Bright and colorful nursery

I realize I've been a complete blogging slacker. I don't know why I thought I'd have more time for this being a stay at home mom but I definitely have less haha. I can't promise how often I will post but I have some fun posts to share (including this one) that I hope to get around to soon.

The nursery in our home is probably the most decorated and most complete of all the rooms. I had a vision for it and it came together just like I hoped... this room makes me so happy! I shared the painting of the aqua nursery here.

I didn't want a particular theme in the nursery and wanted it to be bright and colorful and happy. I knew I wanted animals in it but not all themed around one animal. After finding the crib skirt and curtain fabric everything came together to go along nicely with those. The source list for everything I can remember, is at the bottom.

To the right of the door when you enter is the diaper changing area and dresser with photo collage above it. It is a mix of photos, printables, a mirror and a wooden painted letter. In the corner is a small trash can and the cloth diaper pail

On the left wall after you enter is the cube organizer that contain toys, books and a few bins. Two of the bins serve as laundry hampers and the other two hold blankets, babywearing wraps and extra wet bags. The door on the right side of the cube shelving is the closet... redo here.

Two of my favorite things on these shelves are the Hobbes that Dexter confidently points to when you ask him "where's Hobbes?" and the Star Wars print which was the first thing Eric and I bought for baby at a vintage bi-annual market when I was pregnant. It says "Dad, you are my father".

The opposite wall of the entry door has the crib and glider recliner. I've always loved the vintage look of the jenny lind crib. I spent many many hours in that chair and it was totally worth every penny. Since it is microfiber it cleans easily which is important when you have a reflux baby :)  The flashcards and thumbprint frame with thumbprints from people at my showers are two of my favorite part of the nursery. I have always loved the look of hanging flashcards in a nursery and it was the perfect way to have animals without it being too themey.

The final wall to the right of the crib has two windows and a little side table next to the glider. It was the perfect size for my water and phone and any other essentials while nursing. It was originally pink and my parents painted it yellow for us. My rocking chair and teddy bear from when I was a child are also on this wall. I had planned to add pictures or something on the wall in between the windows but haven't yet.

Over a year later and I still love this room. Good thing since I go in here many times a day!


Sources
Dresser: Craigslist
Diaper organizer: Amazon
Changing pad: Amazon
Changing pad covers: made by my mom
Dr. Seuss print: free online
Mirror: Target
Wooden letter: Craft Cuts
Robot print: etsy
1 Samuel print: made by me in photoshop
Frames: Target and HomeGoods
Cubby Shelves: IKEA
Gray linen bins: Target
Alphabet box: HomeGoods
Sunshine canvas: HomeGoods
Ceramic A, Z blocks: made by my mom
Books: various
Clemson piggy bank: Clemson Variety and Frame Shop
Star Wars print: Sable and Gray
White noise machine: Amazon
Red rocking horse: Lake Norman Antique Mall
Nightlight moon: Amazon
Crane truck: IKEA
Shoes: made by my mom, HomeGoods
Little People blocks: consignment sale
Camera monitor: Amazon
Alphabet animal flashcards: etsy
Crib: Amazon
Crib sheet: made by my mom and I
Crib skirt: made by my mom and I
Glider recliner: Best Storytime
Side table: HomeGoods, paint color: BM Dalila
Lamp: Goodwill
Cork lamp shade: target, only in store
Gray plush rug: HomeGoods

DIY Food and Drink Label Stands

I first made these food label stands for my sister in laws Duck Baby Shower. I wanted a way to label the different dishes and have those label be up high enough to easily see. All the stands I looked at online were kind of pricey so after some brainstorming with my mom, this is what I ended up with.

Materials

-wooden pieces that are flat on one side - mine were rounded but you could also use squares or another shape
-wooden dowels
-drill or someone willing to drill holes in the wood pieces for you
-cardstock, scrapbook paper or whatever paper you want your labels made out of
-scissors or punch
-marker or pen
-tape and glue
-twine for decoration (optional)

Drill a hole in the top of each of your wooden pieces or have someone do this for you. You may also be able to buy some with holes already in them. Make sure the hole is big enough to fit your dowel in and it doesn't need to go all the way through the wood piece (just most of the way) but if it does that's not a big deal.

Cut your dowels if necessary to the height you prefer. Mine are 12 inches but they can be a tad wobbly on a tablecloth and since I have big labels attached to the top so I think before I use them again I will shorten them by an inch or two.

