A Tutorial: DIY Barrette Holder

I mentioned in this post after making the headband holder that I also wanted to make a barrette holder for babygirl's barrettes.  I had been using the one below (hung over her closet doorknob) that I had made a few months back.  It was functional, but it was a little flimsy looking, and I had an idea in mind about how to upgrade it.

I was thinking of using a picture frame, so I've been on the hunt for one at Goodwill, with no luck.  Then I was in my closet the other night and found this item below:

I had been hanging onto it for a few years to use to hang my necklaces from, but had totally forgotten about it.  It was originally part of a shoe rack that was poorly designed & fell apart.  Hmmm...

First I removed the top row of metal things (no idea what you'd call them!), then I lightly sanded the entire piece with a 220 grit paper just to smooth the area where the screws had been, and remove a bit of the varnish.  Then I found some short dowels (is that what they're called?) leftover from countless Ikea purchases, and hot-glued them into the 3 holes that were left- these would serve to make it stand upright.

At this point the hubs had come home (thanks for helping out with the action shot!) and asked what I was up to.  "Making a barrette holder", I replied.  "Oh cool!", he said.  "Wait, what's a barrette?" LOL.  True story!!

After I glued the three dowels in place, I got to work painting the entire thing in my favorite glossy black acrylic craft paint.  Then I grabbed some thumb tacks and some ribbon from my stash, and got to work.

And here it is all loaded up with barrettes:

And in babygirl's room:

I've got to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this one.  It's serving its purpose, but I'm not totally loving it.  There may be some tweaking in it's future, which by now you might be figuring out is my m.o.!  I'm thinking maybe removing those dowels, installing a picture hanger and hanging it on the wall?  Maybe backing the whole thing in a cute fabric instead of leaving the back open?  Not sure, will keep you posted...

In the Details

I mentioned yesterday, I like working on the details of a space.  I think small touches can make all the difference.  I read this blog post the other day from Michele at 4 Men 1 Lady (great blog, you should definitely bookmark it!) and I just loved a little detail above her kitchen sink.  I decided to replicate it with help from her free printable.

I had a 4x6 wood frame on hand that I wasn't using.  I took the glass out, and then did a quick dry brush technique on it using paint leftover from another project.  (I have to be honest, I painted the mirror in our powder room several weeks ago and at the time was too lazy to clean out my paintbrush.  I saw it last night in the laundry room, still in the ziplock bag where I had stashed it until I "had time" to wash it out.  (Ziplock bags are a great tip to keep paintbrushes fresh while you take a break from painting!)  I felt the brush, and the paint was still wet, so I decided to try it out before tossing the brush- it worked!)

Here it is after the dry brushing, turned out great.

I replaced the glass and added the free printable- super easy!!

And here it is hanging above the sink in our powder room.  I think it's a funny reminder for kids & adults alike.  I knew it was perfect when the hubs came home from work this afternoon and started cracking up as soon as he walked into the bathroom.  Decorating is fun, but it doesn't have to be all serious!!

House Tour: The Nursery

On the heels of yesterday's post about the gallery wall in babygirl's nursery, I thought I'd follow-up today with a tour of her nursery.  I've gotten more grief* from the hubs about this room than any other room in the house, and probably more than any project I've done!  I think that's because, to date, it's the most finished room, and getting there didn't happen overnight.  The hubs likes to call a project done and move on, never looking back. I like to constantly tweak, letting the space evolve and making changes as needs change, and I like spending time on details.  In my mind a space is never finished!  But shhhh, we won't tell the hubs that. ;)

As you saw yesterday, the room began as a guest room with yellow-ish brown walls (most of the walls in our house were painted in this color when we moved in, I'm working on changing that!), lots of nice moulding & trim (unfortunately painted cream instead of white, ugh!), a white ceiling, neutral light brown carpet, and a ridiculously small ceiling-mounted light as the only source of light in the room.  Our house had never been lived in before we moved in, and I like to think of most of the finishes as "builder's specials".  Not because they're special, but because the builder likely got them at a good discount!  Ugh.  Not the worst finishes, by any means, which sometimes makes it hard to justify changing them out after less than 3 years of wear.  But that's another post!

