Crazy for sheets!

Recently Zoe has been asking for a "fort" in her room, which she shares with her sister. When I asked her what she meant she described a ladder to a room that was closed off, but had a window... or something like that. It's funny because their bed, which is now a trundle, used to be a loft. We chopped off all the legs when we moved here because we knew we would put up a ceiling fan, and you can't have a loft with a ceiling fan! Still, I'm glad we lowered the bed though, because they are still young, and couldn't be in their bedroom alone with the loft.

So, after giving it some thought I decided to install a canopy around the bed, to create a fort. This brings me to the title of my post - I am crazy for sheets! I get them on clearance, because they come in tons of colors and patterns and they can be a great no-sew project. Not that I have anything against sewing, it's just not one of my crafts right now.

Like the girls curtains, for instance, are the cutest purple floral flat sheets that I lined with white sheets. They even came with a ruffle on one side, which I used for the bottom of the curtains.

But back to the fort. So last night I went into Bed Bath & Beyond, looking for a work calendar on clearance for Andrew. All they had were like Hanna Montana and such, so I struck out in that department. Then I remembered I wanted to look for sheets for the canopy, and sure enough I got these huge sheets on clearance half off! I was so excited. They even had a huge decorative hem on one edge, just what I needed for the rod pocket. (All I had to do was make a small slit in the back on either end and voila! Instant curtains!)

So I went next door to Lowes, and found these fantastic curtain rod brackets. They are sold with rods or seperately, and as you can see they are quite different from the creasent shaped brackets for the wall. These brackets are ring shaped because they are meant to be hung from the ceiling. Perfect!

The whole thing went up in a flash, and you can imagine she shrieks of joy when Zoe saw the fort! Ashley was so taken back, all she could do was smile with her eyes all wide :-) We spent most of the day inside the fort. We almost finished the book we're reading, we played Miss Mary Mack, and checkers, we ate apple slices and had a grand old time. It's good to be kids... errr, I mean, an adult who thinks she's a kid :-)

One other side note: The curtains (sheets) really keep the heat in, something I'm really excited about as an added bonus. Ever since the girls started sharing a bed, we have struggled to keep Ashley warm, especially here with the dramatic temperature drop at night. She wont use a blanket of any kind, so we layer her in two sets of long johns, but even so, she sometimes wakes up because she's cold. It dawned on me tonight that before they had heat, this is what people did! They wrapped their bed in curtains! I can see why - it's amazing how it holds the heat!