll share how things function. 

Until then, keep peace in your prayers, my friends!

xo xo,

Jodi

“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.”
― Alice Walker, The Color Purple