Cut out labels or use a punch. I used a circle punch and a scallop punch so I could layer scrapbook paper behind the cardstock to make it more colorful. I cut a bunch of extra white scallops in case those are needed in the future. I glued a scallop cutout to a circle cutout and wrote the food item name on the white scallop. I tried to keep the names somewhat generic so they can be reused for multiple occasions and parties but whenever they cannot be reused, I have the extra white scallops on hand so I can glue a new one over the old one :)

You will need two labels for each stand so one covers the back and one covers the front. Attach the two labels to the dowel and to each other using little pieces of rolled scotch tape. I found this to be the best thing for attaching and wouldn't be too hard to remove an entire label from a dowel later should you need to. This is also when you can add twine or ribbon or some other decoration if you wish.

Then you can put your dowels with attached labels into your wood pieces and they are ready to be used! I have 12 of these on hand and they are great for showers, parties, and get togethers. They are great even for sometime simple like labeling which bowl of salsa is mild and which is medium or hot when you have guests over.

I reused the stands for my friend's Cute As A Button Baby Shower as well. These could also be place settings or have lots of other labeling purposes!

Nursery Closet Redo

After we painted the nursery aqua, my dad went to work on the closet. As you can see in the before photo, this closet is very narrow and having the hanging bar (or bars) at the back waste a lot of space.

My dad has put in a lot of closet shelving before (like some storage shelves he and Eric did at our last home - this has more detail about the shelving) and I really like the way the shelves don't use brackets which also get in the way and waste space. The shelves were already painted wood from Lowes and the wood pieces that brace the shelves were painted white by my dad to match. The shelves are about 15 inches apart.

The four shelves allow for so much storage and easy access. Plus there is space below the shelves to store things too. The rods on the very narrow wall on the right are able to accommodate baby and kids hangers with enough room but it would be a little too narrow for adult size hangers. They are 1 1/2 inch wood left natural and about 38 inches high (bottom rod) and 67 inches high (top rod). We could have painted these white too but that would have been more work and I think they look fine natural.

This layout definitely makes the best use of the narrow closet space when needed for hanging clothes and storing items. Definitely an awesome upgrade from wire shelves and rod! Thanks dad!

Shades of Aqua Paint - Painting the Nursery

Ever since getting pregnant (well probably before that even), I wanted the nursery to be a light teal or turquoise which you can basically call aqua. Aqua encompasses a lot of different shades and could mean different things to people but in my mind it was a lighter shade of turquoise. We already know how much I love turquoise since that is used in our family room.

The nursery is downstairs so it is fitting that it doesn't stray far from the turquoise and teal accent colors in the family room. I  knew aqua would be calming and bright and fun... all things I wanted for the nursery. The room gets great natural light too.

If you've read any of the other Shades of (insert paint color here) posts you would be really proud of me that it only took 3 samples to decide on the final color! Big progress from my usual 7-10 samples. Here is how we picked Light Gray and Medium Gray.

I followed our usual paint color choosing process of researching colors online and looking at how they looked in people's rooms and also looking at paint chips. Then I selected a dozen or so paint chips and cut them out and taped them onto white paper and put them up in the room. I looked at them in different light/times of day and on different walls. Since the paper is taped on it is easy to do this.

Top to bottom and left to right on each paper: Behr Ionic Sky, Behr Spa, Behr Cool Jazz, Behr Glacier Bay, Behr Refreshing Pool, Behr Aqua Spray, Sherwin Williams Aquatint, Sherwin Williams Tame Teal, Valspar Aqua Glow, Valspar Lake Breeze, Benjamin Moore Palladian Blue, Benjamin Moore Sonoma Skies (this one had to be cut out of a book which is why no name is printed on it), Benjamin Moore Lido Green, Benjamin Moore Robin's Nest.

The two samples I wanted to try first were SW Aquatint and SW Tame Teal. Honestly based on the chips, I thought one of these would be the winner. So we painted samples of these two on the wall and they both looked a little too neon-ish of an aqua to me with the lighting in the room. So it was back to the drawing board. I decided to get a sample of BM Robin's Nest even though the paint chip leaned a little to green for me. I loved the way it looked in several painted rooms I saw online so I decided to try it anyway. Luckily it ended up not looking on the green side when painted on the wall. Just goes to show you that the paint chips don't always give you the best idea of the color. Here are all 3 samples on different walls in different light.

