My DIY Stuffed Elephant Project

Zoey's room is absolutely adorable & I can't wait to show you pictures!! BUT, not yet. Womp, womp..sorry, I just want everything to be perfect and her bedding is on back order until May or June! (laaaame...) I might show you pictures before then because that's kind of far off, but in the mean time I will continue to show you bits and pieces of what is going in her room. 
Earlier this week I decided to make a cute stuffed elephant for her room..as decor for now and a toy later on. It is so stinking cute and I can't even take credit for it! I originally found the tutorial here. I don't want Zoey's room to become an overwhelming theme of elephants but I definitely wanted one or two in her room. Her walls are a light gray and her bedding is baby pink and turquoise, so the colors in her room play off of that. Here is her little elephant friend.

 This is another one I made for a friend who is also having a girl and her nursery theme involves elephants (it just so happens that turquoise is one of her nursery colors)

Aren't they so freakin cute?!! If you're not the crafty type and would like one, I am now selling them on my Etsy page and I can make them to match any nursery/kids room. Just go here and see for yourself! 

DIY Hair Bow Holder

I am finally getting things done around here! With less than two weeks until our second little one makes her appearance, I have been DIY-ing like crazy! First with the initial for her room, then the lamp makeovers, and now this hair bow holder. I still have some more things to make, but I'll post about those when they are finished :) I wanted a hair bow holder that I could hang headbands on too. Our daughter Addison has a super cute bow holder but all of her headbands were put into a basket and some of them have gotten a little smushed. I saw an idea on Pinterest (I wish I could take credit just ONCE for these crafts) and I knew I wanted one for Zoey's room. I didn't take pictures of any of the steps I did until after the hooks were drilled into the frame and everything was spray painted. But here is the frame after the painting and then a close-up picture of the hooks (I think we my husband drilled in 22 of them)

And here is a shot of the frame after I added some pretty ribbon with my handy staple gun

And after I added some of her clips and headbands..

I love how it turned out so much! All of those gorgeous little headbands are from this Etsy shop. I love everything she makes and now I get to display them instead of shoving them into a little basket!

Lamp Makeover

I was at Hobby Lobby the other day and spotted this gorgeous lamp I wanted for Addison and Zoey's rooms.

 Problem? It was $60 and I wanted two. I'm sorry, but I was not about to spend $120 on two lamps. So I decided I'd make them. I searched on Craigslist and within 5 minutes I found these hideous lamps for $15 total!

We picked them up and I got to work! I cleaned them up a bit and removed the trim around the lampshade.

I don't have pictures of all of the steps, but first I took the base of the lamp outside and spray painted it white. I did two coats and then used Rustoleum clear finish spray to prevent the paint from chipping. Then I went to the store and bought a yard of basic white fabric and cut it to the size I needed to wrap it around the lampshade. I hot glued it closed and wrapped the extra fabric around the shade where the trim had been to leave a clean finished look. I bought 5 yards of this pretty flower lace trim and cut out 6 strips. I pinned them to the shade to see where I wanted to place them and then hot glued one strip at a time. This is the lamp base before and after the spray paint.

Major difference already! Okay, one more shot of the whole lamp before:

And the after:

Isn't that crazy?! I can't believe I got this pretty lamp from what it was. I love being thrifty & crafty. I am going to make the other one for Addison's room, but hers will have a light pink lampshade. To makeover both lamps, the total cost comes to $45. It's not as cheap as I would have liked, BUT compared to the $120 I could have spent, I think it's a pretty good savings!

**UPDATE**

Here is the pink one I finished a couple days later for our first daughter's room. I love the pink, it is so girly!!

And the Progress Continues...

Zoey's room is still a work in progress and with 3 (!!!) weeks left until her due date, we are working as fast as possible on getting her room finished. All of the painting on the walls is complete, but with us being out of town on vacation, I am just now posting the pictures. I really need to get better at keeping up with this blog. This is a glimpse of the room after the first coat of primer:

And this is the room after two coats of Benjamin Moore's "Stonington Gray" (which I only previewed online and I love!)

