Baby P's Nursery

Hello!

As promised, pictures of Baby P's nursery now that it is 95% complete (yes he's already 8 weeks old and it's not 100% finished). We're planning to create a family tree type artwork and put up pictures of the family so Baby P will be able to see those family members he may not see in person very often.

I turned to Pinterest for ideas on how to decorate his nursery and I found a nursery I loved and used for my inspiration. The site can be found here.

We found the perfect furniture at the Pottery Barn Outlet and over a couple months were able to buy everything we needed as we found the different pieces of the set. As mentioned in my last post, I found the nursery bedding on Etsy from Miss Polly's Piece Goods and we went with navy, aqua and white for the bedding colors to go with the gray we painted the room.

{Crib, dresser, bookcase, nightstand: Pottery Barn Kids ||  glider + ottoman, lamp shade and base, decorative basket and milkcrates: Target || Canvas prints: Shutterfly || Crib bedding, changing pad cover, monogram pillow: Miss Polly's Piece Goods Etsy shop || mobile, humidifier: Babies R Us || E above crib and canvas artwork above dresser: DIY - see last post for how to for the canvas artwork || wall color: Behr Premium Plus Ultra in White Metal and Silver Bullet}

Views of the room from the doorway:

 Closeups on the different areas of the room:

So thankful my baby shower hostesses requested guests to bring books instead of cards to start Baby P's book collection!

Until next time,
CZP

Baby P's Nursery Artwork

Hello! I have been on a bit of a hiatus for the past few months thanks to a crazy time at work and preparing for the arrival of Baby P. Well we welcomed him on May 19, so now that we've gotten into a bit of a routine I'm going to try to start blogging regularly (try being the operative word). In figuring out the theme/design of his nursery, I didn't have a lot of luck with the bedding sets we saw in stores, so I turned to Etsy, since I knew that site wouldn't let me down - and it sure didn't! I found a lady who offers custom nursery bedding in a TON of different fabric designs and every color imaginable (check her out  here - Miss Polly's Piece Goods) so I knew she could make the color scheme I wanted (navy, aqua, white, and gray) happen with the bedding.

I knew I wanted to add a DIY element to the nursery so I of course turned to Pinterest for inspiration and found this blog.

For this project I needed:
- 4 12"x 12" canvases - purchased at Michael's on a crazy good sale so got all 4 for about $6!
- 4 1/2 yards of fabric - purchased on sale at Joann's during one of their 50% off fabric sales so the fabric was about $5-$6
- glue gun
- small wooden letters for the monogram
-letter stencils
-acrylic paint

The canvases with the fabrics I chose. I also included yellow to give another pop of color beyond the navy and aqua that would match the bedding.

I started by cutting the fabric to be slightly larger than the canvases- a couple inches extra on each side to give myself enough fabric to fold over and glue on the back. Then I began glueing each side, folding the corners like a present so they'd look clean from the front side.

Front view of the finished product

The finished product from the back

This process was repeated for all 4 canvases and for the two navy canvases, that is all I did. To add a bit more pop to the artwork, the aqua canvas got little man's monogram and the yellow canvas got a saying I kept seeing in nursery artwork.

The monogram was done by purchasing 5" wooden letters from Michaels (I think they were about $1 each) and painting them since they were unfinished wood. I had to sand the letters a bit (using a pretty fine grit sandpaper to get a really smooth finish) then I painted them white with acrylic paint so they would stand out against the fabric.

Almost finished!

For the yellow canvas, I wanted to include the phrase "Dream Big Little One" but since I'm not good at freehand drawing lettering, I reused the 2" stencils I bought a couple years ago to use for a banner I created for our engagement pictures.

I got a navy acrylic paint so the lettering would pop, yet still go with the color scheme.

It took QUITE a while to do the lettering in pencil, then trace in paint and finally fill in, but I was really happy with the final product:

Once all 4 were finished, we were ready to hang. I just got command strips since I didn't want to put a bunch of holes in the wall to hang these (plus they are so lightweight nails weren't really necessary to hang them anyway).

Here are the canvases hanging in the nursery above the dresser/changing table. I was really happy with this little DIY project I took on for little man's nursery!

Pictures of the whole nursery coming soon!

Until next time, 

CZP

Baby Closet Dividers

Happy New Year!

The past several months have been very busy for us -- we finally found and closed on our new home after 7! months of searching, we've been working to make the home ours and we found out we were expecting a little boy in May! The home projects have shifted to be focused on Baby Boy and I recently finished my first project for him - baby closet dividers. I found these closet dividers on Etsy and really liked them, but wanted to make them my own (and for a little cheaper). The project took about $10 for me to make with using coupons and taking advantage of a scrapbook paper sale.

I bought plain closet dividers from the Container Store, which can be found here, scrapbook paper and number stickers from Michael's and used a compass (and my husband's patience) to create the pattern from which I made all the pieces to be adhered to the dividers.

All of my materials to make the closet dividers!

