Craft Room Makeover - Part Deux

The reason this is a "part deux" post is because over a year ago I reorganized my space to look like this. Since then it has been changed a few times, but today I can honestly say this is by far my favorite. When I first had my craft nook, I hardly used it so it was small and not functional. Since then, I have grown my blog, opened an Etsy shop and had a baby. Needless to say, I need a space that can do my embroidery, blog and sew all at the same time (multi-tasking at its finest).

I apologize in advance for the craptastic pictures, I was lazy and took them with my phone. Since this area gets no natural light, it is nearly impossible to get good shots even with my nice camera, so phone it was.

As much as I liked my Ikea Expedit bookcase with the attached desk, it just wasn't enough surface area. With a computer and two sewing machines, it was impossible to have everything I needed on the desk at one time. So as you can see, I resorted to switching out my machines after every project and putting one on the floor while the other one was in use. Let's also not forget that this area was long overdue for a little cleaning/reorganization.

I'm so embarrassed with how messy and dysfunctional I let this area become. I realized I was wasting so much time setting up machines and then putting them away. It was taking me way too long to complete my Etsy orders because I never had what I needed at my fingertips. So to fix this, I needed to gain surface area while not breaking the bank, so off to Ikea I went!

Less than $100 and two hours later, I had this! I'm so happy with my new space and I LOVE that it fits everything with room to spare!

To make this L-shaped desk, I bought two tabletops and nine legs. One tabletop was 78"x 23" ($45) and the other was 47"x 23" ($16). Since the first one was so long, it called for five legs ($3.50 each) instead of just four so there is a middle support. Since I'm used to crazy complicated Ikea furniture, just attaching the legs made this project seem too easy.

I didn't get the black/brown color to match my bookcase for a few reasons, the main being that it was out of stock. Another reason is that because this is such a small space, I worry that if everything was dark it would look cramped and heavy. My last reason for using the white was for pictures. Whenever I would photograph a new item for my Etsy shop I was forced to use the black background of my desk because nowhere in my house do I have a nice clean white surface. So to tie it all together and not have it look completely disconnected, I bought black legs and white tabletops. My husband calls this the tuxedo look.

Some before/after side by side pictures for comparison:

Linking up with:

Wall Decal from Cozy Wall Art

I have always been drawn to the cute wall decals used for home décor, so when CozyWallArt.com contacted me about trying one of theirs, I jumped at the chance. Knowing how much we love Disney, they suggested their castle decal for Charlotte's nursery.

Shipping was fast and it came in the mail in a nice shipping tube so it would be in perfect condition when I received it. Inside was an instruction sheet, the decal, an application squeegee plus a sweet extra gift of lollipops with a mini practice decal.

I followed the directions to a T, but thought it would be helpful to show you through pictures how easy it was to apply. If I can apply this decal with a screaming baby in the room, than anyone can do it no problem!

Once the decal was flat and smoothed out, per Cozy Wall Art's (http://cozywallart.com) recommendation, I taped (writing side down) it to the wall for placement. I removed the bottom two pieces only to begin peeling away the paper.

Peel the decal from the paper slowly and carefully making sure nothing gets left behind on the paper side.

Once you reach where your tape is, hold with one hand and cut the paper off. Now you slowly lower it and press against the wall being careful not to create bubbles. This is where you will use you squeegee tool to smooth it all out since you still have the top layer on. No need for the piece of tape since the bottom half is adhered to the wall. Working from the top, do the same thing and peel the paper away from the decal until you reach the center where it will just fall off. Again, you slowly stick it to the wall as you did the bottom half.

Continue to use the squeegee tool and smooth out as many bubbles as you can. You will also want to use it over the entire decal so this next  and final step is easy. Start from one corner and begin to slowly peel the top layer off leaving just the decal on the wall. Sometimes small pieces (especially on the more intricate designs) might stick to the paper. If this happens fold the paper back up an inch or so and smooth that section out using your squeegee tool, then peel back again. Once that top layer of paper is off, you're done!

