Nursery

I'm excited to share pictures of Evelyn's nursery (even though most of you have seen them on Facebook already). I absolutely loved working on putting the nursery together and was not the least bit sad to see my craft room dismantled. We were able to move my sewing and crafting things to one of the guest rooms and it's working out really well.

Before: Set up as my craft room

Looking into the nursery

Crib and alphabet wall

Close up of crib bedding

Close up of alphabet wall

Glider, dresser, and changing table cross from crib

The alphabet wall was my inspiration for the nursery. I had seen different ideas floating around on Pinterest and thought it was right up my alley. I enjoyed collecting the letters and decorating them. I think Chris got a little annoyed with me always needing to look at every home decor/craft store we went into. I decorated the letters with paint, yarn, fabric, felt, rhinestones, glitter, vinyl, feathers, buttons, scrapbook paper, and a few other crafty supplies. It was a labor of love, but I loved it!

Nursery Details:

Wall color: Urban Sunrise by Valspar

Crib and dresser: Dakota by Suite Bebe (Baby Depot at Burlington)

Glider: Savvy (Buy Buy Baby)

Crib skirt and curtain material: Premier Prints from Fabric.com

Sheet: Pottery Barn

Latest from my craft room

I've been spending a lot of time in my craft room lately, which I love! Baby gifts for my nephew due in September has been the focus of my attention, among a slew of other random projects. I wasn't sure that sewing for a baby boy would be as fun as it is for baby girls, but I was wrong! I had to resist the urge to make ruffles and bows, but I enjoyed finding new ideas. I've included links to the tutorials I used for most of the items. I wish I could say I came up with these ideas on my own, but the truth is that I'm just really good at copying other peoples' ideas. :)

Onesies and mittens

Tummy time mat with loops for toys - - idea from here

Door muffler and taggie

Picture of how the door muffler is used

Burp cloths

Pee pee teepees

Changing mat, wipe case, carrier

Nursing cover

Quilt

Baby Gifts

As soon as I found out my best friend was having a baby, my mind started turning with ideas of all the things I could make for this little one. Of course, I had to wait until she found out she was having a GIRL until I could get started. I loved quilting, sewing, and crafting for this little one. Her momma is extra special to me and Baby P already has a special place in my heart.

The quilt was the first thing done. It was definitely a labor of love, but so much fun. It was my first experience quilting, so I did a lot of learning along the way. This series of tutorials by Diary of a Quilter was incredibly helpful! I would have been completely lost without it and the YouTube videos I watched. Despite the many mistakes and imperfections, I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

I made a Onesie Dress with a tutorial from Barefoot in the Kitchen. I love how it turned out!

My absolute favorite gift I made was this appliqued owl onesie. I was so in love with it when I was finished that I wanted to keep it! I had never done applique before, so it was a learning experience. It took quite a while and resulted in a few injuries, but I finished victorious. I used this printable owl pattern.

Apparently tag blankets (or taggies) are all the rave lately. I see them all over the place. I think they're great for sensory integration for the little ones. I used some scraps and my ridiculous ribbon supply to put one together for Baby P.


Every new momma needs a good nursing cover and burp cloths! This nursing cover from Sew Much Ado is my favorite to make. Obviously I don't have any experience using it to know how well it works, but it sure is cute! Burp cloths made from cloth diapers and a flannel insert are also a favorite of mine to make for new moms.

What's a little girl to do without some cute bows for her hair?!? I made a couple to go with the onesie dress and the owl onesie, plus a few extras. I found this collection of 40 hairbow tutorials, which was amazing and super helpful.

Finally, I made a little wall hanging for the nursery. Brittney's mom and Ryan's mom sang this song to them when they were both babies and I'm sure Baby P will fall asleep to it every night too. I used my Silhouette for the letters.

Craft Room Closeups

As I was planning my craft room, I wanted to do something cute, practical, and cheap. With the hopes that it will eventually be turned into a nursery, I didn't want to spend a lot of money fixing it all up for my crafting. I feel like I accomplished this goal pretty well. Of course, I always spend more money than I was planning!

I already posted about the embroidery hoop wall. Above my sewing area, I wanted to do something that would provide storage along with being visually appealing. I bought unfinished wood boxes at Michael's and picked out paint colors to match the fabric in the embroidery hoops. I used scrapbook paper on the bottom of the boxes and covered it with a few good coats of Mod Podge. I was thankful for Chris' help with hanging the boxes. I LOVE how they turned out! They're great to hold some of my sewing and crafting supplies.