So we left the room as-is for about a year & a half, with the exception of adding some chocolate brown velvet curtains we'd used in a previous home.  When we found out we were having a baby girl, it didn't take me long to decide I wanted to use one of my favorite color combos of chocolate brown, pink & orange to decorate her nursery.  The chocolate brown curtains would stay, but I wanted to make the window treatments a little more special.  That's where I decided to start because I find fabrics to be such an inspiring beginning for a project!  As I mentioned in this post, I went fabric shopping and came away with those three fabrics that I just loved!! The fabric store had an amazing crib display with a custom sewn canopy over the crib, and I instantly fell in love.  It used 3 coordinating fabrics, so my initial plan in picking out 3 fabric samples was to use them to sew the canopy, as well as valances and pillows etc.  The canopy never quite happened, but that's okay, something better did!

We got started by painting the walls in a beautiful neutral taupe shade, and the ceiling in a raspberry pink.  Since I was pregnant the hubs was mostly on his own, and he was NOT happy.  Especially with the ceiling.  But he knocked it out, and it looks awesome!  I made valances for both windows with one of my inspiration fabrics, and was very pleased with how they came out.  Next we installed a new ceiling light** and a closet organizer, both from Ikea.  The ceiling light was easy, the closet organizer almost caused a divorce.  LOL.  But we got through it!  We also picked up a dresser/changing table from Ikea.  I was pretty adamant that I didn't want a changing table because I hate furniture with only one specific and short-lived function.  So far this has been a great decision!!  The last big purchase for the room was a glider & ottoman, and we actually found it on Craigslist.  I was also adamant that I didn't want one of those cheesy gliders you always see in nurseries, again, I don't like single-function furniture!  You never see those cheesy gliders move from the nursery into the family room, because they aren't stylish!!  But I digress... (and apologies if you have one of those gliders and love it, just not my style!).  I also knew that since I planned to breastfeed I'd be spending lots of time in that chair.  I kept an eye on Craigslist daily, and ended up finding an amazing deal on a barely used glider in chocolate brown- Score!  The best part is the ottoman is a storage ottoman!  It's our stash spot for blankets, but it can always be used for toys or other items in the future.

The rest of the furniture and many of the accessories were re-purposed from other rooms.  The daybed & pillows used to be in my office, I just added a cute little elephant.  Eventually I'd like to change out the linen & pillowcovers on the daybed, but for now they work just fine.  The bookcase had been in the room when it was a guestroom.  When we first brought babygirl home I had wire baskets on each shelf full of all her essentials.  But once she began pulling up, her favorite thing to do was to pull those baskets down!  So I found the 2 chevron stripe bins at Target for her books, and moved the large woven basket out of her closet & filled it with toys.  Now she can pull them down to her heart's content!

The wire baskets were moved into her closet and fit perfectly on a sweater organizer which just attaches to the closet bar.  They hold miscellaneous baby care items, burp cloths, bibs, hats, socks & shoes.  I left one basket on the bookshelf for diapers.  The colorful striped box in the top part of her closet is an empty diaper box I covered in pretty wrapping paper.  It's wonderful for storage that also looks nice!  (As you could see in the previous picture there is another empty diaper box on the floor that I intend to cover as well.  Ooops, forgot to move it out of the shot!)  The baskets in her closet hold diapers & wipes, the black & white box is her "baby box" with various mementos, and the clear containers on the bottom shelf hold clothes we've been given that are too big for her just yet.  To the left there is a small bit of storage that holds her pack & play, play tent and a few various other items.

The uppermost shelf of the bookshelf is out of her reach and holds a couple special items- an angel  souvenir brought back from Ireland from my parents, and a beautiful angel sculpture my mom purchased from an artist while I was pregnant.  The top of the shelf holds her headband organizer, a pink pot that still needs a plant, and a cute modern rocking horse.  On the wall I hung little pink buckets I found at Target which hold q-tips, cotton balls & diaper rash cream.  I picked up the abstract art at Homegoods, and the shadow boxes were recycled from another room in our home.  They contain a few special items- a first tea-cup brought back from Ireland from my sister, a treasured photo of my gran & grandad, another (empty!) pink pot, a wooden R, an adorable sock monkey, and a soccer ball!  The autographed soccer ball was won by the hubs at a community event the day after we brought babygirl home from the hospital.  When he got home from the event I was nursing babygirl in the glider and he showed it to me, then popped it in the, then empty, shadowbox, and it's just kind of stuck!