And in about 30 minutes from start to finish, you have a pretty sweet decoration. It's easy to fill our wall space with mirrors and frames and shelves, so why not add a decal as something new and different?

I love the way mine turned out. They had so many colors to choose from and I' so happy with my choice of the pink as it goes perfect with everything else.

Check out all the different decals they have for nursery's and kids' rooms. You can even get them personalized! Why didn't they have this stuff when I was a kid?!

So if you're in the market for a wall decal, be sure to check out Cozy Wall Art (http://cozywallart.com). They are on Facebook and Instagram too!

Nursery Reveal

I apologize for posting late today, as I'm a little off my normal routine this week. I haven't forgotten about my Week 36 Update either. I'm hoping to post that on Wednesday. As for today, I wanted to reveal Charlotte's nursery! You've seen most of it through various DIY posts, but I think it's more fun to look at the finished product, don't you agree?

A lot of people are shocked that I didn't go with a straight Disney theme for Charlotte's nursery. To be honest, I didn't want it to be over the top. I felt like once you started getting the bedding sets and wall art, it would just look like a Disney explosion. Usually I'm all for such a thing, but I wanted this room to be special and unique. I wanted to create as much as I could on my own. so as far as themes go, I like to call this room "My Favorite Things". As you scroll through the pictures, you will see a little Disney, Lilly Pulitzer and shabby chic all come together in one place.

The chandalier was one of the first pieces I bought as soon as we found out we were having a little girl! It's from Ikea and was the perfect inspiration piece to get the rest of the room to come together.

I'm borrowing (using this term loosely as my mom reads this here blog) this glider from my mom. i convinced her that I could make better use of it than she was since it just sat in her hallway upstairs. You will see the quilt draped over the back, yeah mom made that. It's pretty awesome don't you think?!

Here it is up close.

She used Lilly Pulitzer fabric for all the little dresses and the rest of the fabric is from other projects throughout the nursery to help tie everything together.

Ok, I lied. The first thing you probably notice in this picture is the fact that the dresser is missing it's drawer knobs. This is the last thing I need to get done and it has become the bain of my existance.

No little girls' room is complete without a place to store all those bows and headbands! I made this bow holder (link to tutorial below) and decided it was missing something: a place for all those headbands. All I did was take "S" hooks and screw them into the frame and Voila!

My mom had some leftover Lilly fabric from the quilt so I decided to make a couple of pillow cases for the crib and glider. Just another way to tie the Disney/Lilly theme together.

One of my favorite projects was this bookcase. You can't really see in this picture (check out the one above it), but I painted and decoupaged it with scrapbook paper and a Disney Lilly Pulitzer print that I printed off from online that was done decades ago!


In this picture you can see the wall art above the crib is Disney Princess silhouettes backed with the same scrapbook paper from the bookcase.

So there you have it. I really couldn't be happier with how everything turned out. The whole process was definitely a labor of loved (pun intended) and it came together one little project at a time. Below is a list of all the project tutorials I did for your reference.

Ruffled Crib Skirt

Valance

Princess Silhouettes Wall Art

Decoupage Bookcase

Bow Frame

Clothes Organizers (not pictured above)
Dresser Drawer Knobs (not pictured)

Happy Halloween - House Tour

We've been in our house for less than two years now, so decorating for the holidays is still new to us. I love that my husband loves decorating just as much (or more) than I do! He is always so anxious to get the decorations out. We told ourselves that every year we would buy a little more so as not to spend a fortune all at once. Plus it makes it more fun to go out and pick out this years decoration!

We have been lucky enough to acquire some pretty sweet Halloween decorations, but we still by no means have a house full just yet! Here is a quick tour of our home and what we've done so far.

Instead of buying something new this year, I made our 2013 decoration! I'm kinda obsessed with these deco mesh wreaths, so after making a few for friends I decided I needed to make one for us!

