Lake Matthew sign

Remember this post on Matthew's nursery? Well, I got the Lake Matthew sign back in August and I LOVE it! I just never posted about it. Oops! :) Here is a picture of the sign with the frame my dad made. Don't you just love it?!



I love how it is slightly distressed and it is PERFECT for his room!

Here is what that wall looked like before...



and the after...




It is hard to tell from the pictures, the but the sign is pretty big. I would guess about 2 feet by 2 feet including the frame. We have tall ceilings in our house which is pretty but leaves a lot of space to fill up! :) My favorite part is my rocking chair is across from the sign so I can look at it when I am rocking sweet Matthew! Love it!


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The Nursey is {almost} DONE!!

Woohoo!!! Baby Matthew's room is DONE! If he was born tonight, the room is ready for him. Not so sure about mommy and daddy, but the room is ready! Here is the big reveal!

Let's reach back into our memories and remember what the room looked like before...



...and think back to all the hard work Brad did on the walls and the craftiness I did on recovering a bumper and night light shade.

And now, walking in the room, this is what you see:



LOVE IT!



After seeing some cute painted oars in a Pottery Barn catalog (I think!), my dad got some oars at Academy and painted and distressed them for me. Aren't they super cute?!



I love how the bumper turned out and how the crib looks. I know the ribbons look weird right now- I didn't feel like re-tying them for the pictures. My mother-in-law took the bedskirt (which is from John's old crib) and added a stripe of the plaid material across the bottom. Unfortunately, you can't see it right now since the mattress is raised so high. But I promise she did a fabulous job on it!



I found the cute sail boat mobile from Target. I had originally thought I would make my own sail boats and attach them to John's old mobile. I quickly realized it would be WAY easier to buy it instead!



I love this chair from John's room (so glad we decided on a blue chair and not boring beige!) and I love it being next to the sunny window. My mom found the anchor pillow on sale at Restoration Hardware and once I made my own pillow form and stuffed it, it is perfect in the room. I found the little fish table at Kohl's on sale and once I used a coupon it was about $8! Can't pass that up!






Another great find was this boat-shaped shelf from Craigslist. I love that it was already navy and even though it is a little scratched up, it looks perfectly distressed for the room. I am not thrilled that it is yellow on the inside, but repainting it wasn't priority so I am leaving it for now. It is perfect for the little pails for storage! (The shelves are not totally done either- I am not in love with how it is set up but I will probably wait until the baby gets here to know how I really want everything to be accessed.)







So, there is a huge blank spot on the wall above the dresser. I am ordering a wooden sign from Go Jump In The Lake on Etsy (you can see it in the link!) so once I get it, my dad is framing it with reclaimed baseboards and we will hang it up over the changing table. It is going to say 'Lake Matthew' so I am so excited about it! It is really simple and will be perfect for the room. I can't wait to get it!



My mom and dad found this cute mirror made from an old port hole. It even opens so I really want to put a picture behind it or paint a 'M' on the wall so there is a little surprise when you open it. haha! :)





Last but not least, here is the night light that I recovered. Love how it turned out too!



And there we have it...an {almost} finished nursery just in time for Matthew's arrival!

Easiest Lamp Shade Recovering!

I had the cutest night light for John's baby room that we are moving into the nursery. My original plan was to recover the shade and leave it in John's room, but since he has moved into a big boy bed, he likes to take apart the night light (including unscrewing the light bulb!) so I don't feel like it is a good idea to leave it in his room anymore. So, to Matthew's room it goes!

Here is the shade in all its cute glory:




I had some extra material from recovering the bumper so I used some craft spray glue and went to work!



First I took off the brown trim. Not sure if that was necessary, but I did it anyways!

Then I cut a piece of material to size, sprayed the shade with glue and wrapped it with the new material. Once that was set (slightly crooked...oops!) I used the extra double fold bias tape to trim the top and bottom using hot glue.



Done! Seriously, that took all of 20 or 30 minutes.

Before:



After:





Now it is plugged in and ready to go! I have one more thing to hang on the wall and then the room is DONE and I can post pictures! Get excited!

Recovered Crib Bumper

I finally finished the crib bumper for Baby Matthew's room! This was a relatively easy project that just too me longer than it should have. Lots of little unexpected 'challenges' with this project.

So, I started with this:



My sister found this gorgeous bumper at a garage sale for about $4. I figured it was perfect for me to recover and in the perfect price range considering I would only use it for about 2 months. {We didn't even have a bumper with John but I convinced Brad to let me use one with Matthew!} I also bought red bias tape for the trim of the bumper (dumb choice = challenge #1).

I found this plaid material at Joann's (used a coupon!) and immediately measured the bumper and started cutting to make the slipcover. Then I decided I had better make sure the bumper fit the crib before I sewed and realized the bumper wasn't long enough for the crib. It was the strangest thing! So, there is challenge #2- had to add a section to the end of the bumper with scrap material and stuff it with filling. This means I also had to add a section of material to my already-cut slip cover.



