Last 3 Nursery Tutorials

I'm sorry this is a little wordy today. 

Here is the second part of the nursery tutorials. Click here to see the first part of the tutorials. I don't have a lot of pictures for the tutorials so I used my artistic abilities. I'm sure you guys will be really impressed.

Gathered Cornice Boards

For this project we bought one 1inch x 10 inch x 8 ft board and we had just enough for our windows. I had to employ the help of my husband for the cutting, assembly, and installation but I did the creative part in the middle.  Here is what you will need.

1 10 inch x 8 ft long board cut into 6 sections (see picture)

Mounting "L" brackets

Fabric to cover the cornice boards 1.5 yards should be enough but it depends on your windows. Our windows are 32.5 inches wide. Width wise I could fit 2 on the fabric.

Batting

Spray Adhesive 

Staple Gun and Staples

1. Cut the wood, glue and nail it together. At this point we clamped the cornices and let the glue dry. A tip for measuring the width make sure you add an inch on each side for the width of the feet.

2. I sprayed the adhesive on the front and sides of the cornice boards and put the batting on it.

3. I measured and cut the fabric. I had about an extra foot for each board. I then stapled the ends of the fabric onto the inside edge of the feet of the board. I pulled the fabric covering the feet tight and stapled it. Lots of staples. Then I put one staple on each side, top and bottom, of the middle. Then I found about the middle of each side left and right and put a staple on the top and bottom there. I continued that until there were excess that I bunched and stapled.

4. I installed a curtain rod facing the wall (backwards of what you usually would) behind the back of the board. I threaded the sheers on and put rubber bands on the corners so it wouldn't look strange.

5. Nail the edge of the L brackets into the wall and cornice boards and then into the wall.

Iron-On Wall Decals

I got this idea here. At the end of the post she said that it did not leave residue which is what I was worried about.

She gives a great tutorial but here are a few tips I found:
1. Yup my letter looks really fancy but I would not suggest using such a thin and curly letter because it frayed and I had to use an craft knife to cut the edges once it was on the wall. This made it come back off the wall and I had to keep ironing it back on.

2. Be careful with the humidifier. It made the letter come off the wall a bit but it irons back on.

3. Before you iron, tape the edges so the weight won't pull the rest of the letter off while you go.

Recovering A Swing Cushion

I was VERY VERY nervous about doing this. First of all this is the swing my sister-in-law let me borrow. Second I consider myself very much a novice at sewing and I didn't know if I could pull it off. I got inspiration here. She gives GREAT instruction. This is how I did mine. As I started to deconstruct the swing I chickened out a few times before I started cutting. I did not take pictures because of this nervousness so I will have to try to illustrate what it was like.

• I first tried picking the seams but it was too hard so I just cut it as close the the edge as I could. The edge had  piping that had a small rope inside that filled it. There was batting inside of the cushion that was in two pieces behind A/C and B.
• I measured the pipping and made my own out of the gray fabric I used. I cut it and pressed it in half and then each side in half again which mimicked the old piping. I started from the inside and worked my way our. I used the old fabric as a pattern. I cut the new fabric SLIGHTLY larger than the old fabric. I did not include seam allowance because this will be sewn right along the edge of the cushion with the piping. When I did leave extra to fold over the edge it distorted the shape.
• I started with the hole in the middle of the B cushion. I traced the hole and cut an X through the middle. I then pinned and sewed the edge. I cut off the excess. I cut holes for the other three cut outs and sewed around the edge of those. 

• I sewed the top of B fabric to the B cushion. I sewed the bottom of A fabric to the A cushion. Then I sewed the stitching in the middle. I could still see on the back where it went so I used that as a guide.
• I then sewed A to C with piping. I put the inner rope and pinned it before sewing.
• Then I sewed A to B. I pinned and sewed around the edge with the rope inside the piping around the edge working on about a foot at a time.

I hope this has helped with everything. Also refer to the tutorial I listed above. Go slow and just try to mimic what the original is like. Now that I have the confidence of doing this I'm looking for some oilcloth to cover a hand-me-down high chair I got a couple weeks ago. Wish me luck! I'll show you the result when I finish it.

Two Nursery Tutorials and a Thanksgiving Bow

After a huge response I have decided to just go ahead and post all of the tutorials for the nursery. Most of them will be simple because I don't think I was super genius in how I did things but I hope I can inspire you with what I have done. I am going to do two tutorials today and the rest next week including the recovering of the swing cushion which was voted the highest. Don't think I forgot about Thanksgiving being tomorrow though. At the end of the post I'll post an additional quick festive tutorial.

Hydrangea Pillow

Needed: 

Silk flower

Seed Beads

Green Ribbon

Old Pillow Case

Filler

1. I used an old pillow case and sewed a small pillow out of it. The dimensions of the pillow are 12" x 19.5".  At this point only cut the side wait to sew it. Take the petals off of the stem of the hydrangea.
I just had to sew the left side because I used the existing seams of the pillow.

2. With a fabric pencil I drew a circle and started sewing the petals around the perimeter. Start the the knot in the back and come up through the hole in the 2 petals stacked, lace on a bead, and come back through the hole. I did this three times per petal. Move toward the middle and fill in where needed.

3. I used a zig zag stitch to sew the stem on. Then I sewed up the side leaving a small opening to stuff it. I stuffed it and hand stitched the rest of the edge.