I hope you enjoyed our little Halloween home. Sorry the pictures aren't great, but I really didn't feel like getting the nice camera out (bad blogger, I know).  I can't wait until next year when we get to take our little girl trick-or-treating! As for now, I'll have to settle with passing out candy to all the cute littles. At least I've got this pretty sweet shirt to wear today!

Happy Halloween everyone! Stay safe and have fun tonight!

Wall Art - Two Tutorials in One!

As the title alludes, this post has two parts. The first part is all about how to make the art, while the second part shows you how to hang it. I assure you, the second part will come in handy to just about everyone. Unless you are just naturally gifted at hanging pictures right the first time. I know I'm not!

I've been having a really great time getting the nursery together, but something the room lacked was art for the walls. I don't want to overdo it because I know once Charlotte is here, we will hang pictures of her and things that reflect her personality as she gets older. But I didn't want to wait for all of that. The room seemed too sterile, so after much deliberation as to what the project should be, I settled on Disney princess silhouettes. The goal of this room is not to overdo the Disney theme, which is why I've been trying to keep it subtle. So many people are shocked that the room isn't themed Minnie Mouse!

Materials:

Silhouettes - $5

Scrapbook paper - $0 (already had)

9 Frames - $45 ($5 a piece)

Glue or tape - ($2)

To start, I needed to find all the princesses in silhouette form. I thought this would be a simple Google search, but boy was I wrong! I wanted my silhouettes to be the same size, look and feel so since Google had failed me, it was off to my trusty companion, Etsy. I found the perfect listing that gave me 11 different princesses to choose from for only $5! Since it was an instant download all I needed to do was make them the color I wanted and print them out on cardstock. For the background I used the same scrapbook paper from the bookcase I made.

Cutting out the silhouettes was much more time consuming than I imagined. Just put on some good TV and get to cutting! Trust me, It's worth it in the end. Once they are all cut out, it was time to place them with their corresponding papers and glue them down. My paper was 12x12 and my frames were 8x10 so I trimmed down each piece of paper before gluing the princesses down in the center. Once they were all attached, I put them in their frames and they were ready to hang!

This is the part that usually gets everyone worked up: hanging pictures. I too am one of those people. I tend to put about 8 different holes in the wall to hang one thing before it is even. For this project, since I had 9 frames to hang in a very particular pattern, I really wanted to get it right the first time. Pinterest led me to this little trick.

Materials:

Pen

Paper

Tape

Hammer

Nails

I took my scrapbook paper, since basic computer paper wasn't big enough, and cut it down to the exact size of my frames.

Then I found where the nail would go and poked a hole in the paper with my pen.

 

All that was left was to tape these little templates to the wall and get them just right!

 

Since the whole was already marked, I took 9 nails and hammered one in each of my templates while they were still on the wall. Then I took the paper off and hung my pictures! How simple is that?!

I love how these turned out and I feel like the nursery is finally looking like a livable room! It feels good to finally have something on the walls! I hope you found this tutorial helpful if not for anything but to hang your pictures.

Nursery Planning

Since we found out we are having a girl, all I can think about is the nursery. I was trying so hard to get inspiration for a gender neutral nursery, but couldn't. Now that I can focus on a girl theme, it only took a few minutes for it all to come together.

It all started with a chandelier I got while at Ikea. I thought this would be the perfect way to get the ball rolling. Since we already had a dark dresser in the room, we knew we wanted a dark crib to match. With those in place, all that is left is paint and décor.

We want to paint the room a real nice pale green and accessorize with pink. That way it's not so overpowering. Here are some color ideas.

My mom is making a quilt out of Lilly Pulitzer fabric that I absolutely can't wait for! With Lilly in mind, I decided I wanted to make a ruffle crib skirt out of Lilly fabric.

As far as sheets go, I'm going to stick with solid colors to balance out all the Lilly.

