holding stuff and sweet, sweet memories. a repurposed bench story

Five glorious years ago, Arnaud and I were married under our maple tree in our very own back yard with all of our closest friends and family members.  It was a hot, hot day in July and quite possibly the most fun I've had in all my life.  We've since moved away from our home and garden where we were married, but with us, we took some very tangible wedding mementos.  This shelf in my daughter, Mila's room was built into a tier with three of the very benches some our guests sat on on that special day.  We did paint them white-ish and when we tiered them, we made sure we used brackets to stack them and bolted them to the wall (remember, we have busy toddlers). 

Like with many little girls and their rooms, this shelf is revolving, evolving and in constant state of re-arrangement.  Today, on the very top, is one of my favorite pictures in the whole wide world of one of my favorite women in the whole wide world, my late grandma, Colleen.  She loved to ride horses when she was young girl and it has been said that her father was a real cowboy on a ranch in South Dakota.  I should find those pictures too.  They are awesome.  Grandma was a woman's woman and loved spending time with the girls in our family.  She never was able to meet Mila, but I love that Mila has a picture of her very own riding a horse (above right) and on her little bed, is a beautiful quilt that Grandma made. 

Whether it's photos, books, handmade dolls, cardboard fish tanks (rainy day project) Babushka dolls from Czech Republic, or eventually "teenie bopper stuff", I love that Mila's room is super fun for her and sweetly sentimental for me.

The fruit crate (pictured at top of post) was found in the garage of our new home.  I cleaned it up and put pads underneath and voila, a toy box for Mila.  We were lucky enough to acquire eight different crates, all varying sizes and styles and some having an awesome "American Explosives" logo on them.  Those are in Remi's room holding his dinosaurs.  I'm totally inspired to make one of those cool rolling crate shelves from them like Alex & Carla did on Hammers and High Heels.  Now if only I had their skillsaw saw skills!  Tounge twister!