{Pinterest Inspired} Polaroid Magnets

One of my first days on Pinterest, I stumbled upon this adorable photo of mini polaroid magnets.  Are you kidding me?  It doesn't get much cuter than this.  It originates from the Ambrosia Creative Blog.  

photo from Ambrosia Creative Blog via Pinterest

I couldn't wait to make them!  Her tutorial was wonderful but I do not have Photoshop so I had to think of another way.

I bought these cheap wooden squares and rectangles at Hobby Lobby.  I wasn't sure which shape I wanted to use.  

I ended up choosing rectangle although I think either would work.

1.) Paint your squares or rectangles with white paint.

I painted the front, back, & sides.

2.) Choose your pics and size them down to fit on your chosen shape.

I copied my pics into a word document and sized them to 0.75" x 0.75".

3.) Print the pics and cut them out.

4.) Glue the pics in place.

5.) Apply a light coating of Mod Podge to protect the photo.

6.) Glue a heavy duty magnet to the back.

7.) Sit back and admire.  

8.) Last but not least, put them on your refrigerator or give them away for somebody else to admire!

Okay, I have to admit that my method does not deliver the same amazing results as the original tutorial I found through Pinterest. 

I still love them though. 

Happy Tuesday!

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Hannah's Airy Vintage Nursery

I have been talking about my daughter's nursery for months now it seems. I didn't mean to drag it out, it's just that "Operation Nursery" came to a screeching halt once I was put on bed rest, and stayed there during the haze of the newborn phase. But now it is finished and I am so pleased.

Allow me to take you on a short tour.

The Room

My favorite thing about Hannah's room is that it gets the most beautiful soft light, and with the light gray walls it seems to glow. I didn't want to take away from that at all, so I splashed my color on the feature wall in this fun damask pattern, and left the others blank so that I could play with furniture, fabric and other decor.

The dresser was a flea market find, re-painted and gussied up with some new Hobby Lobby handles. I filled the frames with some of my favorite pictures of us with our new little lady. The lamp, tray, blocks and frames were thrift store finds, and the lampshade is from Target.

Hannah's crib and glider were a part of her brother's nursery. I was initially disappointed not to have white furniture because I just love that look in nurseries, so I decided that I would compensate by white playing a part in all of fabric in the bedding and the other details of the room. Now that the room is complete, I'm glad that the crib and glider have a maple finish. It adds large chunks of warmth to the color scheme and blends everything together nicely.

I wanted her room to be sprinkled with a few of her brother's things, since the toys now belong to "the kids" instead of just my son, But I also wanted a few things that were just for her. The stuffed animals, books, baskets and the well-loved wooden train that adorn the book shelf had each belonged to Jayce. But the art piece is just for her.

The Details

I was on a tight budget when pulling Hannah's room together, so most everything was found at a thrift store or made by me.

This little shelf display warms my heart!

I made the family blocks for my son about a year and a half ago and I thought it was such a fun little display of our family of 3! I was so pleased to make a coordinating block with a picture of our newest addition for an updated family display! I had used the "It's a Girl" bunting on her vintage inspired announcement, with a picture from the doctor's visit where we discovered her gender, so I was pleased to have that little trinket in her room as well. The photo on the shelf is her birth announcement. The three components together bring all sorts of memories to mind of the "before, during, and after" of my pregnancy and her addition to our family. Is that corny? Regardless, it's still what I think when I look at it. :)

I love this quote because we are constantly reading in our house. I used fabric as a mat since the frame was an unusual size, and printed the quote onto photo paper so that you wouldn't see the pattern through the paper. The bunting is made from fabric scraps that match her bedding.

I wanted Hannah's name displayed beside her bed, so I wrapped doilies around these chunky letters to add a bit of daintiness to them. I found a large frame that we cut down and re-sized so that it would frame her name perfectly. I love the wood of frame. It has beautiful details and is a lovely gold color, but was a bit a bit beat up. I really like the mix of it being both elegant and worn, so I did nothing to it other than re-size it.

The color scheme and inspiration for her room came from this puff quilt that I pieced together throughout my pregnancy.

I pulled a few of the fabrics from her quilt to use for her crib sheet and ruffled crib skirt. All of these were my first attempts at sewing anything even remotely complicated, so if you are a new sewer, you can do it! :) I was hesitant to make the crib bumpers myself because of the safety issues that can come with bumpers, so I had a custom set made for me from the talented Isla of IslaCorrine. The craftsmanship is beautiful, she was so sweet to work with, and I just love how it completes the crib! Perfect!

I made these hanging fabric doilies with the same fabric used in the quilt and other areas of the room. I strung them onto the frame from my son's old mobile for a colorful and sweet display.

I had extra quilt fabric that I had cut on the bias, so it was in perfectly long stretchy strips. I wrapped these strips around a few of the baskets on her shelves, and wove the longer strips around a basket that holds blankets beside the rocker. This added a nice pop of color to these baskets and pulled them into theme of the room.

The blocks are my husband, son and I's initials. I am on the lookout for a coordinating "h."

I made a few throw pillows with coordinating fabric for the glider. When we no longer need the glider in the nursery I plan to keep her quilt and these pillows in the same corner for a little reading nook. I won the owl bookend from a giveaway on KoJo Designs from the adorable Etsy shop I Sew Lucky.

I shared her My Girl inspired Nursery Subway Art on Lemon Tree last week. It is one of my favorite things in the room. Unless my little lady is in there.

Wouldn't you know that with all of the colorful elements in this room, Hannah's favorite thing to stare at is the white ceiling fan? Go figure. :)

What do you think? It was definitely a labor of love, and I'm so happy with it. :)

I'll be linking my nursery to some great parties this week, so stop by to say hi!

