Projects in our old house

 Some of the projects I never posted about in our old house were:

Sewed pillows (my first ever), from fabric I had on hand.

Gallery wall with a bunch of our old black frames from when we got married.

 I bought a stencil and wanted to stencil a back splash for our kitchen. It was a great idea in theory but was a TON more work than I thought it would be. Above is the Before, and below is the After picture. I loved how it turned out, but when I  started doing the large section by the stove the stencil ended up curving more and started to bleed a lot more than I wanted. It would have taken forever to update. Since we ended up finding out we were moving I had to paint it all back blue which was a sad day! I think if I ever do something like this again I will just buy it as a sticky vinyl cut-out to put on it.

Jayde's Room

After finding out we were having another baby we knew we would have to transition Jayde to a big-girl-bed. We did it a few months before having Colt and it went very well. Tyson's parents had a bedroom set that his mom used growing up which his sister then used. They remodeled her room and it was given to Jayde. I love that it is white, and has a canopy bed. It all goes very well in her room, and she loves it.

Here are pictures of her 'new' room:

Little table & chairs were given to her by her Oma & Opa for Christmas last year. She loves having tea parties on it.

 These are the rain gutter bookshelves I made from vinyl rain gutters at Lowes. They were very easy to make: figure out the lengths you want, cut them with a hacksaw, sand the edges and glue on the corner & end-caps. Screw into the wall on your studs and voila .. you have rain gutter bookshelves. Jayde loves them!

Colt's Room

Colt's room has been almost complete for awhile now and I LOVE how it turned out! I wanted a Dr. Seuss theme and Tyson wanted sports so I combined the two. I love the feeling when I have a bunch of ideas in my head and they all come together and turn out exactly how I pictured.

Tyson's dad and I did the board & batten on the walls. I picked out the paint colors and got help painting from Darryl, my uncle Kyle, and Tyson. 

I think one of my favorite things is this baseball with his hand print. I was shocked I was able to do that in one try! It's a good thing he is a deep sleeper.

The bedding was Pottery Barn clearance and Teri made the adorable Dr. Seuss throw blanket for his crib. And of course we have a Utah rug.

Those are $24 white Ikea curtains that I painted red stripes onto (the day before Colt was born).

The picture frame I got at $3 from a garage sale and turned it into a magnetic chalkboard.

The Dr. Seuss panel was also made by Teri - we saw it in a quilt shop and thought it would go perfectly in his room.

I saw this quote on Etsy and made my own version of it. I love how it looks in the white frames right above his crib.

I took off his closet door like I did in Jayde's room because it makes the room larger and I can put his chair where it would swing out. 

This bare wall is going to have his name up top (I'm at least done with the letters), and then I want a collage of about 8 different types of frames that I'm going to paint white and put pictures of him in.... and that is the last thing I have left before it's 100% complete!

what every girl should do the day before giving birth

...is paint curtains for her soon-to-be baby's nursery!

Let's just say that it wasn't the best idea to wait until then. 

Man were my hands sore the next day.

But hey - they are adorable in his room and I can't wait to post pictures of how it all turned out!

projects, projects, projects...

Lately I've been super busy with projects to try and get done before the baby comes. Here are a few of the ones I've finished. I love how everything is turning out, but even more - I love the fact that I can cross them off my list!

 I found some cute fabric online at fabric.com and made faux roman shades using this tutorial for our kitchen windows. It took me forever to take end result pictures of this (hence the Halloween decor in the 'before' and the St Patty's Day decor in the 'after' pic haha)

 Baby squishy now has a car seat cover which is a necessity!

 Used some fabric scraps and ric rac to make some boy burp cloths. Now he won't be spitting up on any pink frilly ones.

 I bought this ugly frame at a garage sale for $2 over a year ago, knowing I wanted to make it into a magnetic chalk board. I cleaned it, rolled on the magnetic paint, sprayed on the chalkboard paint, sprayed it red, and then glazed it. It's going to go in the baby's room. 

Oh, and I think we decided on the name Colton (Colt for short)!

 Our neighbor let us (meaning me & my father-in-law) borrow his miter saw and nail gun. Darryl installed the the wainscoting as well as painted the wall/ceiling. Now all that was left was for me to calk, spackle, re-paint the white section, paint the other walls yellow, paint stripes on Colton's curtains, and decorate!

 Darryl also helped me install these metal planter boxes I bought over a year ago. They were just sitting in our garage because Tyson didn't want to drill holes into our house. It took about a year to get him to agree ;) so here they are with fresh flowers I picked out. I LOVE how they turned out. Literally every day when I look at them - they make me smile!

I bought this ugly bench as a set for $35 at DI. Cleaned, vacuumed, painted, and found a cute pillow for it. The other two pieces I sold for $20 so the bench only ended up costing me $15 + $40 for the pillow and about $25 for the paint/primer in one. I also love how this turned out.

I love that Jayde is such a trooper when I'm getting things done. I hand her one of her fake paintbrushes and she 'paints' right alongside me. It is so cute to see her reach for the tools and mimic what I'm doing. She has some wooden puzzles and one is a tool theme and she loves hammering with her puzzle piece like it's real. So cute!

