Some paper crafting!

I've had a few Silhouette paper cutting projects recently.  That I've used a few of my "free nights" to work on.  It's taken forever to get some of them done but I'm glad I can finally make time for some sort of crafting again.

Two of my good friends are getting married (to each other) in 15 days!  A few months ago she asked me if I could help with some paper things for the wedding.  First up was a sticker to attach to the welcome bags that she had for hotel guests and the bridal party.  She gave me a general idea of what she liked, along with some examples for inspiration.  I came up with a few samples, but finally ended up with this:

(font is Janda Elegant Handwriting)

I printed them onto some full sheets of sticker paper that she had purchased and brought to me, and she said it almost looks like they were printed directly onto the bags! 

Next up, my mom asked for some help with developing a new business card for her Etsy shop.  She wants to completely remodel and streamline the look of her page, including the paper that she sends associated with her orders.  She wanted something on Kraft paper, so I came up with this:

(Fonts: Young & Beautiful, GeosansLight)

She loved that they looked like bows.

In looking for new ways to decorate my house for Halloween, I kept coming across this picture.

source

I desperately wanted to do this on our garage, so I searched through the image options for the Silhouette and found a group of bats that I thought would work well.  I set them up (all 60 of them) and cut them out on some black vinyl.

Here's what my version looks like:

I feel pretty good about the very little bit of crafting I've been able to accomplish lately.  Hopefully soon I will be able to increase my level of production.

Cross your fingers.

But don't hold your breath.

6 month recap

It's been so long since I've written here, everything is blending together.  So I'm just going to make a list of the things (that I can remember) that have happened over the last few months and quickly recap them.

1.  We finished getting L.Soup's room together

2.  We had a baby!

3.  D.Soup took L.Soup and his mom on a road trip in May.  My mother in law's best friend had a daughter graduating from high school.  They live in North Carolina.  She really wanted to go be a part of the celebrations, but didn't want to go alone.  D.Soup decided it would be fun to take L.Soup and spend some time with his mom.  He also thought it would be nice for me to spend some quality alone time with R.Soup.  It was definitely nice to have just one baby for a few days, but I was so happy when they got home.

4.  While they were gone my mom and I attacked the girls rooms, and the computer room.  We took advantage of having only one baby, and spent a majority of the 5 days they were gone frantically cleaning and organizing the upstairs in my house.  It had turned into a complete disaster area - all the girls clothes were in laundry baskets or on the floor, boxes were piled everywhere, things got carried upstairs and just left in the hallway.  A. mess.  And the worst part of everything was the computer room.  There was a single path of walking space in that room.  It took most of the time to clean, but we got it 95% accomplished.  I have big plans for that room in the near future.

5.  I went back to work.  I got an awesome 3 months at home with my girls after R.Soup was born.  I'm happy to be back at work, if only because I have adults to talk to again.

6.  I started making time to work on crafting/house stuff again.  It may only be an hour after the girls have gone to bed, but I'm sure soon I'll be able to devote more time to working on my crafting projects.  Currently I'm working on four crates - two for the girls bathroom and two for the bottom of the pantry in the kitchen.  More on that later.

7.  I decided to decorate my bathroom.  When we moved in, all the rooms in our house were the same color.  For the most part I'm okay with that on the main level.  Most of that level is one large open space so the consist wall color isn't terrible.  Upstairs though, every wall in every room is (other than the girls rooms) the same and it was starting to wear on me.  Additionally, I had put no effort into decorating the bathroom other than a few (black - what was I thinking) rugs on the floor and a pretty shower curtain.  I'm over it.

Hopefully this will be a good kick-off point for me to start writing here again.

Migrating

So this post is from 6 months ago. There is too much that has happened between now and then, so I'm just going to post it as is...........

2/5/14

I've spent the last few weeks slowly getting everything situated in my new craft room.  I miraculously "finished" sorting and boxing up all the millions of baby clothes that had littered the floor in that room for months.  Then I promptly found MORE clothes that needed a home. 

Sigh. 

It never ends.  Those clothes are currently stacked on top of the mountain of boxes, because there is no more space for them in said boxes.  Of course.

