Creativity

This boy has a big head (just like his daddy… ahem :-p)!

He couldn’t wear the newborn hats in the hospital.
I have exactly 3 hats that sort of fit him.
So when we ran out to Target with a gift card to spend, I looked to get him a hat.

Apparently hats at Target only come in two sizes: Newborn and 12-18 months.

Disappointing, but crafting inspiring.

Meet Sedryn’s new hat made from Daddy’s old shirt (with enough to make a few more) and a bit of ribbing.   I used this free pattern from Sew Liberated.
Perfection.

And, oh my goodness!  Is this boy getting chubby or what?!  I might actually have a baby with rolls since the girls never did chunk out!

Little One’s Nursery is finally finished!  Except for a broken drawer slide that we’re getting fixed. 🙁  But since Little One could come any day now, I thought I’d go ahead and blog about the space.  My original design board can be seen here and I’m super excited about how that little design board poured creativity into this space 🙂

I’m very proud of the handmade love in this room and would love to tell you about each little element in detail.  But if you’re not so detail oriented you can just skip reading the following section and enjoy the photos.  It won’t hurt my feelings 🙂

Curtains

I ended up choosing Premier Prints ZigZag in Village Blue for the curtain fabric. It did seem a little more gender neutral than my other option and I really love the zigzag effect.  I’m actually wishing the window in my bedroom was the same size so I could inherit them when Little One upgrades to a big kid room.

The curtains are unlined with tab tops. Basically it’s just a simple rectangle with hems: totally my type of mindless sewing project 🙂

One of our favorite little touches was finding this nifty bird curtain rod at one of the local home improvement stores (Lowes, I think?).  I’m pretty sure that all bedrooms will have this rod before we’re finished decorating.

Wingback Chair and Accessories

Our neighbor gave us this wingback chair when they bought new furniture.  There was nothing wrong with the piece structurally and it’s actually a decent solid color blue with some fading.  But we had no place where it truly fit in, and I wasn’t a fan of the formal look that wingback chairs have.

And then one day I stumbled onto this video tutorial series on Slipcovering a Wingback chair from Miss Mustard Seed.  Perfect!  I was super intimidated by the whole process of slipcovering and I have been for years.  My furniture is all mis-mosh side of the road finds and I’ve wanted to make it match, but the price of slipcovers and the scariness of messing up all that expensive fabric scared me!  But for this chair, I thought that giving it a try with about $25 worth of drop cloth was totally worth it.

To say I’m actually surprised by how easy this was is an understatement.  It was a pretty intense project with scraps and bits and pins and piping everywhere, but it wasn’t hard.  And even though it’s nowhere near perfect, I’m totally ready to jump into slipcovering my other furniture…. once life settles down a bit. 😉

Pillows

I wanted some pillows to go with the chair both to use my favorite accent fabric, Premier Prints Hooty Owl Village Blue,  and also to be able to give some support to my lower back while nursing.  Both square pillow forms were given to us with a couch from the same generous neighbor as the wing back chair. They’re simple envelop style covers with leftover piping from the wingback chair.

The roll pillow is actually a rectangle form that I stuffed into a round pillow. I made that pillow by cutting a rectangle from the leftover zigzag fabric, sewing it into a cylinder while leaving a hole for stuffing in the form, and then gathering both ends.  It’s not exactly what I envisioned, but I does provide ample lower back support!

Lamp 

 
I hate turning on the big light to nurse, so we got this little lamp.  I simply painted it Sherwin Williams Morning Fog and ModPodged some cut out owls on it.  The side table is actually a patio table that we’ve had for years.  Simple, and serves it’s purpose 🙂


Dresser and Accessories
Oh, we wanted to build a dresser so badly for this room!  We wanted to give the baby a little heirloom piece to pass down.  But when we crunched numbers and found out that lumber alone would cost about $100 and we’d still need a few tools, paint, and stain… sight.  We ended up getting this dresser off Craigslist.  (Just a side note: dresser shopping on Craigslist when your budget is $50 or under is so frustrating!  No one gets back to you if they’ve already sold the dresser.)

