Our nursery/baby room is coming together quite nicely. When we were on vacation the first of April we finished clearing it out, painted it, set up the crib, and hung some of the prints we had. In the last few weeks we've continued to work on it, most of the big stuff is done, just little things remain.
Project number one was to sew ribbon loops (thanks for the idea Lynsey!) on the back of a baby quilt to hang over the crib. My mom actually made this quilt in 1979, two years before I was born. I distinctly remembering sleeping with it/playing on it during my childhood. I just bought some wide, white grosgrain ribbon at Michael's, cut five lengths of it, roughly the same size, evenly spaced them across the top, and then hand-sewed the loops to the backside. I didn't want to use my sewing machine since it's an older piece and I wanted the stitches to be loose enough to remove if I needed to. The curtain rod is really too long so Doug is going to shorten it.
Project number two was to cut fabric pieces from my stash and stretch them over embroidery hoops to hang over the changing table. Super cheap project because I already had the fabric and some of the hoops, but even the hoops I had to buy were less than $2. This project has probably been done a million times now, I first saw it on this Nursery Tour at Ohdeedoh (now Apartment Therapy Family) but it originally came from Purl Bee. I cut the fabric slightly larger than the hoop, trimmed off the really big parts, and hot glued the cut edges down to the back of the hoop. It's a cute, inexpensive decoration, plus the fabric can be changed and they're so lightweight they won't hurt baby if they fall off the wall.
Project number three was curtain hemming. We bought the curtains at Ikea when we went to Atlanta in April. They came with some iron-on hem stuff that sucked/did not work. So I set out to hem them myself, which took me a while and included me catching my index finger in the sewing machine needle, ouch. But they are finally done and while they aren't perfect they look nice and I doubt anyone is going to go measure the hems.
Project number four is mostly Doug. My grandmother gave me a chiffarobe that belonged to my great-grandparents when I moved out on my own. For the baby's room I painted it red (I think it's called Ladybug and it's from the Martha paint line at Home Depot). The doors used to have really old mirrors in them. Doug removed the mirror panels and replaced them with panels covered in cork. The middle door is just a piece of wood he cut to fit and I painted with gray chalkboard paint (from the Martha line at Michael's). Doug is still finishing up all but one of the drawers, which I need to line once he's done. The knobs are from Lowes. I had thought about using some fancy drawer pulls from Anthropologie from decided to wait and just use the less expensive Lowes option. I was able to hang the clothes we have inside, I think we should have enough room for baby clothes and socks in the whole piece.
My next crafty-project to finish is the yarn ball mobile. I covered styrofoam balls with yarn (and a dab of hot glue) and some craft store purse handles (the round parts) but I have yet to put the whole thing together. I still need to figure out exactly how to do it. I'm also covering this giant 'B' (for our last name) with yarn. It's kind of a pain to do because of the large wad of yarn and the curves of the letter, luckily, I've got until July to finish.
Project number four is mostly Doug. My grandmother gave me a chiffarobe that belonged to my great-grandparents when I moved out on my own. For the baby's room I painted it red (I think it's called Ladybug and it's from the Martha paint line at Home Depot). The doors used to have really old mirrors in them. Doug removed the mirror panels and replaced them with panels covered in cork. The middle door is just a piece of wood he cut to fit and I painted with gray chalkboard paint (from the Martha line at Michael's). Doug is still finishing up all but one of the drawers, which I need to line once he's done. The knobs are from Lowes. I had thought about using some fancy drawer pulls from Anthropologie from decided to wait and just use the less expensive Lowes option. I was able to hang the clothes we have inside, I think we should have enough room for baby clothes and socks in the whole piece.
My next crafty-project to finish is the yarn ball mobile. I covered styrofoam balls with yarn (and a dab of hot glue) and some craft store purse handles (the round parts) but I have yet to put the whole thing together. I still need to figure out exactly how to do it. I'm also covering this giant 'B' (for our last name) with yarn. It's kind of a pain to do because of the large wad of yarn and the curves of the letter, luckily, I've got until July to finish.