Once that was done, I had a whole new world of space open to me.  I have a few of these tables hanging out in my garage, for parties and whatnot.  I figured I could just use two of them and make a nice long wall of just table space.  Previously, I had everything in my craft room set up on one of them, and the Silhouette and sewing machine had to share space.  It was not really working for me.  Especially considering I don't clean up ever the other things that have taken up space on the table over the last few months.

I had D.Soup lug one of the extra tables upstairs and we set it up.  Then we decided to measure to see if two would fit.  The wall is just over 11.5 feet long, the tables we had were 6 feet each.  So putting two in that space was not an option.  The next idea we had was to buy one 5 foot table.  But the width of the tables is different, so that would have driven me insane.

So I bought two 5 foot tables at Sam's Club (because they had them for the cheapest price).  Now I have separate areas for my sewing machine, and my Silhouette.  And I have a the perfect size gap between the tables and the wall for a tall storage cabinet!  I'm so excited!  We've got the plans all set out for how it's going to get built, just need to find the time.  Considering we still haven't finished the other nightstand, we'll see when it actually happens.

The plan is to build the cabinet with enough storage spaces for each color family of paper to have its own space.  I'll also have a bunch of extra space underneath for anything else I want to put down there!  Compared to where my paper has been stored in the past (all over the floor), it's going to be AMAZING!

I also cleared out the closet in that room in preparation for all my fabric.  The goal is to put a shelf in there and have the fabric stored neatly on the shelf.  Again, compared to where it was before (all over the floor... are we seeing a pattern here?) its going to be like heaven.

But, more importantly.  The goal here is to get everything cleared out of what is to be L.Soup's new room.  Progress is slow, but its happening!  All of my big craft stuff has been transferred, next up is the actual office supplies.  During this migration, we are downsizing.  We hardly used the computers that we had set up in the old craft/computer room.  One of the two has been moved to the new craft room, because I use it for my crafting.  The other one is most likely headed for the basement.  D. Soup sometimes does crazy workout video things, and could use it for those.

This also means that the actual computer desk is no longer necessary.  We're probably never going to need it again, so we'll pack it up and save it for whenever we decide to yard sale.  Or something.  After that is gone, its really just finding new homes for all the small stuff in my new craft room.  Simple.  Yeah.  Right?

Well, we're going to take our time, and slowly shuffle through the mess.  But I feel like we're on the right track for moving L.Soup.  I have the plan for her bedroom in my head, and I can't wait to start working on it.  I have so many things that I need to get together for her space.

I feel a little in between a rock and a hard place in this moment.  I want to get L.Soup's room finished before the baby gets here.  But I need to get the craft room organized in order to get things ready for L.Soup's room. Not that my old craft room was organized in any way.  I think it's just that now I know what I want, but I have to choose one room over the other.

Of course I'm going to choose L.Soup's room.

But the picture of my craft room in my head is soooo beautiful.

Building with friends

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom.

Our bedroom has basically been the most ignored room in our house since we moved in.  There are so many plans that I have for this room, but we just haven't made the time to work on them.  It's a beautiful sized room, but we have filled it with things that are not exactly screaming bedroom sanctuary.

Originally, I had a whole description of the room written here.  But it was confusing and I kept forgetting to include the pictures that would help it make more sense, so I'll do a before and after soon.

But, until then....

We need night stands.  Badly.  I can't have the baby sleeping in the co-sleeper with my jewelry and the monitor for L.Soup and my phone all hanging out in there with her.  I also need the room to start looking more like a place that adults sleep, and less like a college dorm room.

My friend and I made a deal that if she helps me build these, I'll help her build an entertainment center in a few months when it's warmer.  So the plans were made, and a few weekends ago it was happening...

When mom takes too long putting the cart together, dad decides where we ride.

D. Soup and I made our way to the hardware store on Saturday, and Sunday was the day!  They were finally getting done!  She got to my house around 10, and we hung out for a little while and then got to work.  We got through the cutting part pretty quickly and efficiently.  This was the part I was more worried about, but apparently my friend was 100% confident in our cutting abilities.  We actually did much better than I expected, considering D. Soup never lets me cut anything.

All our wood cut up

The next step was assembly.  I was far more confident on this part, because I know how to use a drill and hammer.  We hit a few snags when instructions weren't completely clear, or when we discovered that our assistant (my friends mom) had not provided us with all the cuts we needed, so we had to steal a few pieces from the pile for the second night stand.  Not a huge deal, but it was confusing for a little while.

