Friday Crush

MASON!!!! 

Look at that little nuggetmuffin! Julianne and David welcomed Mason on January 7 and he is an adorable little peanut, as well as knew he would be. Julianne reports that she is thoroughly enjoying spending time in the nursery with Mason which makes my heart sing. I can't wait to watch this little boy grow up as we welcome him to our family of friends. Thanks to Juli for subjecting him to a photo shoot for the blog.

I have a very large to-do list this weekend...there is a lot of painting in my future. Hope y'all have a stellar weekend...see you Monday!

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Painted Dresser and Nursery Prints

I hope you are enjoying hearing about Mason's nursery. I'm really enjoying telling you about it and I could probably go on and on about the room because it's now a little nugget of my heart, but I think I'll wrap it up today with some final details.

Today's story is about this area of Mason's room:

It's home to my two favorite projects. The first is the set of prints that hang above the dresser.

Kerry correctly identified where these prints came from. They are originally from a Little Golden Book called "Corky."

The day Julianne and I were hitting up vintage shops and found the vintage rocker, we also came across a copy of this book for $5. Julianne is a black lab NUT - she and David have two black labs, Brady and Lucy.

Seeing this little book almost made Julianne cry in the store. So we obvi had to get it. And then I blew her mind by telling her that we could rip out the pages and frame them for the nursery. She loved the idea.

But I kept the best part secret...I didn't tell Julianne that I actually didn't have to rip out the pages. With a scanner and my Mad Photoshop Skills*, I was able to scan the pages we liked and then doctor them up to make them look fresh and match the colors of the room. I also took artistic license with the prose and changed names and sentence structure.

So I started with this scan:

And this is what it looked like after applying my MPS:

Brady got the role in the book because he came first. Lucy is his little sister and I thought that the first-born deserved the part.

Another example:

Pretty nifty, huh? I really, really loved working on this because we got a huge bang for our buck. Once my files were done, I had Staples color print them on 8.5x11 cardstock for a whopping $1/each. And I framed them in very inexpensive 8x10 light wood frames from AC Moore. The whole wall of prints was less than $20 and arguably one of the most sentimental things in the room.

And my other favorite project was definitely the dresser. Remember this $40 Craigslist find?

I loved that Julianne and I worked on this together - mainly because it helped me get it done but also because I think she enjoyed playing a part in creating something for the nursery.

We cleaned this guy, sanded him down a bit and then used oil-based primer to create a nice fresh layer. Then we painted it using a sample quart from Sherwin Williams, but I forget the color. Those sample quarts are such a good deal - $5 for SW's high-quality paint (it's my favorite). The quart was MORE than enough to paint this piece with two coats.

Then we painted in the detail with Folk Art craft paint and some small paintbrushes. I think the color was "Antique Gold" - it was a coppery-gold that I used to bring out the copper of the lamp (which I found at HomeGoods...I LOVE IT).

The project took time, but it was not difficult. And I was able to get exactly what I wanted for a great price.

That wraps up the tour of projects! If you have questions about a specific item's source or anything in the room, feel free to email me!

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 *Shout-out to my friend and fellow designer Crystal who also shared some of her Mad Photoshop Skills with me and helped make the prints extra awesome.

Oversized Stuffed Animals

Did you like the giraffe in Mason's nursery?

Oversized stuffed animals are one trend in nursery design that I really, really love. And giraffes (no doubt the most popular choice) are so stinkin' cute. For Mason's room, this giraffe provided a bit of height that I needed to break up the level plane of the crib and the dresser and his colors were a perfect complement to the rest of the room. Not to mention that he upped the fun factor.

I always thought these oversized stuffed animals cost a small fortune and figured that using one was probably not wise with our small (but adequate) budget. Although you can indeed find them for several hundred dollars, I was very happy to find out that Amazon (and other online retailers) carry the Melissa & Doug versions for less than $75!

And there are so many awesome options to choose from:

Oversized Stuffed Elephant

Oversized Stuffed Cheetah

Oversized Stuffed Alligator

Oversized Stuffed Zebra (a zebra!!!)

Oversized Stuffed Giraffe

Ummm, isn't the zebra amazing? I could see two flanking either side of a very chic crib. I absolutely love how the giraffe turned out for Mason, so I will definitely be filing this idea away for the future Shuffler children.

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IKEA Hack: DIY Crib Bumper and Monogrammed Pillow

Mason's nursery was full of little projects, two of which were courtesy of some clever usage of inexpensive IKEA items.

I knew I wanted to use custom fabrics for the room's curtains and crib linens, but had I made a crib bumper or crib skirt before? No. And Julianne still trusted me to make hers? Yes. She is a good friend. Or maybe I just didn't tell her that I had never done it before.

I'm not sure where in the recesses of my brain I had stored this information (or why), but I recalled that IKEA has a fantastic, very simple crib bumper that I could use as my starting point. The Kompisar bumper is only $14.99, white, and very thin so it's easy to cover with fabric.

