dance – Flipping Tourist

Heath and I created a baby Ballerina. So now we’ve gone and done what every obsessed dance parent would do:

We built a Ballet Barre.

And now I will play ‘Choreographer’ and teach you to do it too.

For the love of dance. — **My friend said to me: “*Don’t ever let her loose that way she is looking at herself*“. May we all raise confident kids!**

At the age of two we thought it would be so fun to sign our daughter up for the local dance studio in town. Having seen a few episodes of TLC’s Dance Moms and knowing competition is stiff for these tiny dancers, we knew it was time to take her dancing to the next level. Sure we had wood floors installed at home (read: lots of professional grade practice area), but we knew her foundation in ballet was critical. And because her passion for dance was strong, we wanted our 2-year old daughter to know she could practice 24 hours a day. This commitment made it easy to select her bedroom as the prime location for installing her personal ballet barre!

Ok, ok. Maybe the above paragraph is laden with sarcasm. If you didn’t pick up on that, I do hope you can agree how stinking cute it is for a little girl to have her very own ballet barre in her room. And I sure hope you know how! much! fun! little kids have dancing in the mirror at this age. They are constantly impressed and filled with adoration for themselves. May that confidence never cease!

So whether you have the future Swan Lake lead in your house, or you just love the idea of giving more opportunities for your child and her friends to have creative dance and play, we have the quick (and inexpensive!) steps for you to do this in your own home!

HARDWARE YOU WILL NEED:

Handrail Bracket (two) Linked here
1-3/8 inch Hardwood Dowel (cut to length desired. Ours is 40 inches in length. Linked here
Mirror (you can be as creative as you like, but be certain it will fit behind and in between the two handrail brackets.
Screwdriver (we use a cordless electric screwdriver because we hate to bust a sweat.)

THAT IS IT PEOPLE!!! That is all you need!

(hello, Saturday morning project!)

INSTRUCTIONS FOR INSTALLATION:

Sink one handrail bracket into a stud at desired height. (using this stud finder here can be very helpful.)
Making ‘dad style’ jokes about ‘studs’: optional
32 inches from your first handrail is where you should find another stud (studs are always set every 16″ unless they had to alter for a various wall).
For height placement measure where your ballerina wants it. Ours is certainly not set to the ‘industry standard’. Don’t tell .
If you are doing a longer ballet barre than we did, you could space the handrails further apart…using the 16″ rule again to make installation safe and easy. But keep in mind that you’ll need a handrail bracket at least every 48″, so if you are doing an incredibly long ballet bar, you may need multiple handrail brackets.
And for the Grande Finale: Hang mirror on the center (by placing our handrails 32″ apart, this ensured that we would have a stud to hang the mirror on smack dab in the middle! #KISS method: Keep it simple studs.
Finally, prepare yourself to have the lead dancer in the next recital (or at least just to up the fun quotient in your home)!

Handrails secured to studs 32" apart. — **Ballet bar Step One. Handrails set 32″ apart…securely attached to studs!**

Securing the wooden dowel to handrails. — **Place the pre-cut 1-3/8 inch wooden dowel and secure to handrails.**

Little hands can even help — Love a project so quick and easy that even the toddler feels like she can help. (as opposed to many other times when yelling might come into play…what’s the ballet term for ‘let daddy finish’?)

Measuring up to be a great ballerina — **Measure twice. Cut once. Rules to live by for a boss baby ballerina!**

Double check to see it is all secure — **Once all is set perfectly in place. Double check that everything is tight and secure. If your kids are like mine, their strength is unbelievable.**

Phoebe Fawn and her first pair of ballet shoes. — **The Grande Finale: Add a few little details because this is decorative too. I added her first pair of ballet shoes and her favorite dolly, Phoebe Fawn from Hazel Village.**

Encouraging and inspiring dance. — **Sometimes her little dance space inspires creative movement…..**

makeup mischief — And sometimes it inspires her to take a little too much creative liberties! Either way…we love this space so much we’ve created it in TWO homes now. Shall we call this photo the official ‘Tableau’ (some sort of Ballet term that means it depicts the entire play..and I’d say this photo does indeed depict our life!)

Please scroll down to the comments to let me know if there are other projects you want details on…or share photos of your tiny dancer! Doesn’t get much cuter than seeing kids decked out in their dance attire!