My last idea is to get her name in wooden letters and use spare Lilly fabric to decorate the letters in a collage fashion.

That's all I have for now, but I think it's a pretty good start. Now if only it all turns out as nice as it looks in my head! What do you think? I'm open to suggestions!

Craft Room Makeover

I think I've mentioned our "nook" area in the house before ( I was using it as my office), but now I'm excited to share its face lift! For some reason, it is the only room in our house that I just couldn't seem to get right. It was a place that housed all the things your couldn't find a home for elsewhere. It was beginning to look cluttered and let's face it, it was unused space. I wanted to make it functional. A little corner of our house that was all mine.

Since I started this blog, I have tried my hand at sewing. And of course I opened my very own Etsy shop and shared some of my tutorials here with you! So what better thing to convert this unused space, then to make it a craft/sewing nook?!

Here is what it looked like before:

 Cluttered with no real purpose or function....booooo!

So here it goes, I did not spend a ton of money to make this space functional. I mainly re-purposed a few things from around the house and rearranged the furniture. The few items I did buy, I got for a steal and others I made. Alas, my organized, neat and modern sewing nook!

Isn't this chair just perfect?! I found it at Home Goods on final clearance and it just HAD to come home with me! It's adds just the perfect touch of femininity to the room, don't you think?!

My mom is a Thirty One consultant so that was my inspiration. I had recently bought the bookcase cubes and the wall organizer from her, so from there I built the room around those few pieces!

I picked up a few knick knacks from Home Goods to really tie it all together. I used an old apothecary jar from my bathroom I wasn't using and filled it with sewing notions.

I stole this lamp from my sunroom downstairs because the colors were too perfect. I of course couldn't help but pick up this sign from Home Goods because the colors were perfect!

Lastly, I attempted to make a place to hang my ribbon, thread and scissors. (After bragging to my mom about how I did this all on my own, she proceeded to tell me it needed to be fixed...buzz kill). Good news is, she is coming over this weekend to help me make it just right! I will be sure to post a tutorial for you sometime next week to show you how I made this inexpensive but functional ribbon and thread wall organizer!

Hope you enjoyed my little corner and are now inspired to find that place in your house that you can call your own and actually make it your own!

Trying a new link up! - Saw it, Pinned it, Did it! (SPD) with Stephanie @ Beautiful Mess and Katie @Keep Calm & Carry On

Weekends in December

I love weekends in December. It's hard not to wake up happy when your house smells and looks like Christmas! Weekends in December are busy, not the bad kind of busy where you hardly get a moment to breath, but exciting and fun busy. There is shopping to do (one of my most favorite things!), parties to attend and crafts to be made. This weekend we did it all.

Friday night we went to see Rise of the Guardians at a "new to us" movie theatre. The theatre was in a local town center we had never been to so we enjoyed walking around and seeing all the shops before the movie. Seeing Christmas-y things like this never gets old.

Saturday we woke up early and ran errands (only fun ones of course). I am attempting to make a skirt I found over at Delusions of Grandeur (tutorial to follow next week) so the fabric store was top on the list! Apparently everyone and their mother needed to craft Saturday too. I successfully got all my supplies for $20 which made me super happy!

We had a holiday party to go to on Saturday night which was a blast. Not only do I enjoy my Christmas decorations but I LOVE seeing how other people deck their halls too! Look at the unique tree topper my friend does!

A top hat! How cute is that?! She bought the hat from JoAnn Fabrics and cut a hole in the bottom so it would fit on the tree. Isn't she crafty?

 

Sunday was another busy day. Church in the morning followed by a beautiful Redskins victory! The rest of the day was spent working on my tulle skirt. I can't wait to debut it this weekend at my company's holiday party! Too excited to wait, here is a sneak peak:

Please note: This is a work in progress!

Linking up with Molly @ still being [Molly] for YOLO Mondays