The short version of this story is that I took several strips of my 54" wide fabric, sewed them together to make two very long strips, and then sewed them right onto the crib bumper - one on the front and one on the back. I know that is not very helpful if you don't sew, but if you do sew, I hope that makes sense.

And if it does make sense, you can scroll to read about the monogram pillow now.

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If not, here are some more details.

First, I cut off the ties that come on the bumper. Later, when I installed the bumper, I made a note of where the ties should go according to the crib I was using and I sewed small strips of grosgrain ribbon to these spots for affixing the bumper to the crib. 

To cover the bumper, I used a sewing machine to essentially sew on strips of fabric to both of its sides.  I measured out six strips of 54" wide fabric - three of which were 2-3 inches taller that the bumper on top and bottom, and three of which were about the height of the bumper. I sewed the first three together on the short sides to make one very long strip of fabric that was 2-3 inches taller than the bumper on top and bottom so that I could essentially wrap this one piece of fabric around one side of the bumper and its edges - folding the fabric around the edges as I went. I sewed my seam about 1" inside of the bumper's edges to create the look of a welt. If you look at the picture, the bumper already has this kind of edge, so I basically just followed it.

Here is a picture of this strip of fabric wrapped around the bumper, and the placement of the needle shows about how far in I made this seam:

So I just sewed around this long, long rectangle until that piece was affixed. The bumper was longer than my strip of fabric, so I just cut off the excess bumper and finished up as usual around the raw edge. (When I initially tried out the plain bumper in the crib, I knew that it was a good bit longer than I needed, so I was safe chopping off the excess - make sure your crib doesn't need that extra length)

Then I took the three strips of fabric that were about the same height of the bumper and I also sewed their short sides together to make one long strip about the height of the bumper. For this strip, I did the same thing as the first in that I just sewed it right on to the bumper - but in this case, I didn't fold the fabric over the bumper's edges. Instead, I just folded down the strip's own edges to make a bit of a hem and sewed over this hem following the same seam I sewed on my earlier strip.

Let's recap - one long strip is taller than your bumper and this strip you wrap around the bumper, covering the edges. Then on the other side, you take the other long strip whose edges have been folded over to make a hem, and you sew this hem right on to the seam from the first strip (but this second strip doesn't fold around the bumper like the first).

Yes? Make sense? I didn't take good pictures, I know. Email me if you have questions.
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The second, MUCH easier project was Mason's monogrammed pillow:

This pillow uses one of my absolute favorite, favorite items that IKEA sells - the 16x24 Fjadrar pillow insert! It's an amazing fluffy insert (I think it's down?? not sure) whose quality seems much higher than the price of $6.99. I LOVE it. Love it. 

In Mason's case, I also used the Sanela velvet pillow cover from IKEA, which comes in some really handsome colors - like navy, hunter and paprika - and only sets you back $7. I went with the taupe-ish color for baby M.

So, total, the velvet lumbar pillow is only $14. Bananas. And my secret to the monogram is felt and fabric glue....that's it.

Get yourself a piece of felt in the color of your choosing from any craft store. Find a font on your computer that you really like - I find that fat fonts work the best - and print out each letter. You'll have to play around with the sizing you want each letter to be.

Then cut out each letter to use as a guide on your felt. Pin the paper letter to your felt and follow its edges to cut out the felt letter. Then glue the felt letter right to the front of your pillow with fabric glue. I use Unique Stitch, but any fabric glue will work.

That's it! I will add a disclaimer that my letters are a bit more fancy than computer font. I actually drew the letters to make them look Leontine-esque in Illustrator and then printed them from there. Being a graphic designer does come in handy with projects like this, but you can definitely still do it using fonts you like from your computer.

More details on the room tomorrow!

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Mason's Nursery Reveal

As promised, here are the pictures from Mason's nursery!

That last one is Lucy, one of David and Julianne's puppies. She was too cute not to include!

I'll bring you details from the room and sources this week on the blog, so stay tuned. Hope you had a fantastic Thanksgiving!

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Nursery Prints from Sally Harless via Etsy

Mason's nursery install was a success! Of course everything took much longer than anticipated and we finished up 3.5 hours past schedule, but I think the wait was worth it for Julianne and David. They loved the room and that made me real happy.

I didn't have my camera, so Julianne is going to take some pictures and I'll post them later. But in the meantime, I wanted to share a source for one of my favorite pieces in the room. This print from illustrator Sally Harless hangs above Mason's crib:

The colors were perfect for the room and I just fell in love with Sally's whimsical illustrations. Her Etsy shop, Sadly Harmless, is full of ethereal prints of clever little animals and wonderfully-colored drawings. I think they are all perfect for a nursery, but really any room with a soft color palette or light quality would really benefit from one of these beautiful prints.

The quality of the print was top-notch and came in a standard 11x14 size, so it was easy to mat and frame. And once framed, it looked SO awesome - it was the only thing I needed for that wall.

Have a great start to your week!

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