The crib was a gift from my parents, and we didn't bring it in the room until babygirl was almost 6 months old!  Prior to that she slept in a bassinet and then her pack & play.  The crib is just a simple, modern one from Ikea, and I love it!  The curtain hanging behind it was recycled from our previous home where I used it to hide our washer & dryer.  It's a Jonathan Adler print, and was originally a king-sized duvet cover!!  I just took out the seams to create one long panel, and then hemmed up the sides and created a pocket at the top.  I have it hanging on a curtain rod, and think it's a super-fun & dramatic detail!  I made a simple crib-skirt from the same fabric to tie it all together.  The mobile over the crib was made by me. 

Rounding out the room is this little corner with one of my favorite pieces of furniture- an old cigar humidor owned by my great-grandparents!  When I was growing up it was always in my gran & grandad's kitchen and was full of sweets & cookies- probably why I have such fond memories of it!!  It has a hole in the top where an ashtray once was, so I just covered it with a simple marble tile.  Atop it sits another piece from my gran & grandad's home- a vintage orange mushroom lamp.  On this table (though difficult to see) also sit the baby monitor base station, and the white noise sound machine which is a must for babygirl to sleep soundly!

The blanket on the back of the glider was handmade by my sister just for the nursery- such talent!  And behind the glider is the gallery wall, with details in this post.  On the back wall is a cute modern clock I picked up at Big Lots, of all places.  I also have a mirror propped against the day bed so babygirl can watch herself- she loves it!  In the middle of the room is one of the best gifts we received- a wooden activity toy.  It keeps babygirl occupied for ages.  I also popped a couple cute straw hats on the curtain tie-backs just for fun.

So that's the nursery tour!  Below are links for the items I could find links for.

Wall Paint: Natural Twine MSL217, Martha Stewart for Home Depot
Ceiling Paint: Eros Pink SW6880, Sherwin Williams
Valance Fabric: unsure of name, Forsyth Fabrics
Daybed, Crib, Dresser, Ceiling light,: Ikea

I'd love to do tours of all the rooms in our home, that could be lots of fun!!

*The hubs gives me grief about the room, but I can justify it because we actually won a Most Colorful Nursery contest sponsored by the What to Expect When You're Expecting website.  So when he gives me grief, I have to remind him the room is "Award Winning".  Ah, that certainly feels good!!

**Funny note about that ceiling light, I wasn't so crazy about it when Ikea first came out with it.  Then, last summer when we were getting started on the nursery I spotted it in the As-Is section at Ikea for a good bit off the original price.  I thought it could be whimsical & sweet in the nursery, so we got it.  Once installed, the hubs had reservations because it cast pretty cool shadows that he thought would scare babygirl since they looked like spiders.  I had to remind him she wouldn't know what spiders are!!  It's turned out to be a wonderful choice for the nursery because of those shadows, and the light fixture itself- she is captivated by it!! 

Evolution of a Gallery Wall

We've lived in our home nearly three years.  In that time, the room that is now babygirl's nursery has gone through many incarnations.  The picture above is the room shortly after we moved in, when it was a guest room.

A few months later I had added curtains and a few random things, but it was still pretty sparse.  I'd always had it ear-marked as the eventual nursery, so while I wanted it to be a cozy place for guests, I wasn't going to go overboard to decorate it as a guest room.

And here it is almost exactly one year ago, thanks to a date-stamp I didn't know how to take off of my camera setting.  Good thing I figured that out!  I'll do a full tour of the nursery soon, but for now I thought I'd focus on that back wall, which I decided to make a "gallery wall", and it's evolution over the past year.  Above is how it started, the centerpiece being a needlepoint made by my grandad in 1979.  I thought it was a perfect place for a piece of his art, and the colors worked nicely with what was going on in the room.  It just makes me happy to know a piece of art he lovingly made and hung in his home for years is now in babygirl's room.  Lots of good energy there, I just know it!  The pink item is a (heavy!) floral iron sculpture I found at a local junk shop, already painted the awesome pink color.  The other small piece is a painting done by my nephew many Christmases ago, when he was maybe 3 or 4, with the three main colors of the nursery: brown, pink & orange.  That combo has been a fave of mine for ages!

This picture is from my first blog post at the end of December.  I've added a few more items- the white frame on the right side is a picture of our family from Thanksgiving 2011- babygirl's first Thanksgiving.  The frame in the lower middle is an artpiece I made in that same blog post.  The frame on the left with the wide white mat is another piece I made from some scrapbook paper and adhesive letters, which spells out babygirl's name.  The melted crayon art above it was a gift from a great friend who made it herself (with some Pinterest inspiration).  It's so cool!