Fabric Dividers

Needed:

Cardboard (I used a cereal box)

Scrapbooking Paper

Letters

Ribbon

1. I used some paper to draw a template using a cereal bowl. I used a smaller circle for the inner circle. I folded the paper into 4ths and cut out a section. I traced the cereal bowl onto the cardboard and used the template for the inner circle and cut out.

2. I used the template and cut paper out just bigger. I cut out two for each divider. I had 0-3 Months, 3-6 Months, 6-12 Months, 12 Months, 18th Months, and 24 Months. There were six dividers so I cut out 12 paper circles.
3. I cut out the letters with my cricut and glued each one on along with a pretty little bow.

Thanksgiving Bow:

Needed:

Ribbons (I used pink, yellow, and orange. 3.5" of the pink and 12" of the orange and yellow)

Stiff Interfacing

Brown Fabric

Fabric Paint

Small orange felt beak

1. I cut out the shape of the turkey body out of interfacing. I cut the fabric just bigger than the body and glued it on the front. I then cut slits around the edge of the body so it would lay flat while I glued it around the edge.

2. I cut the ribbon in pink 1x 3.5" orange 2 x 3.5" and 2 x 2.5" and yellow 2 x 3.5" and 2 x 2.5" lengths. I looped them and hot glued them.

3. I glued them onto the back of the turkey with the small loops in the middle of the large loops.









4. I glued on the small orange beak, made a waddle with red paint and the eyes with white and black paint. I made a loop with the interfacing on the back so it can be put on the interchangeable clip and onto a headband because she still doesn't have anything more than a fuzzy head :) After all this I smeared the eye so I put a bow on the Turkey because she's a girl.



Here is her whole Thanksgiving Day outfit: Isn't she a cutie!? Her onsie is courtesy of her Aunt Jaime.She was being a total stinker and wasn't smiling.

Baby Girl Nursery

 As promised here are the pictures of the finished nursery. Last week we were working on making and putting up the cornice boards. Here are the before pictures.  The one of the left is 2009. The one on the right is terrible I know. This picture was taken I think in January. There is a bed in there. This is mostly the stuff we had accumulated for the nursery.

And After!

From blue and tan  to gray and purple. From beach themed to nursery

This BEAUTIFUL dresser we got at a used furniture store. It had some scratches on the top but we got a great deal (more than 50% off the price listed) and my hubby lightly sanded the scratches out and refinished the top.

I'm sad this picture turned out blurry!

I covered the mat with hydrangea paper. 

"I am a child of God"

"And He has sent me here"

I LOVE that glider. 

Aunt Jaime took these beautiful pictures and framed them for her.

This is her closet with some things in it. I hang up her dresses and new clothes. The hand-me-downs are in bins. It drove me nuts to think there might be clothes in there I didn't know she fit into so I created these dividers.

I recovered the swing my sister-in-law let us borrow.

I got this at Tuesday Morning and made the pillow out of an old pillow case and silk hydrangea petals. 

   There are still a few things that I want to do to the room but I'm so happy with how it looks. I hope it gives you some inspiration! Enjoy

Nursery Not Done Yet

Because of course I have nothing better to do I decided to finish up PB's nursery. Oh wait! We're also working on our bathroom at the same time! The nursery just needed a couple finishing touches and I thought I could finish by today but she is now using that room- for the first time actually. I will show you the finished result next Wednesday. I can cross my fingers and hope that the master bathroom will also be done. Here is a sneak peak:

The Crib Skirt That Almost Wasn't- Crib Skirt Tutorial

I have been looking into decor and theme for the nursery for my baby girl since of course I found out what I was having. I love living in the south and I decided on a Colonial South/French Country. Here are a couple pictures I used as inspiration: Project Nursery and Design Dazzle.

The color scheme that I wanted was a dove grey and a deep purple. I didn't find the exact fabric that I wanted when my mom and I looked at the store and semi-settled for a still beautiful purple fabric (DISAPPOINTMENT #1). I got all the fabric they had and we worked on it from scratch. Here are the steps we took (in italics I will explain what really happened):

1. Measure the long and two short sides of the crib (We really did four panels. Why? The other panel would have never been seen and we got rid of it later and used it as the other half of the front. In the end it was four times the length in the front and very gathered)
2. We doubled the length and used the surger to surge all four edge of each of the panels. (This actually wasn't bad)
3. We pressed a one inch edge at the top and a two inch panel at the bottom of each panel and sewed it. (Again no problems)
4. Gather. We chose to thread a yarn the length of the actual edges of the crib and gathered. (Here is the step where we realized we made one too many panels)
5. We cut four inch strips the length of each of the panels and pressed them in half
6. We sewed the strips to the panels to hold them there. Surge them together with a cutting edge. (After breaking FIVE yes FIVE needles we resorted to just resewing them to reinforce them)
7. We sewed ribbons to the panels around every 10 inches. (Again I was breaking needles-very disappointing day) You can readjust the crib skirt as the crib is lowered. 
8. We tied them to crib and yay! (There's a drawer under our crib and the sides of the drawer block the crib skirt from reaching the ground. I think I almost started crying about right now. I pinned them up with safety pins and declared it DONE)

Here's a picture of the final result. Good luck (you'll need it!)!!