I also needed an area by my desk to hold my countless lists and notes. I found a cork board on sale at Micheal's for about $3 and painted the trim on it to match the boxes. I also bought a small pizza pan at Dollar Tree and spray painted it for a magnet board. I had put together a dry erase board using a picture frame, but it broke in the process of hanging it up. So, I just stuck with the magnet and cork boards.

I've seen this idea floating around Pinterest using a picture frame and wire to display pictures. I love the shabby chic look so this was right up my alley! I was super excited to find a picture from in the clearance/damaged section at Michael's. It didn't have the glass in it (which I didn't need anyway), so it was marked down from $40 to $10. I spray painted it the same color as the magnet board, fastened some wire to the back, and displayed some pictures with adorable clothespins I found in the dollar bin at Michael's.

One other touch of my room that I love is this wall hanging. It was given to me as a gift at the end of my first (and only) year teaching in Illinois. A parent of one of my students made it for me. I absolutely love it!

The poem reads:

The Choice

"You could have chose to teach, where the grades are A-B-C's.
Instead your students make their marks in measured IEP's.

You could be simply standing in front of your classroom all day long,
Instead you're bending, stretching, lifting, while trying to stay strong.

You could have conversations with your students, deep in thought,
Instead you praise the effort of one tiny little grunt.

You may not think I noticed, that you could have had much more,
That you could have chose a different path, a different classroom door.

But you chose to be with us, picked the hardest job to do,
To make a difference in the lives of kids who cannot choose.

Words cannot come out to tell you how much that means to me,
My eyes try to convey the thoughts of how it feels to see.

How I wish that I was able to come to you and say,
How hard it will be to leave you, to grow up, and be on my way.

If only you could hear the gratitude spoken by my own voice...
Instead, just know how much I love you for making this choice."

By Sherry Schultz

I love it because it perfectly describes the wonderful, life-changing year I had teaching students with severe disabilities. It's a great reminder and inspiration to me!

Craft Room

The craft room is mostly put together and ready to be used! I am really liking the way it turned out. It's cute, inspirational, functional, and didn't cost a fortune to decorate! There are still a few small things that need to be done, but those will happen with time.

Looking into the room from the door.

Extra twin bed and hutch for fabric storage.

Closer look at sewing area...I will do a post about the boxes on the wall soon.

Inside of hutch with fabric storage. I need to organize this a little better and find a better storage solution for all the ribbon on the top shelf.

Book shelf on the wall coming into the room (you can see the door on the right side of the picture). I need to find some fabric to put in the window.

Stay tuned for more detailed posts about the projects I did around the room and my favorite touches!

Now I'm off to do some sewing!

Touches to the craft room

I've slowly been adding little touches to my craft room. I came across this idea on Pinterest. Now, I can't seem to link it back to the rightful owner. So I'm stealing someone's idea without giving them credit!


I love how this turned out! It adds just a little extra pop and interest above the bed. This was such an easy and relatively inexpensive project. All of the supplies came from my favorite place, Hobby Lobby. The total for all the supplies was around $25, but that included a lot of extra fabric for future projects. The hardest part of the whole deal was getting it hung up on the wall in a manner that looked appealing to the eye, but not too perfect.

I'm linking this project up to the Pinterest Partayy going on over at What the Graham?!, Baby Gator Den, Design Build Love, Hernando House, Merrypad, and The Stucco Bungalow. Head on over to these great bloggers to see other awesome projects inspired by Pinterest!

Craft Room Sneak Peek

My craft room has gone from this:


to this:


I still have a lot more organizing, decorating, and sprucing up to do before I do a big reveal. Stay tuned!

Visiting with Friends

My good friend from college came to visit last week. It was so much fun to be able to visit, spend time together, and enjoy the little things in life. Shelly is great to just have fun with anything she is doing. We don't leave super exciting lives, so I get a little concerned when we have company. I had a lot of fun and Shelly didn't seem bored out of her mind.

After I picked her up from the airport on Wednesday, we spent some time at the Abilene Zoo. I love our zoo! It is small, but they have a lot of different animals. You can also get really close to the animals. We had a great time walking around, watching the animals, and laughing together. After the zoo we had a yummy lunch at Jason's Deli, then picked up some groceries. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening hanging out at the house.

Thursday we had to run to town for some errands and also stopped by Hobby Lobby. I had a craft project in mind and needed to get some supplies. Shelly was going to a costume party over the weekend and wanted to make a costume, so we got supplies for her too.