Robin's Nest didn't look too neon-ish and seemed to be the perfect shade of aqua for the room! So Benjamin Moore Robin's Nest was our clear winner! And Eric was super happy we weren't trying more samples haha.

We had it mixed by Sherwin Williams (they can match and mix any color... not just their own) because we like their Harmony paint which is no-VOC and has great coverage. And one Sunday afternoon, my parents, husband and I painted the nursery. Even though the paint is no-VOC, I wore a mask too just for extra protection.

We didn't have to paint all the way to the ceiling since Eric and my dad were going to add crown molding to the top to go with the crown molding we have in the rest of the downstairs. That made it a lot easier to paint since no cutting in at the top was needed. They tackled that project (which neither had done before) a few weeks later and it looks great!

Eric also replaced a builder light with a light/fan.

I just love the way the color looks in the room and it makes me happy every time I walk in. I can't wait to make more progress in here... more updates to come!

Stork Diaper Bundle

I saw this idea on pinterest but the link only took me to an uploaded photo with no instructions or other details so I decided to figure it out on my own and then hopefully this post will help others that may stumble upon it. What would we do without pinterest?

 Stork Diaper Bundle

Materials

- receiving/swaddle blanket (this one is about 40 in by 40 in... made by serging around a piece of flannel)
- white cardstock and a color printer
- diapers - I used 24 size 1 pampers swaddlers
- yarn or twine or ribbon to tie diapers and stork

Find an image of a stork that you like. This is the one I used. I opened it up in the paint tool and used the eraser to erase the bundled part since I was creating the bundle out of diapers. It shortened his beak a little but it still looked completely fine since it starts to be black at that point anyway. Save the image. Print it out on white cardstock and then glue that piece of cardstock to the front of another piece so you have a double-thick piece of cardstock which will make your stork less flimsy. Using scissors, cut around the stork.

Roll up your diapers and secure the roll by tying yarn, twine or ribbon around it.

Fold your receiving blanket into thirds or fourths (hot dog style) depending on how big it is. You want it to be a little bit wider than the length of the rolled up diapers. Tie the ends in a double knot.

Place the rolled diapers into the tied up blanket. It helps to have two people for this so one person can hold the blanket up in shape so it doesn't collapse down as diapers are added by the other person. You can kind of fiddle with it to get the shape you want. Then tie your cardstock stork to the knot at the top again using yarn, twine or ribbon.

And your stork diaper bundle is complete! I liked putting it up on a cake stand for a nice centerpiece look.

I would also suggest not using newborn sized diapers so the new mom doesn't have to take it apart and undo the diapers right away if she doesn't want to. I think this is a great alternative to a diaper cake since it is less involved but is still a great decoration at a baby shower and useful to the new parents!


Get the full details from this Cute as a Button Shower.

Habitat ReStore Nightstand Redo

You may remember from this post, I have big plans to redo the master bedroom and finding new larger nightstands that better fit the room and the mixed look I wanted was one of the first steps in the redo. I found a small mirrored dresser at HomeGoods for my new nightstand and searched for awhile to find a companion for Eric that would be different but still complementary.

While in the Charlotte Habitat ReStore one day I found a small $180 dresser that was just the right size for a large nightstand and had character to it. I wish I knew more about the history of it other than it is from the 1920's... I love having an almost 100 year old piece of furniture! It honestly didn't look too bad as is but I wanted a painted piece for his nightstand.

Here is a before and after and then I'll walk you through the details of how I refinished it.

I removed the the piece of wood that stuck up on the back of the top and the pulls and sanded it.

I used wood filler for some spots with dings and also to fill in half of the pull holes because I wanted to go with knobs instead of pulls.

My dad was so nice to prime it at their house for me because being prego I didn't want to be around the fumes of primer. There are some old knobs my dad had in the pull holes so that paint doesn't get in there.

A week or so later, I painted it with two coats of Sherwin Williams no-VOC paint (so no fumes or bad stuff and I also wore a mask just to be extra cautious) in the color Alabaster. It's the same color I used on this Goodwill dresser a few years ago and I knew it was a nice white without being too bright of a white or being too cream-colored.

I actually did 3 coats of paint on the top and later a coat of a vinegar/water mixture as a sealer since Eric would be putting books and glasses and such on it frequently. I usually use polycryllic as a top coat but sometimes on white paint it can yellow even though it says it wont so I'm seeing how this natural vinegar/water mixture I read about lasts.