New door needing some paint

Our To-Do List:


Put bead-board up on ceiling
Prime & paint the new door
Add trim around the top and bottom of the walls
Put windowsill back up
Install new closet shelving
Add outlet covers


THEN we have to prime and paint the dresser/changing table and then we can set the room up! 
In the meantime, I've been working on some projects to put in Zoey's room. Can't wait to share them all with you!

Guest Room Transformation

Well, we started working on the guest room that will soon become our second daughter's room. Between my husband working, me babysitting and taking care of our daughter and my preggo self, and life in general, it has taken us awhile to accomplish what "little" we have done. And I know that all the work that went into this room so far is not a "little" task, but compared to what we still have to do, it kind of is. We cleared out the room, which you can read about here and then my husband and his brother ripped out all of the existing sheet rock and the exterior insulation. We did this mostly because when we first moved in, we found out we had termites and they had started to bite through the sheet rock in this room. Our main concern with changing this room into a nursery was to make sure there was no termite damage to the 2 x 4's. And there wasn't! So the new sheet rock and insulation went in the same day it came out and then my mom and I went in and did some mudding over the nails and seams. Here are pictures of what we have done so far. 

{The room without sheet rock & insulation}

{Closet view}

This is the room after the sheet rock and mudding happened.

{Please excuse our daughter. She loves to have her picture taken}

{Also, excuse the weird stain spots we found on the sheet rock after bringing it home}

{This is the closet with the boxed up crib inside. Can't wait to take it out!}

We still have to sand down some of the mudding and do another layer in some areas, but after that, it's time to prime & paint! I'll post as progress is made. I wish I could just show you before & after pictures now, but sadly it takes us forever to complete a project. 

Nursery Preview

Okay, so I told you I was going to share with you my inspirations for our second daughter's nursery. I am so excited to get started on this, I seriously can't wait to start demolition!
I haven't narrowed down the EXACT shade of gray I want to paint her walls, but I'm thinking something similar to this wall color {Benjamin Moore's Stonington Gray HC-170}:

And as far as the furniture goes, we still need Addison to keep her crib, especially since it will convert for all the stages she needs it for, so we're going to get a new crib for Zoey, along with a rocker/glider (which I never had with Addison because I didn't think I needed it & now I realize how wrong I was), a changing table,and a new dresser. BUT if I can find a great dresser that could double as a changing table, we'll just get that one piece. I'm still undecided, but here is what I'm hoping for:

This awesome Graco glider..with this cute crib

 A dresser painted this gorgeous color and stuck inside her closet with this pattern painted onto the closet walls:



 I'm in love with this bedding, but it's a little pricey...I'm hoping to find something very similar to it!

 I also will be making this kind of mobile, just with different colors.

 This {but obviously a Z}

I have SO many more ideas, but you would need to see a drawing instead of just pictures. Demolition will be Friday and Saturday and we will start painting hopefully early next week. I will post lots of pictures of the transition. For now, sweet dreams...

My Modern Baby Shoes

So I found this tutorial on Pinterest and I've been wanting to try it out. Yesterday I finally got around to it & it wasn't as hard as I thought. Until I kept messing up and then my sewing machine decided it didn't want to work with me. My first try wasn't so great..at all.

I'm not even going to go into why they were so bad. I think it's pretty obvious. The second time I wanted to do them in burlap with a patterned lining. This was tricky since I had to follow the directions backwards. 

This is my second pair:

I accidentally made two left shoes and I tried to play it off, but my husband noticed and then there was the fact that the seams are showing inside, which I did NOT like. I took a break for the night, since I had been working on the first two pairs for hours! This morning I worked on the third pair for about two hours and I am so happy with how they came out. I think they look adorable!

What do you think?? I am in love and will be making lots more!

-Tara