This dresser actually wasn’t terribly bad to begin with.  It had lots of dings and scratches (character), but was of a uniform color, had all of it’s knobs, and had good bones. I especially liked the little etching on the front.  It looks like tree leaves to me.  The only real problem was one beat up drawer slide that we’re getting replaced: hence, the currently missing drawer 😉  Not bad for $40!

We took her outside and stripped the top of stain. Derek and I actually really enjoyed that process.  It was smelly… but we had a blast destroying something to make it better.  After stripping, we primed and painted the bottom and drawer fronts.  The final color is Sherwin Williams Morning Fog.  It’s a really great neutral gray.  Then, I stained and polyurethane-ed the top with an Antique Walnut Stain (I got it at walmart… too lazy to go look at it for the name brand).  Finally, I took a little brush and with some blue acrylic mixed with Morning Fog, I highlighted the fun etching. 

Changing Pad Cover

When I saw this fabric, I knew it belonged in this room!  It’s Wrenly Mama Birds by Valorie Wells, and it had a Mama bird with three little babies in parts.  This is actually the only piece leftover from the quilt backing and it was the perfect size to cover this little changing pad.  I just rounded the rectangle, sewed a casing along the edges, and threaded through some elastic.  Easy 🙂

Fabric Basket

I absolutely love the fabric basket in the girls room.  It was purchased, but it’s the perfect thing to hold wipes and creams.  I still had owl and zigzag scraps left, so I gave I decided to make one.  I loosely followed this tutorial and love how it came out!  It’s a little floppy, but it’ll serve it’s purpose and, unlike the girl’s basket, it’s completely washable when that inevitable ‘accident’ happens!

Owl Bird Art

Sadly, the lovely Owl and Birch Tree vinyl art was waaaaay outside of our budget.  We couldn’t make it work.  So I had to get creative with making wall art.  The Owls and zigzags here are simply adhered to scrap plywood cut to size by my sweet husband.  A few picture frame hangers later and we had some art!

Owl Book

 
My sweet friend Mandy made this with my final owl fabric scraps.  It’s filled with notes and prayers from the ladies who attended my shower for Little One.  It’s it such a sweet idea?!


Owl Print

Mandy also commissioned a friend to make this adorable Owl print for the nursery.  All those finger print leaves belong to people who love and are praying for Little One.  Can you tell Mandy totally spoiled me and Little One at the shower?!



Crib and Accessories
Like I mentioned in my design post, we have a borrowed Ikea Crib.  It seems a little longer than American cribs and the mattress is definitely longer.  If you get one of these, beware!, jersey sheets are the the only thing that will fit!  If it weren’t a borrowed crib… I probably would have painted it a fun color… 😉

Little Owl

Another friend at the shower, Heather, made this little guy!  Isn’t he adorable? The girls are in love with him!

Quilt

 I initially thought I’d use the Hooty Owls, but since it’s home decorator fabric, it’s a little rough for a quilt.  After I stumbled on Valorie Wells’ Wrenly line, I knew that I needed to use that for my quilt! I grabbed a fat quarter set of cobalt, and a couple yards of Mama Birds for the backing and got to work.

I used a pretty simple pattern from Sew4Home, and I pretty much copied their quilting lines.  This quilt top came together in about 3 hours and I think the whole quilt only took about 6-7 with binding (as usual) being the hardest part.  I pieced all my leftovers from the fat quarters onto the back to add a little interest. 🙂

Tiny Rocker

This was another amazing gift from my neighbors.  It’s so adorable.

Bird Mobile

I had some small scraps left from the fat quarters and I was set on making this bird mobile.  I had wanted to do it for the girls. Although the vinyl art was not in our budget, a package of stuffing and a couple packages of hooks were totally in the budget.  I didn’t have anything to lose except $10.  So I went for it.  And I love it.  Hearing the girls shriek, “Burd! Burd!” makes it totally worth it!

Outlet Covers

Once we painted the room in Sherwin Williams Lemon Meringue, it became very apparent that the black plastic outlet covers were not going to match very well.  Since we’d already spent a lot of money on this room, I was feeling too cheap to buy new covers. I started by attempting to paint them… but the paint just peeled right off… So I researched on the web a little and learned I could ModPodge fabric onto them.  Brilliant!  They may be one of my favorite accidental details in the whole room 🙂