When Your Teen Needs a Bit of a Boost…..

Confidence seems to be a big issue during these teen years as the older ones try to figure out the world around them and their place in it.  At one time or another each of my teens have needed something more than just our day to day parenting.  Something that shows them we understand their struggles, something just for them which shows them just how much we love them and just how special they are to us.  I think as long as our children know they have a soft and loving place to retreat to they are better able to cope with all the teen years throw at them.

And it was with this goal that I had begun plotting and planning a very personal ‘love gift’ for our eldest twin, who asks for so little and gives so much.  You may have noticed the colossal mess in which she had been creating just recently.  Let me remind you, just in case you missed it:

Lillie is by far our messiest child.  She is like me – creative and completely unaware of her surroundings!  I feel so sorry for her twin who, in contrast, is our tidiest and most organised child, who has an outfit for every day, makes herself get up early every morning, does all her chores before anyone else has even made it down the stairs…well, you get the picture.  Charlotte is the polar opposite of Lillie in the tidiness and organised arena.  I think she must make herself ignore the heap of Lillie’s side of the room, whilst managing to keep hers tidy and organised.  Anyway, back to the surprise.  Gary and I had decided to give her her very own crafting corner in her room.

So…the first thing I did was tidy Lil’s side.  Gary and I made the decision to miss church and enlisted the help of the little ones (the older ones were already at church so knew nothing about our plans).  I did a quick tidy whilst Gary collected all the things we had been storing at Granny’s for the past couple of weeks (which the girls knew nothing about):

 

You can see the area in the top photo which we planned on transforming.  The first thing Gary did was add a chip board top to the black board table we had used with the little ones ages ago, thus increasing its size to fit the corner perfectly:

I then covered it with some purple polka dot plastic fabric:

I had found this gorgeous jewellery cabinet which I thought she could organise all the jewellery she wished to sell in, so Gary got busy putting that up, adding some of Lillie’s art work (helpfully in purple also).  The wording on her art reads ‘Don’t compare your life to anyone else, God’s plan for you is wonderfully unique’:

He added a new wall lamp, and I covered one of our dining room chairs and an old sewing box/footstool of my mum’s:

and we placed all the gifts we had bought her (an art metal clay kit, some metal clay, a book about metal clay, some tools and a ring sizer):

Gary heard them coming back from church (timed perfectly due to some brotherly slyness – Thomas knew all about the surprise), and went down to meet them at the door.  He pretended to be cross at Lillie and the state of her bedroom, sending her upstairs to clean it.  I was upstairs lying on her bed to take photos:

She had absolutely no idea:

and was just a little bit excited:

and then overwhelmed, bursting into tears:

She gave me a huge bear hug declaring that she couldn’t believe we had done this all for her, before collapsing on the floor:

But before long she pulled herself up and got stuck in:

and that bedroom I had tidied up?  Well that lasted as long as it took her to make her first ring:

She loved it all, just a little bit 😉

And her cabinet is filling up:

One very happy girl, in deed <3

Tomorrow we will be finishing up her surprise with a visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum to look at their collection of jewellery through the ages, just me and my girl…after which we shall go out to lunch before returning home to greet her grandparents who will be arriving from Northern Ireland.