Nursery Project: Aspen Mobile

So while I'm busy doing things like snuggling the cutest baby alive and working on writing his birth story, I figured I'd share the nursery projects with you that I've been working on in the past few months to get ready for Lincoln's arrival. 

I don't pretend like I'm writing these up as I try to get spit up out of my hair, I did write them ahead of time in hopes to share them with you as I adjusted to being a mom.

I love these projects. Mostly because they're almost free and filled with love and easy. But also because I love how they came out.

So originally I planned to make a little mobile by taking apart the garland made of wooden carved things. I was going to hang the little moose and bear and pine cones by aspen tree branches and it was going to be very outdoorsy.

Then I decided I wanted to use the carved garland somewhere else. And I decided that the little wooden things probably wouldn't be as exciting as a lighter paper mobile that would twirl in the breeze. Right?

And then sitting at my desk one day I had the best idea! If the aspen twigs were going to be the 'base' of the mobile then why couldn't I make aspen leaves as the rest of the mobile.

I loooove aspen leaves. I love how they dance in the wind and look kind of like confetti or sparkles when they shake. Perfect for a mobile!

So I got some card stock and I got my handy dandy watercolor set out. This set is from first or third grade. If you look close you can see my skilled artistic work from third grade when I decided to paint little roses on the case. I actually bought a new one of these for when I hand painted my wedding invitations, you know, for like $1 and I've yet to open it. These things last forever.

I painted white card stock with a mix of green and yellow, but mostly green. I'm sure you could take the time to hand paint each leaf once they are cut but this worked out great. I hand cut each leaf so I didn't feel the need to spend extra hours painting.

I searched online for a good paper punch that would cut the card stock for me in the shape of an aspen leaf, but no luck. All the leaf punches had very different leaf shapes. So I drew the shape I wanted and glued a few pieces of card stock together to make the paper thick. Then I just exacto-knifed out a little stencil.

Then I got to tracing. I used a pencil so that if there were lines left on the leaves once I cut them, that I could just erase them off. I will add that my leaf stencil was not completely symmetrical (on purpose) and so I did half the leaves with the stencil face up and half the leaves with the stencil face down. You'll see why in a bit. I got about 25 leaves per page. And I got about 25 hand cramps per page too...

Then I had my cute little leaves. I made 50 green fronts, 50 green backs, and 12 yellow fronts and 12 yellow backs.

Just like my pennant garland, I set out the leaves before I started gluing to make sure I liked the way the leaves were spaced.

Then I got smart and realized I needed to put them on the ground white side up so I could just glue the 'back leaf' on without flipping everything over. I also realized I need to mark the yellow leaves so I could make sure their back matched yellow too. Learning as I went...

So now maybe you understand why I said 'front' and 'back.' Each leaf front was glued to a leaf back and the string was glued in the center of the two pieces. I realize I could have just painted both sides of one sheet of paper, but I didn't want the string to show. I ended up using 5mm clear elastic as my 'string.' I was going to use fishing line but I didn't have any in the house and I liked the way this came out. Because the elastic is so bouncy and light, the leaves fall and spin so nicely

When it was time to put everything together, I simply tied each string of leaves to one of the three aspen sticks I had. Then I found the center of the stick (using my finger as a balance) and I used one string to tie all the three sticks together. The balancing act took a little work, but because I used elastic and hadn't glued anything yet I just slid the strings back and forth until it was all balanced. If you look closely you can see the strings.

Note: You may notice that I didn't clip the ends off the strings yet. I'm 'test-hanging' the mobile now to see how well the knots stay. I figure if one comes untied that I'll need to change something. I will say that I used a screw with a little loop on the end to hang it from the ceiling. I tied my knots tight and I used proper 'elastic-tying' knots. I heard that I can use super glue to dot on the knots to make them stay tied so I may try that too if needed.

The big thing is that for safety, this mobile is hanging over the changing table. I didn't really want to hang a DIY mobile over the crib where something could possibly fall at night. I'm just too paranoid. But I have heard that mobiles over changing tables are great for giving baby something to look at while changing diapers. It's also close enough to the crib where baby can see it from the crib too.

They say you should look at your mobile from the bottom too to get a 'baby's eye' look at it.

It dances like the aspens in Colorado that I love so very much. I think it's wonderful. At least it's exactly what I imagined, so to me that's perfect.