Now here it is this past week!  I added a family picture taken in the hospital when babygirl was 1 (ONE!) day old.  I'd had no sleep in nearly three days, and you can tell from my puffy eyes, but it just melts my heart.  I also added a stork the hospital hung outside our door- the artwork is actually really cool!  On the lower right, I made another small artpiece from scrapbook paper and a cool bicycle graphic.  And in the upper middle, I framed a square of heavy paper from a graphic gift bag I received- art can be found anywhere!  The two black frames in the upper left are cool ceramic pieces that I just glued (with semi-permanent glue dots) cards I'd used as thank you's for baby gifts.  I loved the artwork from the cards, and thought they'd make pretty additions.  Plus they fit perfectly on the ceramic frames.  Here are a few closeups of the wall:

The thing I love about this wall is that most items are entirely homemade, and many done cheaply, or free.  There are special pieces in there too, but the cheap ones can easily be changed out/updated/evolved as babygirl grows and develops her own (great) taste.  For now it's fun to find or make art for the wall and continue to grow it organically.  I can't wait to see what it will look like next year at this time!!

A Tutorial: DIY Headband Holder

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I came across the image above on Pinterest* a while back, and utterly fell in love.  It may have been the burlap, because I have a definite soft spot for the nubby texture, or it may have been the clever up-cycling of an oatmeal container.  Either way, I quickly pinned it and started thinking about how to make it my own.

We eat a LOT of oatmeal in this house, and those oatmeal containers are very sturdy!  Every time I toss one I feel a little bad, so I was excited about putting it to good use.  Now, I will admit I made this before I was blogging, so there aren't step-by-step photos, but I think you'll easily get the idea.

My humble materials- an oatmeal container & an old pillar candle holder I picked up at Goodwill for the purposes of this project, to use as a base.  Notice the price- $1.91- you can't beat that!!  At $1.99 for the oatmeal, the project total is a whopping $3.90, though I'm not sure you'd even count the cost of the oatmeal!

I quickly got to painting the pillar candle holder in my favorite glossy black acrylic paint.  Then I looked through my fabric stash for the most neutral fabric I had.  I ended up using a scrap of fabric that was actually from a sample book, and was FREE at my favorite fabric store. (It's awesome, they usually have free bins by the registers that are filled with small scraps of fabric, pieces from sample books, and little bits of trim.  I always scour them for cool things to save for future projects.)  This fabric had more color to it, but I used the reverse side of the fabric because I loved the more neutral tones.

I used spray adhesive to coat the oatmeal container & fabric, allowed them to get a bit tacky, and then adhered the fabric to the container.  I also cut a circle of fabric and adhered it to the top of the lid.  The sides of the lid were still a little tacky, so I took the opportunity to add a little satin ribbon trim in a matching chocolate brown color.  And then being the perfectionist I am, I also added a little of the same ribbon around the top of the oatmeal container and along the back seam so you couldn't see the edges & seams of the fabric. 

Now came the only tricky part- how to attach the container to its base.  I ended up using an additional oatmeal container lid (I told you we eat a lot of oatmeal!) and used spray adhesive to secure it to the base, set my oatmeal container on top of it, and then hot-glued all around to make sure it was secure.  Hmmm, I bet you're thinking a photo of that process would be really helpful- Sorry!!!  Any future project tutorials will come with lots of step-by-step pics, I promise!!  For fun, I hot-glued some of the leftover trim from babygirl's valances to tie in a bit of pink, and that's it!

This couldn't have been a simpler project.  It was made wholly with things I had around the house, apart from the base which was a steal at Goodwill, and only took about 1 hour to complete while babygirl was napping- that's my kind of project!  

Here is the finished product adorned with headbands.  There's also lots of storage inside for the not-so-cute bands, elastics, etc.

Next, I have plans to make a holder for all of babygirl's hair barrettes.  They are currently clipped to a length of ribbon which is hanging from the closet door knob, but I have a much cuter idea in mind.  Stay tuned!!

*If you want to follow me on Pinterest, I'm over there with the username: mamacarriet.  Though I have to admit I don't pin that often, I prefer to pin-surf other people's pins!!  And if you need an invite to join, just let me know, I'm happy to send you one.

Brainstorming: DIY Pull-Down Map

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I saw this picture a few weeks ago, and it's been on my mind ever since.  I've always loved vintage maps, in fact I found one many years ago at Goodwill, of all places!  It was a prized possession, until movers lost it in my move from Phoenix.  (I knew I had blogged about that awesome map many years ago, and dug through the vaults to find this post.  Ha!  Good times!  Man, I miss that map.)