We also used the Kreg Jig to connect most of the pieces together, which took a bit of a learning curve.  But we got it figured out eventually.  It's actually really awesome!

Halfway there!

The other issue we ran into was the pine 2x2's we were working with were warped.  The nice wood in the lumber section at the hardware store was only available in 3 foot sections for 2x2's, and I was NOT paying $5.50 for a 3 foot section, especially when I needed 13 of them.  No thanks.

Luckily D.Soup found 8 foot pine 2x2's in another section, but they aren't as nice as the other materials.  Not a huge deal because I can easily sand them down to look nice.  The biggest issue was the warping, like I said.  It caused us a little trouble when putting the front bottom piece on.  It actually pulled the screw out of the board directly under the drawer.  We had to cut another board for that section that was a little longer and replace it so that it stayed attached.  That was frustrating.

For full disclosure:  We also had a slight mishap with the top boards.  We tried clamping all 3 pieces together and then screwing them together, and that caused the top piece to curve in the center.  I think I'm going to take it back apart and try again so that its more even across the top.

But in all honesty, you can hardly tell anything is wrong with it unless you are very seriously inspecting it.

Finished (unfinished) product!

I'm so happy with how it turned out.  Everyone was super impressed (and surprised... thanks a lot) at how good of a job we did, considering we don't use power tools very often.  Unfortunately we only got one done, because we had a few minor delays and we had to stop for eating and for babies and things of that nature.

The other one is in the works still, it's been a busy few weeks.  I'm hoping that it will get done soon so we will have a matching set.

I love mine already.

Pillows!

I have a few pillows that I've been wanting to put back into my living room.  I could have easily used the current cases, which matched perfectly in the living room at our old house, until I had time to redo the whole living room to make everything match...

Unfortunately, they all look like this:

Damn puppy teeth!

Every corner on every.single.pillow.  Adult Calli is lucky that Puppy Calli was so cute.

So, a few months ago, I bought fabric to make some new pillow cases.  My vision for the new living room is blue accents, which will match the shades of blue I hope to paint the furniture sometime in the (far distant) future.  These are two of the fabrics I ended up choosing:

I originally picked out three fabrics, because I was absolutely sure that I had 6 pillows.  But apparently that was WRONG, because I can only find 4 pillows total.  I might just leave it at that, and use the other fabric for something else.  I'm going to let the pillows settle in over the next few days before I decide.

I asked for a yard of each fabric, and I'm not sure if the cuts were off or if they shrank that much when I put the fabric through the drier, but both sheets were much shorter than I expected them to be.  Unfortunately, the pillows were also slightly larger than I expected them to be too.  Pillow inserts available for purchase at the fabric store are approximately 16" square.  These inserts came with the cases, and ended up being 17.5" square.  So I was cutting it pretty close (no pun intended) when I was measuring everything out.

I followed the measurement guidelines from MADE on how to sew a slipcover for a pillow (second half of the video).

Front

Back.

Overall I'm very happy with how they turned out.  If you want to get into sewing, pillows are a good place to start.  Four straight lines is the easiest thing I've ever sewn.

I've noticed a few times that you can see the insert along the opening on the back of the pillow.  So apparently some of the cases are a little snug.  I'm sure it will work itself out.

Not sure what's going on with the weird coloring here...

I obviously need to stop taking pictures with my cell phone.

The fronts sure look pretty though.

My only Christmas craft

My in-laws (almost jokingly, I think) asked for a new mailbox for Christmas this year.  Something that represented them better than the falling apart mailbox that they currently have.  I thought about buying one already made for a little while, but decided I would try my hand at it instead.

D.Soup's family loves anything Disney, so I knew that was the direction I would be going in.  I found some cute images that expanded nicely (they are about 7 inches tall I think) and got everything ready in Silhouette Studio.  I purchased some black vinyl (how did I not already have black!?) and some clear printable vinyl for the characters.

I had purchased red and orange acrylic craft paint about a month ago for a project that never ended up happening with L.Soup.  I guess that will be a present for everyone next Christmas.  At least we have a whole year to get it done now, yes? 

