Early Christmas!

I've been searching for toy boxes for several months now. Let's face it, all children must have a toy box! Unfortunately, I'm not the person that is okay with toys strewn all over my house, taking up space in every room, occupying valuable floor space, etc. While I was doing a search I found a blog from a very crafty mother who decided a home made toy box was the way to go. After begging my father in law/husband to build one, they finally said yes :) (really my father in law loved the opportunity do get out of doing house work). I gave him the measurements and the blog link of what I wanted. I will admit to totally stealing this mom's idea, but hey, from the pictures below, I know you'll want to steal her idea as well.

The measurements are 2 feet wide by 3 feed long, yep, HUGE! What can I say, Simon has LOTS of toys! After it was built, I decided I wanted to paint it blue. Here it is sitting in my kitchen floor after I painted:

 

After the paint job was done, I had a friend of mine come over to do a little stenciling for me. The pattern was printed online and she basically just traced it on to the toy box. After the tracing was finished I went in for the hard part - painting the lines. Let's just say I have the most unsteady hand! While I was painting it looked terrible. I was quite worried. However, here is the final result:

 I could not be more pleased with this! It turned out amazingly beautiful and now there is one place for all those toys that are constantly scattered amongst my small but cozy house.

Thank you to all who helped make this possible: My father in law for building this and might I add he kilz'd it, my friend from work who stenciled this like a pro, and for my sweet husband for lifting and carrying this thing all over our house. I'm happy, Si seemed to love it, and now we have something to pass on from generation to generation...unless the zombie apocalypse happens and we have to use it to stay warm...