Baby Girl's Nursery Reveal!

I'm done! Well... for now. I have a Phase Two (My hubby says, "Of course you're not done...") that I will do in the future, but I'm done with what I wanted to finish before this baby girl comes.

I think there's virtually nothing in the room that hasn't been left in it's original state. Except for maybe the crib sheet and bumpers. That's it. And that is why it took so long. I like to create a lot of work for myself. Although thank heavens I didn't do it all alone! Thank you to my amazing and ultra-supportive family. It took me, my hubby, my mom, both of my sisters, and one of my brother-in-laws to get this room finished.

The first thing we did was put up crown molding at the top of the walls and add two chair rails. I loved how different this look was. I saw it in a picture on Pinterest and knew it was what I wanted to do. What I underestimated was how long it would take! If I ever do a chair rail again, it will only be ONE with no moulding!

But it was totally worth it for this room. Top it off with off-white paint for the borders and grey in between and I had a great neutral background for the room so that it can be a girl nursery, boy nursery, guest room, whatever it needs to be in the future.

Next we painted all the furniture. My sister Natalie brought down her paint sprayer and we set up a little painting booth in our unfinished basement. Oh my heavens it was a lot of work for her and I will owe her eternally for it. :) We chose off-white for the crib and glider to keep both very clean looking.

And yes my sister might just kill me for posting this pic, but I just love her in paint mode.

Then to spice things up, we did green for the dresser with a distressed look and a stained top. The stain is the same custom mix I did for my dining table and chairs and it worked perfectly! I still have some more for anyone who wants to use it!

 

Amazing transformation, huh? I got the dresser from Craigslist for $60. Between using paint and stain that we already had, as well as the same knobs for the top two drawers, the total cost for this awesome dresser with character is around $85 (I'm including the cost of the new knobs and polyurethane to the original price). You just can't beat that.

The next thing we did while my mom and Natalie were here was to make a roman shade for the window. This window is the only one in our house that gets direct sunlight (hence why our indoor plants always die...) and I knew I would need a good black-out curtain if this baby ever wanted to sleep during the day.

Sorry lighting is bad here!

 We followed this tutorial and made this black-out roman shade from a mini blind. These roman shades sell for $200 on Pottery Barn. Crazy. We made it for less than $35. I love this fabric. It was perfect for my color theme and I loved how it was polka dotted but didn't make you want to zone out while looking at it.

Oh so much more to share! Yay. Years ago we bought a very cheap bookcase (as $4. Seriously) and I wanted to use it in the baby's room, but it definitely needed some TLC. First of all, it was laminate so I had to prime it before painting it. Then for the color, I used a darker version of my grey wall color. Add a coat of polyurethane and it was ready to be moved into the room. But it really needed something to spice it up. Following a Pinterest find, I went to the dollar store and bought 2 foam boards to cut and fit in the back of the shelves. I then hot glued some great fabric I already had on hand to the foam boards and slid them in the back.

Why did I do it that way? Because now I flexibility of switching them out in the future if I move the bookcase to a different room. I love how it dresses up the plain bookcase. And since you've probably noticed, I didn't do it on the bottom shelf because in Phase Two, I will be putting some cute bins on the bottom shelf for baby toys. The rest of Phase Two involves hanging some more things on empty walls (like above the crib).

Above the bookcase I hung the awesome bow holder my friend Janell gave me at my baby shower. I hung it a little high so that I can add hooks sometime to the bottom for the baby headbands I have. That little box on top of the bookcase holds her little hats. The flower pot is one of my favorite little touches in the room. I got the bottom vase at Deseret Industries for $1 and the flower bunch for $1. All I did was spray paint the vase white and add the two together.

Back to the glider: After painting, I recovered the ugly blue cushions on the glider. Oh man that top cushion was a bit of a nightmare because of the inset sewing in the middle. I had to hand sew some of it (and I HATE hand sewing). But it was worth it. I got this fabric from Hobby Lobby and it's duck cloth, which is great for upholstery. This glider also has a footstool that I recovered just using a staple gun.

 

Another thing I made was this ruffled crib skirt. You can't see the ruffles very well because the crib is on the highest setting for a newborn but once we move it down a setting it will be perfect.

My sister Jennifer helped me with this and was kind enough to do all the math and most of the hemming. Love her for it. :) I got the idea for this crib skirt from Pottery Barn (they have SUCH cute stuff, just way too overpriced!). They were selling it for $70 and I made it for less than $10. Have I sold you on DIY yet???

Thank you to my friend Jess who made the green and white pompoms for my baby shower since I was planning on making some for the nursery anyways! And thank you to her for responding to my SOS when my first attempt at making the pink one failed miserably. :) I also love the bedding I have for the crib. It's all ready for a cute little baby!

I also added another flower accent to the room. I just love hydrangeas and there are some very pretty fake ones. I found this bunch at a Down East Outlet for $5. I bought just a clear vase from DI For $1.50, spray painted it the same white as the other vase and I love how clean and pretty it is on the dresser.

Another DI find: This lamp base for $6 and a plain ugly shade for $1. I spray painted the gold base the Oil Rubbed Bronze and then added ruffles to the shade to cover it and tie it in with the cribskirt. The inspiration for this came from here.

 Add a cute little flower made out of the roman shade material on it and it's perfectly girly.

Okay almost done. I needed a mirror above the dresser and when I saw my sister's friend's tutorial on making a sunburst mirror on their blog here, I knew it was perfect. To top it off, it was cheap to make!