The only other things I needed were a mailbox that I had D.Soup pick up at the hardware store one day, and some sponges which I stole from my mom's crafting supplies.

Here's the finished product (PLEASE ignore the disgustingness of my craft room, ugh):

Super fancy star because I didn't ask if they were okay with their name being on here

Other side

Front.  Same deal.

After everything was done drying, I had D.Soup put a few coats of clear UV protectant polyurethane over it.  I was standing with him for about one second as he was spraying, and then had to run away.  I really appreciated his help because I never would have gotten that done.  That stuff is stinky!  And I'm not supposed to be around fumes like that, while I'm growing another person and all.  

Overall I'm super happy with how it turned out.  It didn't really take that much work.  I'm a little unsure about how the printable vinyl stuck to the mailbox.  There was one section on Mickey's arm that seemed to not stick as nicely as everything else.  D.Soup's mom asked when we were coming to install it, so I guess I'll check out that arm when we go over for that.  make sure it's up to standards and whatnot.

His mom was super excited about it.  She asked where we got it from.  Always a good thing for someone to think your work is professionally done. :)

I sent the pictures to my mom and she thought I should make and sell them.  And then I laughed, because who has time for that??? 

I'm trying to decide what I want on my mailbox.

Next Project

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom. 

First and most importantly:
Happy New Year!!

I'm so happy my energy, willpower and motivation are back!  I'm ready to get back to work on the house.  Especially now that the foyer is done! Woo!  I don't have to feel guilty starting a new project when that's still sitting around sadly.

D.Soup and I decided that for Christmas this year we would work on getting some of the stuff in the house dealt with, instead of buying each other presents.  We have a lot of plans for this house, and haven't made much time to get anything done (obviously, see list above). 

For the last our laundry room has been a wealth of unused space.  We threw the washer and dryer in there, along with any laundry and cleaning supplies would fit up on the single wire shelf that came pre-installed.  We also hid the cat's litter box in there.

Hate this mess.

Of course I waited until the work started to take pictures.

Gross

It's a mess.  There's litter all over the floor (gross).  I can hardly reach any of the stuff on the shelf.  There's no where to deal with the clothes once they are finished in the dryer, which means they end up piled up in our room until we deal with them.
 
Originally our plan was to purchase a ready to finish cabinet to put in the open space and hide the litter box inside, and a cat door for them to have access to it.  My only worry was that the prefabbed cabinets would be too small for the litter box that we have. 


As I was perusing the internet one day, I came across this.  I immediately knew that this would be such a better route for us, and sent it to D.Soup to look over.  Now the plan is to have two counter tops, one over the washer and dryer, and one in the opposite corner over the litter box.  That counter will get the curtain treatment, to hide what happens in the litter box from sight.  

The other change is that the laundry room door will be getting a cat door on it.  That way it can stay closed all the time.  L.Soup will be moving to the room closest to the laundry room within the year, and I don't want any late night laundry running to keep her awake.  Having the ability to close the door completely should help with the noise problem.

Another addition to this room will be wall cabinets!  I hate wire shelves, especially ones that are way to high for my short self to reach without excessive stretching.  A set will go over the washer and dryer, and another over the cat box.  Storage everywhere!

I found this great stencil that I also have big plans for. I ordered it, along with a stencil brush and can't wait for it to arrive!  

We got started putting the braces up for the two shelves while we were off work after New Years.  We discovered L.Soup is NOT a fan of the drill.  She threw an absolute fit every time it started up.  That was fun.  So far this is our progress:

First board up!  Another one runs down the wall on the right, but I forgot to take a picture.

After we got the two boards up for this corner, D.Soup grabbed the actual shelf piece, so we could see how it looked.  He sat it on the brace, and said "Well, good news and bad news..."

Good news, is it fits... Bad news, our room isn't square!  What the heck!  So it looks like this:

Rude.

We are going to get some trim and cover that mess up...Then we have to figure out what we're using for a leg on the side that's not butted up against a wall.  That's on my to do list.

We came across the same issue with the other walls too.  Above the front of the washer and dryer, the distance between the walls measures 76.75", but in the corners it measures 76.25"!  That was fun for D.Soup, who cut the board you see below at 76.75" while in the basement.  He then had to run the stairs 4 times to get it cut the correct length.  He was planning on just cutting and eighth of an inch each time, then wised up after the third trip down two flights of stairs and measured the distance between the walls in the corner.
 