Once the bumper was the correct length and the cover was sewn (which was super easy since it was just one long rectangle), I decided I hated the red bias tape AND it was only single fold and I needed double fold. Had to go back to the store to buy navy bias tape and buy navy ribbon for the ties.

Challenge #3 was even with my exact measurements {or maybe more like estimated measurements} the cover was slightly too short for the bumper by about 2 or 3 inches. Lovely. But I made do and just shoved the bumper in the cover, sewed it up, and called it a day!

Here is how it turned out!




It is on the crib and once I buy a coordinating sheet and finish up the room, I will be showing off the final result. So far the room is looking SO cute and I can't wait for it to be done!

Nursery Walls are Up!!

We are making some progress in the nursery! I am so excited on how the room is turning out so far, so here is a sneak peak of what the final room will look like.

We started with this plain blue room. When we first moved into the house, we used it as my craft/computer room...





...and then it became the guest bedroom when John was born. Now it is making its third transformation into a nursery! Here are some pics of the room all cleared out and the baseboards and door trims off.







Brad so kindly repainted it to a different shade of blue to match the bedding. Then he and my dad started working on creating a board and batten on the walls. Unfortunately they didn't get everything finished and Brad spent many nights finishing up all the wood work. Thankfully John is such a great helper!







After a couple coats of paint, the walls look awesome! They turned out to be less board and batten and more paneling, but that was actually what I wanted originally so I am really really happy with how it turned out!







We still have to paint the doors and do a little touch ups where the painters tape didn't quite hold up. I am so lucky that Brad worked so hard in that room just for me! (and Matthew, although he probably doesn't have a preference to how his room looks!) What do you guys think so far?!

John's Custom Headboard

If you are playing along with my 'guess which fabric is which game' (there were about two of you!), then here is our first answer!! The brown fabric is for John's new headboard! (either of you guess correctly?!)

So, I am in LOVE with how the headboard turned out. Here is what it looks like (obviously not attached to the bed yet) and here are some simple instructions on how to make it.

Supplies:
-plywood (although I think we used mfb)
-fabric
-egg crate or foam
-batting
-staple gun and staples
-saw of some sort
-loving dad and brothers-in-law to do the actual labor and a sister who knew how to make the headboard (see example below!)




How to:
1. Cut out the shape of the headboard you wanted. We just wanted to curve out the corners of the headboard, so my sister used a bowl to trace a curve on each side. Easy peasy. There are TONS of pics on the 'net that you can search for headboard designs. We also decided to make the headboard tall enough that it reaches all the way to the ground. You could make it shorter and just hang it on the wall if you didn't have as much plywood lying around.

note the curved corners...can this be any easier?!


2. We then layed the egg crate layer so that the bumpy side was against the headboard. Wrap around the edges of the headboard and staple around nice and tight. Trim excess if necessary.







3. Lay the batting over the egg crate, wrap around the edges of the headboard and staple around. This just helps give it a nice overall finish and pull the egg crate even tighter. We actually got a cheap batting so it was on the verge of tearing as we stapled so I would suggest either not buying the cheapest stuff out there or buying a little bit thicker batting so it doesn't tear as you staple. Trim excess if necessary.

here is the crappy batting from Walmart. it did the trick...barely




this is what the headboard looks like with the eggcrate and batting stapled on...we are getting there!


4. Now comes the fun part- stapling on the pretty fabric! We held the headboad upright (instead of laying it on the table) so that way the girls could stand back and tell the boys how to get the fabric nice and straight across the top of the headboard. Obviously, you would want your fabric pattern centered (if there was a center) and you would want to make sure the fabric lines were perfectly horizontal. And by perfectly horizontal, I mean that we eyeballed it.



5. We started at the center and stapled the fabric across the top, all while holding the headboard upright. (Those boys are so talented!) Once we got to the curves, we cut the fabric into strips so we could pull it tightly without it all getting bunched up. Once it was stapled (and a dose of double stapling to make sure it wasn't ever coming off!), we trimmed the excess material which hopefully I can use somewhere else in the room!



6. Tada!!! John's custom headboard! Seriously, how cute did it turn out? And considering that a new bed would cost me about $700 (why oh why do I like the expensive stuff?!?!?), I saved myself quite the chunk of change making this on our own and attaching it to the frame we already had. If I had to guess, this project cost me around $60 or $70 bucks. Not too shabby! It took the guys about an hour to do and considering that all I did was take pictures and eyeball if the fabric was straight, it was extrememly easy for me. Double bonus!



As I am typing, the headboard is sitting in the dining room waiting to be put in John's big boy room. My goal is to have his new room ready by the end of June, so be sure to check back for the final room reveal! Get excited!