Anyhow, I love vintage maps, especially those of the pull-down school variety, and I love the clever use of the map above to conceal a TV, because if there is one thing I DON'T love in home decor, it's a glaringly huge TV.  The hubs would of course disagree.  We have a flat screen TV that we're hoping to wall mount in the next couple months, so I decided to start my search for a vintage pull-down map to conceal the TV once it's mounted.  Lemme tell you, the search was short-lived.  Unless I happen across a cheap one at Goodwill again, the cool ones are way out of my price-range!!  (I checked eBay, just do a search for vintage pull down maps and you'll see what I'm talking about.)

As I was browsing eBay for the pull-down maps, a few pull-down educational charts popped up.  I also adore their weird quirkiness, but unfortunately the cool ones are also out of my price-range.  But, it got my wheels turning...

A few months ago we installed cheapy roller shades in babygirl's nursery in an attempt to make it darker and cooler.  It didn't make a huge improvement, but it does create a really beautiful diffused light during the day.  But, I digress.  The point I was going to make is that those roller shades are DIRT CHEAP.  So I started thinking: what if I had a roller shade cut down to my exact measurement, found a cool pdf of a map or educational chart, had it blown up & printed at an office store, mounted it onto the roller shade, attached a dowel to the bottom and built a simple shelf to mount it to, and then hung it on the wall above the TV to make my own version of a vintage pull-down map/chart?!?

I'm soooo excited!  I'll keep you posted, and will be sure to post a tutorial!

A Tutorial: DIY Mobile

I was blog-browsing one day when I came across these beautiful watercolor birds. They're free to print, and I thought they'd make the perfect start to a DIY mobile for babygirl's nursery.  The hubs thinks I'm crazy, but I just wasn't crazy about any of the zillions of mobiles out there in the baby stores.  So I set out to make my own.

First, I wanted to print the birds onto a heavier paper, but didn't have anything fancy, so I just tore a few sheets out of my sketchpad, cut off the scraggly edges, and voila- fancy paper! I printed two of each set of birds, for a total of 24 birds.  Next, I cut around the dotted lines and glued the birds onto a thin cardboard (I used gift boxes left-over from Christmas gifts).

I then went back to this place, which is one of my favorite shops for inspiration & awesome fabric, and cut a TON of "samples".  I suppose that was kind of cheating, but they do allow you to cut samples no larger than a dollar bill, and none of mine were larger than that- I may just have had 30 or so samples!!!

I cut the birds out of the cardboard once the glue had dried, and then set out to match the coloring of each bird to similar colors in the fabric.  It goes without saying that I only cut samples of fabrics that I felt would look good in the nursery, and were visually appealing to newborn eyes!!  Here's me playing around with matching birds to fabric:

I used Mod-Podge to glue the birds to the fabric, and then stacked books on top to keep the birds nice & flat.  (They may have stuck to the dining table in the process, but the excess Mod-Podge washed right off!).  I cut out the birds, and then Mod-Podged the fronts of the birds so they were nice & shiny and sealed.  Here they are drying, and this time I've wised-up and put a layer of foil down to prevent sticking:

From here I used a tiny brad nail to poke (hammer!) a hole through the lacquered birds & hardened fabric.  That required some trial & error, but using a hammer to tap the brad into the pre-printed hole turned out to work the best!  At this point I became a crazy-lady obsessed with finding the perfect branch while the hubs and I were on our neighborhood walks, in order to hang the birds from.  I went through quite a few versions of the perfect branch before I settled on THE perfect one!!  I was initially going to leave it in it's natural state, but then the idea to paint it a glossy black seemed perfect for the modern-ish nursery.

So I painted (with acrylic craft paint in glossy black), cut varying lengths of clear nylon string, and got to work stringing the birds from the branch.  Sorry, no pics of this process, but I think you get the general idea!  I then cut 3 long lengths of string, installed 3 eye-hooks in the ceiling above the crib and attached the mobile to the ceiling.  Done!!

It may have been a labor-intensive project, but it wasn't hard, just time consuming.  I think the results were well worth the effort though!  It's not just a mobile, it's an art piece.  And the best part is that babygirl absolutely loves it.  I catch her staring at it all the time- no better sense of accomplishment for this mama!!