Boards up around the washer and dryer!

Next step is to cut the boards for the top so they fit around the tubing you see on the left hand side.  We also now have to take into consideration the change in distance and make sure to cut the boards on a slight angle so we don't have another huge gap.

I bought a little flip top trash can to go on top of the counter over the washer and dryer for dryer lint, which is much better than it just sitting on top of the dryer like it normally does (as you can see in a few of the pictures).  I also bought a glass canister to put my new powdered laundry detergent in.  I've never used powdered before, but I like the brand (I've used the liquid for the last 2 years) and it should last FOREVER, since I bought this.  So now I have a pretty place to store it.

Obviously I'm pretty excited about this getting done so quickly.

The cabinet part of this deal might not happen as fast, but I'm okay with that.  We decided to use these plans from Ana White and build our own cabinets:

• 36" Wall Cabinet
• 21" Wall Cabinet
• 12" Base Cabinet (without the drawer)

We'll need 2 of each of the wall cabinets, and 1 base cabinet to squeeze in between the washer and dryer.  To purchase the cabinets that we need, it would cost us well over $400.  If we build our own, it will cost us around $200 according to my calculations.  Making them ourselves also allows us to tweak the sizes slightly so they fit perfectly in the spaces.  Also, I'm completely okay with it taking a little longer to save that much money.

Heck, I'm still sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

So obviously I don't mind waiting,

and not paying out the wazoo for something.

Our new foyer!

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves.
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer.
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom. 

MONTHS ago (literally, months.  JUNE.  ugh), I decided to finally start working on some of the ideas I dreamed up for our new house.  I got all the supplies together, taped up the wall in the foyer, and started painting.  And then I ran out of paint.  So we went and bought more.  That next day.  Because I was motivated.

And then I got caught up in some other projects.  And we went on vacation.  And the dog's leg got busted.  You see where I'm going with this.  So our entryway has been in this awful messy limbo state ever since.  And because its a disgusting mess, we just keep adding to it.  Because that's the type of people we are.  Not the "oh I see a mess, I should probably fix it" people.  No, we are the "oh, well this is already messy so it won't really matter if I drop these other 54 things here too".  *sigh*



Well it got old.  And I got motivated.  AGAIN.

I didn't think there was much more to do to the base layer.  Just some sections that didn't have enough of a coating the first time around.  But I ended up doing an entire coat on the wall, because I kept finding sections that were just not quite covered.

Once again I realize how terrible a painter I truly am.  I don't know why I enjoy painting so much.  I actually dripped paint all over the floor this time around.  Lucky for me they are hardwood.  Had to do an emergency stop and run to get cleaner and paper towels to deal with THAT.  On top of that I hit the connecting walls a few times.  I used a magic eraser to clean up the mess, and it seems to have done a fairly good job.  I've never been a real fan of them, but it saved my butt this time around.

I also used D.Soup's recommendation and covered my paint tray with some plastic wrap before I poured the paint in, for "easy cleanup".  It was HORRIBLE.  I don't know if I didn't use enough plastic wrap.  Or if I'm just an idiot.  Or if it's just a terrible idea (I vote this one).  But the plastic wrap ended up balled up in the bottom of the tray, after I fought to get it to stay while I was getting paint onto the roller.  I was very bitter towards it, and ended up abandoning the idea all together.

After that debacle, I finished painting and let it sit overnight to dry.

Once the base layer was dry, I started taping over it in 9 inch horizontal stripes.  I had to get D.Soup to help me, since my arms are only so long.  We tried a few manners of getting the lines straight:

1. When I was working alone, I marked ever foot or so with a pen down the wall, and then taped.
2. D.Soup decided that was an epic waste of time and brought out the laser level to get an estimate of where to put the tape, and then we double checked it before we stuck it down completely with a regular level.  
3. Then we got completely tired of re-sticking the tape when the lines ended up 100% not straight.  So we dug out the chalk line and things progressed much faster after that.