Then I ordered $10 crystal knobs off Amazon (my new nightstand from HomeGoods has crystal knobs so this would help tie the two together) and added them to the nightstand. I think they definitely look more expensive than they are.

Then it was moved into our master bedroom and I added the decor back to the top of it. I'll be honest, it usually has another book or two and a drink glass on top of it in everyday life. You may notice that the walls are a different color than from my last master bedroom post - more on that and hopefully a reveal of other room changes soon!

Starbucks onesie

This is the perfect onesie for coffee loving parents! I made this using my Silhouette machine.

First I saved the starbucks logo and imported it into the software and used the trace function to create the cutable image. I used photoshop to make the words in two separate file (I LOVE YOU and A LATTE) but you could also use paint or word or some other application if you don't have photoshop as long as you can save the words as a jpg. Then you can import the words into the Silhouette software too, trace it and arrange it around the starbucks logo.

Then follow the Silhouette instructions for cutting your heat transfer vinyl, iron it to the onesie and it is ready to go for the parents-to-be! I gave this to Katie as part of her shower gift and cannot wait to see the baby rockin' it!

Cute As A Button Baby Shower

Last month I hosted a baby shower for one of my best friends along with her sister in law. The Cute As A Button baby shower was fun to plan and Melissa and I really enjoyed making it a special day for Katie and baby.

First up is all the decor. I knew it would be good to do something sewing-related since Katie loves to craft and sew and when I was talking to a sweet neighbor about it she suggested the theme and even had the banner that I could borrow. The banner was already gender neutral with orange, blue/teal, lime green and brown which was perfect since the shower needed to be gender neutral. I loved the bright orange and blue/teal colors so I used those as the main colors.

I made the big buttons using paper plates from Party City - they are the smaller of the two sizes of the paper plates that come in a ton of colors. I cut out small circles and taped those to the plates to make buttons

For the table centerpiece I did a diaper bundle on top of a cake stand. It makes for a nice centerpiece without being as involved as a diaper cake. I printed out the stork from an image found online onto white cardstock and had my mom serge around flannel for a blanket. You fold the blanket so it is almost as narrow as a rolled diaper and tie it up and fill it with rolled diapers. It had about 25 diapers in it.

I also filled two vintage mason jars with assorted buttons.

For the mantle I made two onesies with my Silhouette (one with the Starbucks logo that says I love you a latte and one with their last name). I put a wipeable/washable bib in the middle that had big dots on it that sort of look like buttons. I also cut out two buttons with the Silhouette to complete the hanging string. I filled vases with assorted buttons and a square glass container with thread and propped up my pin cushion for decor.

This was the circle garland I made that I did a tutorial on here.

When guests arrived everyone chatted for a bit and had food and drinks. Now for the menu.. we did an afternoon shower so a full meal wasn't necessary and we did lots of different snacks/appetizers and desserts. Melissa made most of the food and it was delicious!

Food: 

Fruit

Cheese, meats and crackers

Pizza roll bites

Spinach artichoke dip and pita chips

Spicy ranch type dip and chips 

Icing filled thumbprint cookies

Cupcakes

Drinks:
Lemonade
Water
Wassail - apple cider-like drink that my mom makes

And I used some fun striped orange straws and mason jars for those having lemonade or water and then use coffee cups for the wassail.

Once everyone was done eating we had games and activities. We played Baby Price is Right, Make a diaper out of toilet paper on a stuffed animal, and Baby Scategories. 

We also had people leave advice or wishes for the mom to be. I made the cards in Photoshop to go with the shower invite I made.

These were the invites. I looked up various ideas and designed them myself in Photoshop and then had them printed on cardstock at staples.

Then it was time for opening the gifts! Katie got a lot of really wonderful gifts from her registry and some handmade gifts too. And the Mathes family got her the crib and mattress... two very essential items!

Katie is a Detroit Tigers fan and her husband is a St. Louis Cardinals fan so I made a parents divided onesie using my Silhouette. Can't wait to see the baby in this during baseball season.

Melissa made these adorable button cookies as a party favor for the guests wrapped up with a note that says Thank you "sew" much for coming!

All the sweet Mathes ladies... Katie's mother in law and sister in laws.

Katie and I showing off our bumps. We are 10 weeks apart and I cannot wait for our babies to hang out and I know they will be great friends! I'm even more excited to find out if baby Mathes is a boy or a girl!

Hope this helps anyone out who is planning a cute as a button baby shower. A huge thanks to co-host, Melissa... I would plan another shower with you anytime!