Nursery Project: Painting a Boat

So while I'm busy doing things like snuggling the cutest baby alive and working on writing his birth story, I figured I'd share the nursery projects with you that I've been working on in the past few months to get ready for Lincoln's arrival. 

I don't pretend like I'm writing these up as I try to get spit up out of my hair, I did write them ahead of time in hopes to share them with you as I adjusted to being a mom.

I love these projects. Mostly because they're almost free and filled with love and easy. But also because I love how they came out.

So Kyle has had this boat shelf thing for a while now. Apparently he once got it at a garage sale before I met him and I'm not sure if he's ever used it. A year or so ago he tried to convince me to sell in in our own garage sale, but I was thinking 'someday baby boy room!' in my little scheming head. So we kept it.

And once I realized we could use the boat for the nursery this time around I pulled it out. ...Maybe a little less than impressed.

So I came up with a plan to paint the boat to match the nursery a little better and so that the boat wouldn't look so 'old and rustic.' I was going for 'fresh and clean.' So I taped up the edges and the front opening and I spray painted the 'base' of the boat a nice navy blue. Krylon ColorMaster Oxford Blue in Satin and I even found it right on the shelf in Wal-Mart.

I painted multiple thin coats until I felt the color was true. No, I did not prime the boat because I don't really think it will take a beating like a desk or table would, but I did wipe it down with a damp cloth before I taped it.

Then came the trim. I pulled out my old can of Valspar Ultra in Ultra White Semi-Gloss. I had the can left over from painting the dresser for the nursery and our headboard last year. Apparently a gallon goes a long way when painting furniture.

I taped off the edges and used one of my little craft brushes to do the small job. It took two or three coats because I was painting white over such a dark color. I will tell you though that some of the paint seeped under the edges of the tape and I was quite disappointed with the line. I touched it up a bit, but sometimes I really do prefer free handing rather than using tape.

And then I stared at the little boat proudly as I literally watched the paint dry. All while wearing my huge respirator mask of course.

I left the paint in the garage to cure for a few days before bringing it into the nursery. I didn't want the nursery to be all 'fumey' and I wanted the paint to be nice and hard. I did add little felt pieces to the bottom of the boat shelf using double sided tape because I wanted to protect the dresser. The boat had hooks for it to hang on the wall, but I liked the look of it sitting on the dresser better than hanging on the wall.

I reattached the fishing pole and oar and we were in business. What do you think?

You can see in this next photo where I painted a blue stripe on the oar. As I was putting the oar back on I realized that it had a green stripe on it. So I quickly taped the lines and blasted a little spray paint on the oar to match the boat. The painter's tape does work wonders for clean lines with spray paint.

And to think we were just going to sell this little boat in a garage sale... Where would we have put little Baby Hess' black bear and Hess cars?

The nursery is really starting to come together. (You know, once I clean all those boxes out of the crib). Oh I can't wait to bring our little boy into his little boy nursery!

Nursery Project: Pennant Garland

So while I'm busy doing things like snuggling the cutest baby alive and working on writing his birth story, I figured I'd share the nursery projects with you that I've been working on in the past few months to get ready for Lincoln's arrival. 

I don't pretend like I'm writing these up as I try to get spit up out of my hair, I did write them ahead of time in hopes to share them with you as I adjusted to being a mom.

I love these projects. Mostly because they're almost free and filled with love and easy. But also because I love how they came out.

So I've been wanting to do a million things at the house. Right now I'm in the middle of painting the desk in our living room, getting the nursery ready, and of course pulling all the crabgrass from our back yard. You know, normal pregnant lady things...

But of course there are times when I should not be lifting a desk by myself, so the desk is only half painted. And there are times when it's like 95 degrees out and I'm sweating buckets and they say pregnant ladies can't get too hot or something, so there are just patches of crabgrass-free lawn...

But the nursery is in the air conditioning... and I can turn on HGTV or the Food Network or College Football and I can cut and craft until my little heart is content in the coolness of the A/C.

So I made some garland. I call it pennant garland, but some people call it bunting. When I think of bunting I think of babies in snow suits, but then again when I think of garland I think of the plasticy green stuff that goes up at Christmas. Either way it's like a banner made of little flags.

You may remember the rose garland that I made for Hannah's room. I love it. But it doesn't scream "there's a boy on the way" so for now it's coming down and going up in my bedroom. I like it that much.

So I left the pins on the wall and I'm making a little something new.