In between steps 2 and 3 is about 1-3 months of ZERO activity.  We attempted to get some progress made on the stripes one Saturday while L.Soup was napping, and ended up waking her up from her nap and dealing with a crankosaurus the rest of the day.  So that got nixed fairly quickly.  THEN, I spent at least a month of that time as a semi-permanent feature on the couch because of fetus induced exhaustion and nausea.

Well, I'm out of my pregnancy coma now, and ready for action!  Tuesday, I took advantage of a snow day and a toddler that's more interested in helping than destroying at the moment and we finished up the taping!  I then marked which stripes I was NOT going to paint so I wouldn't get completely confused in the process.  Because let's be honest... that would happen.

All taped up!

I've always had a hard time with paint seeping underneath the tape, and I wanted to make these lines as perfect as possible.  I started off with burnishing the the tape so that it was nicely stuck to the wall.  But I wanted to do more.  I read a really great post once about how to prevent the paint from seeping, and I wanted to give that a try.

After you tape, paint (on the side you intend to paint the new color) the SAME color as the wall.  This first round of paint creates a barrier with the tape.  If any paint ends up running, it's the same color as the wall, so you won't see it!

In my case, the paints were the same color, but different sheens.  I used a bristle brush and put a thin coat of the flat paint over the side of the tape where the high gloss paint would be.  I fully intended on taking a picture of it, but my cell phone battery was way low and I plugged it in to charge and completely forgot about pictures until it was too late.  Of course. 

Allow that to dry, THEN paint the new color.  

For this round I used a roller, and carefully painted each stripe with the high gloss.  I had D.Soup help me with this part, mostly because the high gloss paint isn't no VOC, and it was stinky.  I was worried about being in the room with that smell for too long, so he did the first round of stripes for me.

At this point I started looking at the tape and getting really nervous because it looked bubbly.  After all the work on taping the lines, and then all the effort I put in to NOT have the other color seep through, I was starting to panic.  I gave the paint a little time to dry and then ran over and started tearing at it like a mad woman.  Of course by this time, it was 11 pm, and D.Soup was like "we're not removing all of this tape, are we?"  But then he realized I meant business and got to work.  We had a few mishaps with the tape pulling up paint around the edges of the wall, but what do you expect from something that's been sitting in the same position for 6 months?

So finally.  Finally, Finally, FINALLY!  Here it is:

Subtle

Finally putting the hallway back together!

A little Christmas decoration.

Voilà!

A little one on one time with the sewing machine

Months ago I bought two sewing patterns off etsy, this and this.  I sat down almost immediately and got to work on the skirt.  I had to make it big, so L.Soup hasn't had the chance to wear it yet, but it's so sooooo cute.  Of course at the time I had no idea where my camera was, so I didn't take any pictures of the process.  I do remember it involved the destruction of an old pair of very loved jeans that were unwearable.  It still hurt to cut them up.

Since then I've scored an awesome deal on denim fabric at the store one day and bought a ridiculous amount of it so I will never have to suffer through an experience like that again.

About two weeks ago I decided it was probably time to get to work on the other pattern, a coat.  My intention is for this to be L.Soup's winter coat for this year.  So I've put myself in a slight time crunch.  Lucky for me the pattern is really simple.

I picked a plaid fleece for the outside and a red swirly flannel for the inside...

I got half of the fabric cut out, with "assistance" one day while I was at my mom's.  I decided to wait until said assistant was asleep to try to cut anything else.  Then I had a week of not feeling well and general exhaustion, so nothing got done.  Well last night I decided it was time.

I sat down and cut the rest of the fabric.  On the floor.  I need a second table.   Then I got to work.

Wednesday:
I got the main pieces together for the outside and the lining.  I also finished the ruffled collar and got all of that sewn together.  (ps I didn't take any pictures of this entire process.  I am the worst)

I wanted to see what size the belt would be before I made button holes, so I started on that before I moved to the real next step.  I used the fleece and flannel and followed the instructions for putting the belt together.  But about halfway through I noticed the belt was curling.  First and foremost I want to say that fleece is nearly impossible to sew with (for me at least) because it is so stretchy.  It's also completely impossible to fold under 1/4 inch and sew.  So I think what happened is as I was ATTEMPTING to do that, I stretched the fleece out.  As it got sewn to the flannel, it tried to go back to normal, and that caused the curling.  I'm going to start over with two pieces of the flannel instead and run with that.