More Curtains

As you found out from this post - I LOVE curtains.

Jayde's room was feeling small with her huge closet door swinging all about.
Soon that wall will have bookshelves and will be Jayde's own reading corner.
To accomplish that, I made the executive decision to remove the door,
and put a curtain panel up instead,
which I told the husband about very matter-of-factly.....

Let's just say he wasn't too thrilled about that idea.
Anything involving changing the house (i.e. painting, removing doors, and drilling holes) leaves him in a less-than-excited mood about life (which is a complete understatement)!
I told him I would do all the work including removing the door,
and that he wouldn't even notice.

Here's how it turned out:



I love it! It turned out exactly how I planned. We bought a small hook-thing to screw into the door frame so I can swoop the curtains up and out of the way if I want... which hasn't gone in yet because I'm still too nervous to use a power drill (I have no idea why - I use my power sander and love it!), and then we have Tyson's less-than-excited idea of drilling yet another hole into the wall has put it to a halt for the moment. BUT I still wanted to post about it.

Oh, and the curtain fabric came from Walmart at a measly $3 a yard! How awesome is that?! They were super easy to sew, and while I was at it I made her some curtains out of the same fabric. The cheapest rod I was able to find was at Lowes ($18?). The one from Bed Bath & Beyond was more than double and looked almost the same which is crazy. Three cheers for being able to return things back to the store!

I'm also still waiting for Tyson to want to put the 'tie backs' into the walls which requires drilling more holes. I seriously just need to toughen up and not be scared of that measly drill and just do it myself... (which I've been saying for the last 6 months)... we'll see.

the $12 end table

I picked up this beauty at DI for $12 knowing that I wanted it to be painted and stained. It took quite a bit of work cleaning, taking knobs off, sanding, priming, spray painting, hand-painting the inside light blue, staining, re-assembling, then reapplying the clear coat.

Let's just say I LOVE how it turned out!!

4th Decor

Our Fourth of July decor consisted of:

• A Subway Art Printable from eighteen25
• A Paint Chip Banner - idea from SweeterThanSweets
• Some All-American Flags which were a buck apiece, and a few bandanas
  

Simple. Easy. Fun to make!

2011 Parade of Homes

We have been going to the St George Parade of Homes now for awhile and have really enjoyed going through the homes (some of them ginormous) and getting ideas for decor. Tyson's aunt uncle Wade & Debbie flew in from Illinois just to go to it.

We had Jessi, Ryan, and his parents stay with us and Tyson's parents came down also. Although it rained most of time we still had a lot of fun with family and Jayde had a blast playing peek-a-boo in all their mirrors.

The Nursery

I've been working on Jayde's nursery for awhile, trying to get it how I imagined without it costing too much. The only thing I still would like to do is add curtains and take off her closet door to add another panel of fabric that matches the curtains (but I have yet to find fabric I like that's not going to cost me an arm and a leg). Here's how it all turned out:

{Dresser $180 from KSL, site like Craigslist here in UT.}
{Nightstand free from Tyson's aunt & uncle which I repainted to match, it was previously dark green.}

{I was really picky with bedding and wanted a really frilly-girls option that I found, but was quickly veto-ed by Tyson who liked a dark purple set with huge butterflies. That didn't fly with me so we compromised on me buying fabrics I liked and his mom's friend said she would make the bumper and skirt for me for a shower gift. I loved the pink and teal so that's what I went with.}
{Rug $80 from Overstock.com}
{Crib quilt was made by Tyson's mom which matches the bedding and looks awesome in her room!}

{Cube shelving and chandelier night light from Target.}
{Clock from Rod Works, Baby Girl storage was a gift.}

{The chair is from a garage sale I picked up for $20, and was in awesome shape.}
{Baby blanket on chair is her blessing blanker her grandma made for her.}
{Chair pillow I made in a class.}

{Professional baby pictures in frames given to me at baby shower.}

{Corbels holding up Willow Tree figurines from DI $1.50 each. They were orang-ey brown and I spray painted antique white}
{Plaque above from baby shower as well as pink shadow box}

{Lampshade was $2 from DownEast which I redid with fabric, texture magic, and trim.}
{Base $7 from Target.}
{Frame from TJ Maxx, and Vase $2 from DI.}

{Mirror is one of my favorite finds, it was only like $7 from DI and was gold so I spray painted antique white.}

{Top frame from Hobby Lobby for $15, bottom frame from DI $4. I spray painted them both and added ribbon to the back for her bows.}

{Both shelves are from DI $2 apiece and I spray painted to match.}
{Vase $1.50 from Michaels.}
{Piggy bank like $4 from Hobby Lobby.}
{J framed, cat, shoes are gifts as well as footprint canvas.}

{Lampshade $4 from Down East and I made it my own by adding flowers from Michaels to it.}

{Mobile from Pottery Barn which I love, but Jayde loves more. I think it was like $18 but worth every penny and I can use for all of our kids.}

I just LOVE how it all turned out! It's my favorite room in the whole house. Oh, and props for Tyson's parents for painting the two walls of her room while I was still pregnant :0)