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Polka-dot Laundry Room Update and a Stencil Giveaway!

Over a year ago we set to work organizing our laundry room to create a more inviting and productive space to get things done. If you've been following from the beginning you might remember the Sock Exchange and Laundry Room post found here?

Well, with a baby on the way, our laundry room is now doing double duty. We needed the old craftroom/ office for a nursery and there was simply no other room in our tiny house for my stuff to go! I decided quickly that if I was going to be spending even more time in this little nook of the house each day, I needed to jazz up the space a little bit.

It's no secret that we love Cutting Edge Stencils around here, so I decided to turn to them for help. I ordered the large polka-dot all over stencil, and it was just what I was looking for.

Before:

After:

With this stencil I also got CES Clip-on Stencil Level, and it made getting the first stencil position perfect.

It was a simple change, but it livened the space up just enough to make it fun.

Now, ready for a chance to win your very own Cutting Edge Stencil??

Click HERE for more details and your chance to win!!

Happy Wednesday,

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My First Roadside Find

We were driving down the road a few weekends ago when my  husband said to me, "That looked like a cool desk" and then continued to drive down the road.  My response was something like, "what???  If it is a cool desk, then you better turn around!"  He did and thank goodness for mini vans because we manuevered a few things and had ourselves a new to us but old beauty of a desk.  

This is what it looked like at first.  I am a lover of old things and typically prefer to keep them "as is".  However, we were just not sure what kind of paint was on top of this desk and it was a MESS so we decided to strip and paint.  

It was going to be a computer desk for our loft area.  We had been wanting a desk exactly like this to open up the space.  I was beside myself with excitement because we had never been so lucky to find treasures on the side of the road before.

My husband was just as excited and got to work right away.  Here are most of the supplies he used on this re-do...

It was beautiful with the paint off and would have been great left just like that.  However, we were also looking to lighten and brighten up the space so we decided to paint it white.

We tried to spend as little money as possible on this re-do so we used the only white paint we had around.  It was simply plain white paint straight from a shelf that had been used on woodwork around our home.

I love the way it turned out.  My husband ended up doing all of the dirty work.  The drawer is my favorite part.  It is a very deep drawer so it can fit a ton of stuff and the handle is just perfect.

There is metal around the bottom of the legs that we left as is.  Love the look against the white and it gives the desk some character.

It is deeper than we probably would have liked but when you get something for free, you just can't complain.

It has some fun holes that give it character too.  My husband used the palm sander off and on along the edges to distress it a bit.

And here she is all prettied up in her new home.  It is amazing what it did for the area.  It feels bigger and brighter.  LOVE it.

Here's to hoping this is the first of many roadside treasures...

Happy Tuesday!

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Subway Art for the Nursery

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I wanted to show you one last project for my daughter's nursery before I show you the room as a whole, which I'll be doing next week. Here's a little peek.

After the sonogram where I found out that I was having a girl, I found myself humming a little song by the Temptations quite often. Can guess which one it is? It became one of the main songs that I sang to my little bump as she grew, and I still sing it to her now. I knew I'd like a little piece of this to make it's way into her nursery, as it expresses how we all feel about her addition to our family and our lives. So this is what I came up with. Do you like it?! Want the details? Read on.

I started this project by rummaging through my small stash of wood, where I found a piece of old weathered barn wood that I thought would be perfect. I measured the width and length so that I could see roughly how large the letters needed to be and then turned to my Silhouette.

I browsed the wide selection of fonts available, tried a few of the lyrics in the different fonts until I found a few that I liked, and printed them in black and white on regular printer paper.

I laid the words out on the wood, picked the fonts that I liked best, went back to the Silhouette and played around with the sizes a bit until everything fit just the way I wanted it to.

I got some sturdy card stock and cut out each of the words using my Silhouette SD Cutter. I laid them out on the board just to make sure that I had everything exactly where I wanted it to be, and then took a picture that I could reference once I started my stenciling.

I pulled out my DecoArt paint in Daffodil Yellow and White, a few of the same colors that I used for the damask stencil on my nursery walls, in addition to Americana Paint in Grey Sky.

I used the cut out portion of the card stock as a stencil for this project. I laid it out one line at a time on the board, using my photo as a reference for spacing and centering.

I used this little sponge stencil brush, loaded it with paint, blotted off the excess, and lightly dabbed on the paint.

I wanted a light coverage, so I purposefully didn't work the paint into all of the cracks and crevices of the wood. I removed the stencil and gave the paint about 5 minutes to dry, which was all that it needed. I worked my way down the board, doing one line at a time and was finished in a flash.

There were a few places where the paint coverage was too thick for my liking, so I got a coarse sanding block and lightly sanded in small circles until I got the aged look that I was going for.

I then used my wire brush to scrape some lines into the paint and give it a further distressed appearance.

I sprayed the finished board with a light coat of polyurethane, added hanging wire to the back, and popped it up in the nursery.

I love love love it! It is impossible to rock Hannah in her room and not sing this song, and it brings a smile to my face every time I see it. It is one of those rare projects that turned out exactly the way I had pictured it in my head and I'm so happy with it!

I love the contrast of the coarse rugged wood and the crisp gray paint on the walls. It is a lovely addition to the nursery and I had the hardest time deciding where to hang it. I'm looking forward to showing it to you next week along with the rest of the nursery. Please stop back and let me know what you think!

I'll be linking to these amazing parties this week, and thanks to all of the wonderful hosts!

Have a great week!

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