I started out by using the old garland to measure how much new garland I needed. Like I said I did it the lazy way and just left the pins in place. And I cut out different sizes of pennants to see which size and shape I liked best. When looking online I found some that were short and fat and long and skinny so I tried them all out.

Then I selected my colors. Again I perused Pinterest for a little inspiration. I wanted to keep the same overall colors in the nursery. I like the light turquoise wall color (Sea Kiss by Valspar) and lots of white. I didn't want to repaint the walls but I knew I wanted to bring in a little navy and green.

So I went to Michael's and I bought some craft paper. I ended up using the three colors on the left. The gray ended up being a little too moody and as much as I loved the purple, it was getting a bit girly...

I ended up using the pennant stencil that I made, and I just traced the pennant onto the craft paper and cut it out. It was pretty straightforward.

Then I laid out all the pennants. I wanted to make sure I liked the spacing of the colors before I started gluing things down. I didn't want the colors to be in a perfect pattern, but I didn't want to be left with five navy pennants in a row at the end or anything.

Initially I bought white ribbon to glue on the front side of the garland and I liked it. Nice and sharp. But for what I wanted in the room I thought the white was a little too much. So I whipped out some hemp and decided that it would do the trick glued on the back of the pennants. Have I second guessed this decision since then... yes. Who knows?

A little Aleene's and we were in business.

And we ended up with these...

And at least for now I have it hung above the crib with my cute little outdoor garland right on top. I'm not quite committed to the look, hence I didn't trim the string at the end yet, you know, just in case I want to change it. Baby's not supposed to be here for like nine more weeks so we've got time to fiddle with things...

Note: If you think the wall looks like it changed color from the first picture with the rose garland, it didn't. This one is more true to the color of the paint. The first picture must have been taken with our yellow light bulbs on and I guess I didn't setup my white balance...

Nursery Project: New Print

So while I'm busy doing things like snuggling the cutest baby alive and working on writing his birth story, I figured I'd share the nursery projects with you that I've been working on in the past few months to get ready for Lincoln's arrival. 

I don't pretend like I'm writing these up as I try to get spit up out of my hair, I did write them ahead of time in hopes to share them with you as I adjusted to being a mom.

I love these projects. Mostly because they're almost free and filled with love and easy. But also because I love how they came out.

So I love the old vintage National Park posters. Do you know the ones I'm talking about? Some are actually vintage and others are newer signs made to look like the old ones. Like this one of the Grand Canyon.

So I set out to find a great poster for the nursery, but soon realized that I didn't want a sign of a National Park. I wanted a sign from a peak or a lake in Colorado where we live in the summers. So I figured I'd have to make my own.

I found a picture I took from this summer of Lake San Cristobal in Lake City where we take our guests to kayak during the summer. And then I (lacking any real fancy editing software) I used Picasa and Microsoft Word to pull this off.

Here's what we started with.

So I pulled it into Picasa and used the "Posterize" effect to get what I wanted. I chose a limited number of colors and just committed to the 'cartoon' look.

Then I adjusted the colors to what I liked. I was looking for something to not look too realistic but still be beautiful like the lake truly is. I know I could have gone more beige and vintage with it, but the nursery runs on bright white so the off-whiteness of the vintage look just didn't make much sense.

I tried to figure out how to add words right there in Picasa, but I don't think they have that option (or at least I couldn't find it). So I inserted the photo into good ole Microsoft Word and added the text I wanted.

I sized the page to legal size because my image was much longer than it was wide and I could get a bigger print that way. I just printed it on the printer on regular paper to see how the quality came out. I figured if I didn't like it I could always send it to a print shop and get it made on nice paper, but since it was going behind glass anyway I liked it just the way it was.

But before I framed it, I stopped.

This print would replace the picture I hung in Hannah's nursery last year. I took one last look at that frame with the pictures of my family. The ladies that I wanted so badly for Hannah to recognize and talk about as she woke up and looked at each morning. And I smiled because I know she gets to see two of them in ways I can't. I'm sure they're all running around heaven bragging on her and showing her off and pinching her cheeks like good grandmothers do. (The other lady in the picture is still living, by the way, I didn't want you to think I meant she went somewhere else!)

And then I slipped the picture out of the frame. And I put the new one in. And then for good measure I decided to leave the old picture in the back of the frame.

Sure there are new things coming, but that doesn't mean we don't still love the old ones.