After that debacle, I started working on holes for the belt to go through.  I got one made and then realized it was after 10 pm.  And because I'm a 90 year old woman I immediately shut everything off and went to bed.

Thursday:
After putting L.Soup to bed I got right back into the swing of things with the coat.  I finished up the holes for the belt, and got the seam sewn around the bottom of the coat.  And I almost died from the cuteness.  I took two of my KAMSnaps and buttoned up the top.

Then I got to work fixing the disaster from the night before.  Luckily I always buy waaaayyy too much fabric for what I need (mostly because I never think to look at the pattern to see exactly how much I need before I go to the store, so that's always fun).  I cut two new lengths for the belt, both out of the red flannel and sewed them together.  SOO much easier than trying to work with a tiny strip of fleece.  Ugh.

I strung the belt through the holes, and had to talk myself out of waking L.Soup up to put it on her immediately.  Instead I ran into the bedroom and made D.Soup pause the hockey game to experience the ridiculousness.  He loved it.  I loved it.  I did a little happy dance.

I was so hyped up from the victory of the coat, I switched out the thread and threw a pair of Baby Legs together too!  I picked up a super cute pair of socks last month at Target, and just hadn't taken the time to do anything with them.  L.Soup will be wearing them today!

Speaking of wearing... When I went to get L.Soup out of the car this morning I had to fight the new coat on her.  Which isn't anything new...  She.looked.amazing.  I'm worried that it's a little short, but I should be able to fix that without much effort, I hope.  But then, after she got it off, she cried when we tried to put it back on her.  So that was awesome.  I tried the sad face and everything, and she just wasn't having it.  Sigh.

Finally got a picture of my little moving target:

No I will not look at you, mama.

Anyway.  Hooray for productivity!

Finishing touches to the nursery. Part 4: Final Product!

1. Find antique TV stand and refinish it.
2. Build bed frame.
3. Build matching night stands.
4. Refinish dining room table.
5. Refinish bedroom furniture to match bed and night stands.
6. Build computer desk for D.Soup.
7. Refinish wing back chair.
8. Build floating shelves. (almost)
   
9. Build outdoor planters.
10. Install cabinets with clothes folding space into laundry room, with cat door.
11. Paint L.Soup's bedroom.
12. Paint foyer. (almost)
13. Sew pillow for L.Soup's bedroom. 

SO.  I was trying to wait until the last 2 pieces for this room were finished.  But its going to be probably Christmas before they are done and I can't wait that long for two shelves.  This post has been written for months and its killing me just sitting here.  I'll write about the shelves if they are ever finished when they are finished.

While I was pregnant, I dreamed up this nursery idea based around the bedding set I had purchased.  The rainbow of colors and blocks on the wall.  Well it never came to fruition in the old house because of the hobo.  So when we moved to the new house, I knew I wanted to make it happen.

We decided when we moved in that painting her room would wait until it was warmer out, so the windows could be open to air the room out a bit.  Well, I decided that March was warm enough.  I wanted her room to be done before her birthday, and that was that.  D.Soup wasn't very happy with my decision, but he wasn't the one doing the work.  It turns out that it was a fantastic idea, because I got so warm while painting that I appreciated the cool air coming in through the window.

When we first moved in, before anything went into the nursery, I started taping.  Lower parts on the walls, door framing, some of the upper edges.  Then it just sat, and sat, and frustrated me beyond belief.  It was a good day when I got to tape the rest of the walls off and could get started painting.

Side note:  L.Soup's name is all over these pictures.  But I'm going to continue to call her L.Soup because I like it.  So there.

Before I finished taping though, we put up this super cute fan we found at Lowe's.  It can be white, or multicolored like we have here:

Finished expert taping job.

I had D.Soup help me measure height of the wall where the squares were going, and then match that distance on the wall width wise so that the squares would be... square!  He then left me to my own devices to take Little Miss somewhere and distract her.  She had not been very happy locked in the nursery with us while we were trying to get the lines taped up.

"Perfect" Square

It took me 2 (maybe 3, I can't remember) coats to get the walls covered.  All in all I'd say it took 2 hours to get the 3 walls done.  I was pretty happy with that.  Especially considering that included times where I had to take a break because L.Soup was banging on the door trying to figure out what I was doing and why I wasn't entertaining her.  Rude.