We spent the afternoon working on her costume. We put our minds together to come up with a plan. Then we got busy cutting the fabric, sewing, altering, cutting some more, until we were finally happy.

A few hours later....Shelly is transformed into Pocahontas!

Shelly and I took a break from crafting to make our fried chicken supper. She was a great help and really made the time in the kitchen so much fun!

After supper, we got to work on my project. I saw this idea on Pinterest a few weeks ago and was excited to try it out.

Old tie+beads=new necklace

The rest of the evening was spent watching the intense, nerve-wracking, dramatic 6th game of the World Series.

Shelly had to leave on Friday morning. I was sad to have her leave, but very thankful for our time together!

When the husband is away...

...the wife gets to play....with craft projects, that is.

Chris was gone on a preaching trip a few weekends ago and I needed something to keep me entertained. This mirror was hanging in our office and I had been wanting to do something with it for quite some time.

Here's how it started:


Thankfully the mirror part came out so I didn't have to worry about covering and taping it. I spray painted the wood black. I am a horrible spray painter and the end result isn't great. I really need to go back and put another coat of black. Perhaps I'll get back around to that one day.

In between coats of spray paint, I got the mirror cleaned up and ready to go. I cut the "Welcome" out of black vinyl using my Silhouette. Adhering it to the mirror was a bit tricky to do as a one-man show. I did my best, but it still ended up a little crooked. As I mentioned in this post, I have trouble with straight lines.



Here is the finished product hanging on the wall.


I really like how it turned out...other than the letters being crooked and needing another coat of paint. I'm planning to fix those things soon. It also needs to be hung in a different place. Where it's hanging now is in front of the door, but it's hanging kind of low. When you walk in the door, you see the reflection of your waist down to your feet. Not all that helpful!

Card Making

One of my latest endeavors is attempting to make cards. I'm still learning how to use my Silhouette SD to do all kinds of neat things. This includes learning how to use it to make cards. I really enjoy thinking of ideas, figuring out how to get the Silhouette to do what I want (well, that's not always fun), working to put it all together, and seeing the end result. The best part about this crafty hobby is that a card can be made in one sitting. I have a little bit of a problem with attention and keeping focused on one task for very long. So, a project that can be done from start to finish in one time block is perfect!

Here are a few of the cards I've made recently:



Perhaps I need to try something with colors other than purple and green?

DIY Laundry Detergent

Thanks to my obsession with Pinterest, I recently discovered a tutorial for making your own liquid laundry detergent. I'm all about trying homemade recipes, learning new skills, and saving a penny, so I wanted to give this a shot. We go through tons of laundry detergent and the price always kills me. This gave me extra momentum to try this.

After checking out the tutorial, I set out to gather my supplies. Here's what I needed:

I had the bar of soap on hand, so all I had to buy was the Borax and Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soap. Those were easily procured at Wal-mart, for less than $6. (Just a note here: I detest going to Wal-mart. However, this particular experience was evidence of a miracle. I was able to get from my car, pick up 3 items, through the check-out, and back to my car in 6 minutes!!! 6 minutes, folks! I'm telling you, if they still had that Supermarket Sweep show, I would definitely win!)

Anyway, back to making the laundry detergent. I decided that since I only had 2 small containers saved up, I would make 1/2 the batch that the tutorial makes. It was super easy. It took me about 25 minutes, not including letting the detergent cool before putting it in the bottles.

Detergent mixture cooling and waiting to go into the bottles.

All finished and ready to be used! (I had a blonde moment while making the detergent. The directions called for adding 2 gallons of water to the mixture to make 2 gallons of detergent. Well, I was only making 1/2 the batch, but my containers weren't 1/2 gallon each. Not thinking, I added 1 gallon of water anyway, thus it wouldn't all fit into the bottles. Duh!)

I used my detergent today to do 3 loads of laundry: towels, sheets, and a vintage tablecloth. I am quite impressed with how well it cleaned. The vintage tablecloth had some set-in coffee stains on it, but when it came out of the wash it was spotless! It took me a while to get over the fact that it doesn't have a strong scent. I loved the scent of the store-bought laundry detergent I usually use, so it was a bit of a shock when I pulled the clothes out of the wash and they didn't have that scent. They definitely smelled clean though!

Since I only used 1/2 cup each of the Borax and washing soap, I have plenty to make more batches. I'm going to keep track of how many loads this current batch does, so I can better gauge the savings. I think I'm definitely sold on it and can't wait to use it more!