Between the mirror (from Michael's, used a 40% off coupon), glue, paint sticks (free from Sherwin Williams -- thanks to the awesome guy who helped me!), and spray paint, this cost me $10 to make.

I love how this mirror makes a statement. It's very large, but I love that because it holds the entire wall's attention and really looks impressive above the dresser.

And that's it! Thank you to my sister-in-law for letting me use her camera so I could properly show you the nursery. Never to be left out of a photo session, here's the big-brother-to-be:

I think he's as relieved as I am happy to have the nursery done. I've spent a lot of time this last month working on it and he's noticed that I haven't been able to entertain him all day long. He better get used to it since that won't change once the baby comes along!

Pinmimic: Owl Taggie Toy

For an explanation of my Pinterest series, click here.

So last year I pinned this adorable owl taggie one day, thinking it would be so much fun to make. Little did I know, it was a picture from Life in the Sass Lane, an Etsy Shop, and it cost $24 to buy! Uhhh... I don't know about you, but I don't have money to throw around like that. I wanted to make one for my new niece and I thought, "I can make my own pattern and figure it out."

**Note here: If you copy someone's idea to sell when they're already selling it, then you are breaking the law. If you're copying their idea to just make for someone you know, that's okay. Just so you're clear on that.

So I did. And I learned a few things:

1) Minky fabric hates my guts.
2) It's hard to make ribbons stay in place.
3) I forgot to put on the feet. Oops.

It doesn't look exactly the same, but pretty darn close. And really, in the end, I was just proud of myself for figuring it out without a pattern!

Pinmimic: Pillowcase Dress

This pillowcase dress came from LBG Studio and it has two different versions. Maybe I'm totally bias, but I think my version is better. Just because that flower print is my favorite fabric of all time. That I've found so far at least. :)

The funniest part is I made this over a year and a half ago, just because. I didn't have a girl and it turned out so darn cute that I couldn't bear to give it away. So I've saved it. Now that I know that I'm pregnant with a girl, I'm excited to know it will be used... in another 2 years when it fits her. Hopefully it will still be adorable then!

I made my own bias tape so it took a little more time, but if you don't, you can definitely sew this dress as a beginner. Believe me, it's actually not as hard as it looks. And it's worth it, don't you think?

For the original pin and instructions on how to make this cute little dress, click here (if you click on it in Pinterest, it will have a pop up that says there's inappropriate content on the website. That is untrue so click "continue to link").

Going from a muu-muu to muuuuchhh better.

Last year I bought a dress for $4 which is an amazing price, but when I put it on, it looked like a muu-muu (am I even spelling that right?). So I decided to take my first venture into sewing without a tutorial or pattern and it turned out surprisingly well. Here is a tutorial if you would like to try doing it yourself.

So here was the beginning product:

The dress wasn't quite long enough and really needed a tie to break up the funny design and create some structure to make it more flattering. So my first step was to go buy fabric that coordinated with the dress. Make sure to match the color and type of fabric as closely as possible. I simply took the dress with me when I went to find fabric. Make sure the fabric has the same feel, stretchiness, and color.

THE HEM:
Okay so I don't have good pictures of the process because I didn't take pictures while I did it. But the next thing to do is measure the bottom of your dress (just one side, not the circumference) and add a seam allowance to that number of 1 inch (this number is your width). Then figure out how long you want your hem plus 1/2 inch, then double that number (this number is your height). Hopefully that makes sense.

Take the height and width and cut out two pieces of that width and height.

For both pieces, fold the height down so that you don't have to do a hem, because the fabric will just be folded. Then sew the two pieces together on each side with 1/2 inch seam allowance. My dress kind of flared as it went down, so I sewed the pieces at a slight angle so they flared a little too.

Then iron those seams flat so you can sew over them (look left). Then match the bottoms of your dress and hem (the non-folded side) together and pin really well. Make sure to match the two together at the seams on the side of the dress. Then sew.

Now that I have a serger, I would also serge afterwards. If you don't have a serger, just zig-zag stitch

THE TIE:
Figure out how long you want the tie and how thick, then double that number and add a 1 inch seam allowance. Turn inside out and sew it along the long edge to make a long tube. Flip right-side out.


Iron the tie so that the seam is on the backside of the tie. Then tuck in the edges on both ends and sew over to close up the tie.

So I was really scientific about the placement of the tie (and I'm totally being sarcastic). I tried the dress on, held up the tie, marked with an erasing ink marker where I wanted the top of the tie to be on the side (where the dress seam is). Then I took off the dress, measured down from the bottom of the sleeve seam to where the tie was, then marked that length on the other side. I honestly could have put the tie a little taller on this dress, but who said it was perfect? :)

Now you're going to pin the tie to the dress where you marked (make sure there's a pretty even tie on each side leftover). Also make sure you pull both tight so that your tie isn't too loose. After you've pinned it really well, just sew over the tie starting at the top, making a huge rectangle to do the bottom and sides also. Make sure you separate the two layers of dress before you sew so you you're not sewing the insides of the dress together! And make sure where you're sewing on the sides is right along the dress seam.

And wah-la! You're done! With a dress like mine, when you tie it in the back, the fabric back there will naturally bunch together and look nice. And it gives you a nice silhouette!

If you learn anything from this I hope it's that you can easily alter a dress to give it a fresh look or to make it more modest or stylish. All it takes is a little guts and a sewing machine!