I let that dry a few days, and headed back in to do some more taping.  Because I'm impatient, in that interim some of the decorative pieces went up on the yellow walls.

Light switch matches the bed set.

Got these beauties at a huge craft show in the area

Mom and I took the coat rack, and turned it into a bow holder!  Obviously she needed it.  She's got too many even for this! The other little guy is hanging on the outside of the door on the handle.

Ridiculous

I again needed D.Soup's assistance for taping.  This time there was a little anger on both our parts, because he didn't understand what I was doing, and I didn't understand why he wouldn't just do what I asked him to.  But we got it figured out, and I got the squares all taped up.  We basically taped a straight line across the wall, then about every 2 feet I would have to tear the tape and start over, so that the corners connected.  It was never one continuous line.  I also had to incorporate vertical lines into this wall.  It sounds fairly confusing (it was) and its hard to describe.  Below are some pictures that should make more sense.  Luckily for me, I left every other square white, so I didn't have to worry about re-taping in order to paint the other squares.

This is how I figured out which color would go where.  I had a general idea in my head, but decided I didn't like it once I set the canisters that way the first time.  So I just moved them all around until I liked the way the colors looked in that order.  The space I was painting wasn't even 3 feet square, and these paint samples hold enough to do about a 4 square foot section, so I had a ton left over.  I used these same samples to paint the boxes so the colors match perfectly.

I've always had a hard time with paint seeping underneath the tape, but I think it did a fairly good job this time around.  I wanted to try using this method, but I didn't have the original color of the wall so I couldn't do it.

I worked as carefully as I could to not drip, and I did a pretty good job.  I had a few mistakes, but I also had a few places where the tape ripped the wall! That was pretty frustrating.  But those are just some minor issues that you really can't see because they are behind the crib and overall I'm so happy with how it turned out.  And like I said before, I'm not the best painter... So I was expecting some of this.

Rude.

Paint drip

Paint drip AND its source

Speckling

Drying

Once the paint was dry and the furniture was moved back, I took some animal vinyl stickers that match the bedroom set and placed them around the room.  The boxes were in here at the time, but didn't match and it was starting to annoy me.  So I fixed it.

Wall with the inspiration for all this

Purple and Gray just barely visible at the bottom

Months ago I made pennant banners, but had yet to do anything with them.  I recruited D.Soup one more time, and he begrudgingly helped me hang two of them in the corner of her room over the dresser.  I made MANY more triangles, intending to hang these all over her room.  But 1. they were too much work and I had a very small very needy infant at the time and 2. I think the two are PERFECT:

The new shelves we are making will give me space to put up a few things that I've been holding onto.  I intend to move the name blocks that I got off Etsy to one shelf, opening the dresser up for some more decorations. 

When I was still pregnant, I spotted these on Etsy.  I immediately decided I wanted to make them myself.  I used my Cricut (since then I've invested in a Silhouette Cameo, and I love it so much more than the Cricut) to cut the letters and graphics out, and glued them to a piece of 8.5x11 card stock paper.  Each page has 4 different shades of each color.

I put them in frames with just glass, so you can see the wall behind the paper.  They are the perfect piece of art to hang above L.Soup's crib.

I also saw this before she was born, and so as soon as she was here I ordered one... it looks like the "Audra" one.  It will go on the second shelf if it ever gets done which is currently in the works.  That shelf was also supposed to hold the iPod and speaker that played L.Soup's music at night time. But that ended up not happening...

I LOVED this little speaker.  I ordered it off Amazon, and wasn't really expecting much from it.  But it was awesome!  And then... It died!  I was so sad.  I didn't order another one to replace it.  Only because she doesn't seem to be dependent on the music to stay asleep anymore.  On my recommendation my sister ordered two of them, but she said her's didn't last long at all.  So I'm not quite sure what the deal is with them.  Ours lasted almost a year.

One last picture of the fan, now that you've seen the whole room finished.

I would love to paint the inside of the closet too, but at the moment I don't have the time or energy to take all of her stuff out of there and paint it, let it dry and then put it all back.  I do have some ideas for better storage in there.  But every time I'm in her room, so is she.  She's a fantastic helper.  For unpacking things.  So I never get anything accomplished.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!