With the passing of yet another Christmas, comes the obvious accumulation of yet more toys. Luckily, I did have the foresight a few days before Christmas to do a “toy cull”, where Addi had to select toys to give to children that weren’t getting any for Christmas.  As well as donating these to charity. I also pre-emptively went to Ikea and bought  new storage system.

With a new playroom being something of a novelty to both Addi and her baby sister Berkley, I am still trying to find the best storage solution for all the toys. We have some stairs leading to the ballpit that are hinged and these house all her barbies and teddys, but sadly our toy collection doesn’t stop there.

The Expedit shelving system is one of my favourites. Cheap, easy to assemble and holds a lot of stuff. I think in my lifetime I have bought then sold maybe 10 of these? I love them to bits…

So off to Ikea (3 trips later), I had the shelving unit and some 10+ little boxes to go in the little pigeon holes. The little boxes are fabulous and a steal, starting at just $6.95. For kids things you can’t go wrong. However, I couldn’t let my organisational OCD end there. I wanted the playroom to be accessible to all kids, but even more so, easy for ALL KIDS to clean. So, I got busy making picture tags to affix to the fabric boxes.

I made a tag template on my Mac and then ferreted on the Internet to cut and paste images of the toys for each box. I also typed the names of what goes in the boxes for mine (and hopefully hubby’s benefit). With the trusty laminating machine, I sealed the tags so hopefully they last a little longer.

The beauty of this system is the boxes can be placed on the floor individually, and as the toys grow, the tags can change. If they have the picture tags affixed to the front, kids of most ages can see the images of what goes in them and when it comes time to clean up, they can all pitch in! Ideally, I will eventually get myself a tagging gun (you know the ones that do the little plastic tags that go on garments in the shops), but for now I have used some cute, colourful bulldog clips I got from Officeworks.

If you are hoping to achieve something similar, you can get my PDF template for free here - downloadabletags - and go OTT with a little organisation at your place too!

If you haven’t heard, I am a little into my warehouse renovation at the moment. I am completely in love with industrial styling – always have been. Being able to do my dream home in this style is by far the most exciting project I have worked on to date.

Another thing I love is colour – paint, paper and splashes any way you can get it! One thing I have always wanted to create is a wall stencil, but being too stuck in a market of completing homes for sale has left me with my hands tied, and no canvas so to speak… Until now!

To start, I bought some stencils on eBay. The cheapest ones I could find set me back about $8 including postage, and were 120mm tall. I selected a saying that meant something to me, and also suited my space too – my girl’s playroom. I chose my favourite Dr Seuss quote.

Working out the general look, I chose which words went on which line, I wanted to work over three rows of text so I did have to do some math – lucky I was a bit of a smarty pants at school because that needed a little patience! I had to work out the width of each letter, including spacing and draw a mock up so I didn’t get it wrong when I put it on the wall…

I masked my rectangles and got painting. Working with Taubmans Endure Hi-C Red, I made them the height of the letter, plus and extra 10mm top and bottom (so 140mm total). I got a suitably sized roller and rolled the paint – 3 coats for good measure and let it dry.

To stencil, I went letter by letter, holding them up (I would wear disposable gloves) and use the spray paint of your choice to spray the words. Leave 10 mins in between each letter so they don’t smudge and be sure to press stencil tight against wall so no over-spray escapes… Also, spray a thin coverage – too thick and it will drip. Go line-by-line until you are done and… Viola, your own, affordable and personalised wall art.

Obviously, you can stick vinyl letters down and roller over them too then remove them so that bit remains the wall colour, but I love the look of the spray and think it is far more authentic, even if a little more fiddly.

I love to renovate and design. I love creating playful spaces. I love money, but we don’t have much in the way of surplus…

One thing I love to play with is paint. You can create so many different finishes and feels with a splash of colour, and this season it feels as though everyone is finally hearing what I have been doing for a while, splashing colour wherever I can.

Can’t afford wallpaper? Paint. Got a boring wall? Paint. Got a space you want to define? Paint. Want to give your place a new feel? Paint!

It really is the best tool for every renovator.

Here are some of my favourite projects I have created with a splash of colour, and as always the colours are thanks to the fabulous Taubmans.

In just one sleep we will be moving into my dream home – our warehouse!

It is by no means finished, hec, we don’t even have a kitchen… However, the girls have bedrooms and we have one almost completed bathroom.

The sun sets in 2 hours, we have no working lights there, there is only one door (the front one – none internal yet). The tiler ran out of tiles today and as yet there is no shower head. Thankfully (if things go our way) the toilet will get connected to the sewer in the morning.

Come rain, hail or shine, tomorrow is moving day. 10am the removalists arrive and it is on!

There is nothing like a final push to get things done and nothing quite like the mayhem of moving into a very incomplete home. In saying that, it is the excitement and the challenge that inspires me so… bring it on!