For this initial project, I used 7 dividers: Newborn, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-9 months, 9-12 months, 12-18 months and 18-24 months. I have plenty of paper leftover so I plan to make dividers for larger size clothing as he gets a bit older, but I though this range was a good start for now.

Once I had all the paper cut out, I used Mod Podge to adhere it to the dividers double-sided.

After the glue dried, I added on the stickers to indicate the sizes, and since the stickers weren't sticking very well, I went ahead and Mod Podge'd the stickers on to make sure they'd stay.

Overall, this was a pretty easy project and will allow us to have a nice organized nursery once we start putting everything into the room.

The final product!

Coming soon - cupcake onesie gift box!

Our First Anniversary: Oh the Places We'll Go!

Hey y'all,

Our first anniversary was a couple weeks ago and I wanted to follow the tradition of giving a paper gift, so I took to Pinterest for inspiration and found the perfect gift to make for my hubby. We really enjoy traveling so the gift involved that and let me be a bit creative in making it, so I think it was the perfect first anniversary gift.

I found my inspiration at the 36th Avenue and with trips to multiple Michael's, Hob Lob, Wal-Mart, Target AND School Box, I had all my materials to create our own special travel map. 

Along with a US map (to be cut up to trace out the states), I got several different pieces of scrapbook paper in grays and yellows since I'm loving that color scheme lately, Mod Podge, a 16"x 20" canvas, small wooden unpainted letters and the piece de resistance- adorable mini wooden hearts and arrows that I used to show which states we've visited. Yay Hob Lob for the sweet find!

All my materials ready to go....finally!

After longer than I care to mention, all the pieces of the US were cut up and ready to be traced (Northeastern states, we're no longer friends. Midwestern states, we're cool.) 

Cut up and ready to be traced!

I alternated the different scrapbook paper designs to create a pattern between the yellows and grays and laid them out back in the correct shape to make sure all the pieces fit together okay (amazingly, they did).

This part of the US took no time at all to trace and cut out compared to the tiny states of the northeast.

Once all the states were cut out...after a LONG time starting at the tiny pieces, I laid them all out on my canvas. Based on the color scheme I selected for the scrapbook paper, I decided not to paint the canvas and decided to leave the canvas plain since I figured I'd need all the space I could get for the map since the states were pretty big.

All ready to adhere to the canvas!

Once all the states were mod-podged to the canvas, I was ready to add in the letters as well as the hearts to show all the states we've been to. To lighten up the color of the wooden letters, I used some metallic white acrylic paint I had lying around.

I was really happy with how it turned out and I think hubby liked it as well. It'll be fun adding to it the map over the years as we visit new places.

I can't wait until we get settled in our new place and can display this map with some pictures showcasing the places we've been.

Until next time,
CZP

Happy New Year! What We've Been up to the Last Four Months

Happy belated New Year! The fall was busy for us with a lot of different projects all leading up to this:

We're selling our house! We're currently under contract so should be closing in the next month! Yippee! Our lives over the past 4 months have revolved around work (and LOTS of travel for me!) and projects to prepare the house for selling.

Our house overall was in pretty good shape, but there were definitely some projects that needed to be done, so here are some highlights of what we did!

--Updates to the kitchen: we ended up refreshing the cabinets with new hardware, cleaning and touching up the paint on the cabinets, and doing a deep clean of the grout (that was a fun Saturday!). 

Top is the new hardware and bottom is what we replaced.

Cabinets with new hardware!

Grout- before and after deep cleaning

--Refinished the fireplace in the master bedroom: the paint on the fireplace had gotten a bit dull and some of the knots in the wood were showing through the paint, so we wanted to refresh the fireplace to make it look that much more appealing in the master suite.

Before!

Prepped and ready to paint

The finished product with a drawing I bought from a street artist in Vienna.

--Organization: We packed up a lot of items to de-clutter the house, but there were some items we needed to keep handy that we used pretty frequently, so the solution was baskets to store items to look more organized. It's amazing how these spaces were transformed with just a couple decorative baskets from Target.

Coat closet - before

Coat closet - after

Laundry room - before

Laundry room - after

--Staging: I didn't take before pics, but we followed the advice of all the different websites that touted the importance of staging the house to sell it. We removed pretty much anything in the house that was personal including all pictures and knick-knacks and packed them up. We packed up a bunch of other stuff to generally de-clutter the house, especially the kitchen. The after results of all the packing up and staging the house!

The living room: our sectional previously was one large piece of furniture but we ended up completely rearranging the living room to make it flow better and to move the couch away from the fireplace.

 Kitchen: We packed away most of the items that were on the counters (i.e., our extensive wine collection since we don't drink wine that often...)  and put away all the wedding save the dates and invitations that were covering our fridge.

 

The dining room: we had been using the dining room as an office so we had to completely update that room to turn the room back into a dining room.

The house selling process should be wrapped up in the next few weeks so now our attention is turned to packing up and trying to find a new place!

Until next time,
CZP