{DIY Crib Mobile}

Hi,

It's a gloomy fall day here and I am loving it! I'm ready for it to cool and off and I'm ready to start feeling festive! I have been trying to get as close to done with the nursery as I can these past few weeks because we are hosting Thanksgiving at my home this year, and I want the family to see what I've been up to :) (well, what we've been up to - it's definitely been a group effort). It may seem kind of silly to have Oliver's room completely done 2.5 months before he is due, but eh...better to be ahead than behind, right!?

One thing that I wasn't sure that I really wanted to incorporate into the nursery was a crib mobile. I like the idea, but haven't really seen too many out there that I actually like. Those plastic arm thingy's that hold dangling bears and play music - not really into those (sorry for those of you that have one like that - just being honest). I do agree however that it is a good idea to have something for the baby to look at while laying down, but I just wasn't sure what to do.

I stumbled upon a few ADORABLE mobiles on Etsy recently, and felt inspired....

I love this bird-on-twig mobile from Criswell Creations - ($75.00)

and this whale mobile from Southern Pearl Designs ($65.00)

and these fabulous art-deco inspired colorful mobiles from JennaEBee13 ($80.00)
(she even made it into the Pregnancy & Newborn Magazine's buyer's guide - awesome!!)

....and last but not least, I LOVE these adorable felt mobiles from hingmade ($80.00)
Cat & the Fiddle:
Woodland Creatures:
& Alice in Wonderland (which I would have totally purchased if I was having a girl - I absolutely LOVE it!!!)

All of these vendors are SERIOUSLY talented and have taken boring crib mobiles and made them amazingly fun and stylish!! They definitely have skills!! That being said, I wanted to give making one a shot, but am a TOTAL craft rookie (as I always say) and wasn't sure what to do. My friend Elizabeth (who is due with a baby girl 5 days after me :) ) is a talented girl as well, and after telling her that I knew she could totally knock one out of the park, she decided to tackle an adorable felt birdie mobile....

Birdies in progress...
...& the almost final product....
Isn't it adorable!!!!?? She has since added black-and-white music notes that add to it's adorableness (her husband is a musician, and her bedding is black, white, and pink, so the music notes are a perfect addition). I am in complete awe of her sewing skills and can't wait to see her mobile up above her beautifully girlie crib!!

Being that I CANNOT sew to save my life (ugh!), I knew I wanted to try my hand at something, but also knew that I would need Elizabeth's help. I decided to try to make a hot air balloon mobile (I have had a thing for hot air balloons lately for some reason), so I bought the supplies at Michael's, and we got started....



At first I thought I wanted to add punches of color instead of sticking with my gray, black, white, and yellow color-scheme...
but then I decided that I liked the more vintage-looking subtle balloons better, so I tamed them down to be only gray, white, and black, and I liked them much more....
I wasn't sure what to use for the baskets, but I ultimately chose burlap to give them that rustic/unfinished quality.

And after sewing the baskets on, the final touch was to add fun felt letters/#'s to add some interest.

(The $ is in reference to his middle name "Cash")

(The "V" is the initial of our last name)

And here is where the final picture would be, but.....I have yet to hang the mobile up - argh! I am sorry for the anti-climactic ending to this post, but I hope you like the look/idea as much as I do and will show you the completed project as soon as I post the nursery reveal :)


Have a cozy day!

-L

{The dresser is DONE!)

Continuing on in the nursery-decorating-maddness..... (YAY!)

Instead of using a standard changing table in our nursery, I really wanted to transform an old dresser into a fun, vibrant, stylish changing table/dresser. I just thought it would make more of a statement and would be more functional than open shelves with baskets, etc. I have seen a lot of this going on out there these days (I have shown you some pictures and have pinned several examples of some that I have loved), and knew that it was definitely something that I wanted for our little guys room. My hope is that it could transition into his big boy dresser someday too.

After searching for several weeks/months, I finally settled on this dresser that I found on Craigslist for $100...

(photo courtesy of the C.L. seller)

...kind of pricey, I know, but we don't seem to have an abundance of affordable vintage furniture around these parts like some of my FAVORITE people do, and this one was SUPER well made and had the straight, clean lines that I was looking for, so I pounced. Ali also pointed out to me that it had kind of an Asian flair, but my hope was that if it was all painted one color, that flair would go away, and it would just look stylish!

It sat in my garage for quite a while (longer than I planned on) before I felt like diving in. I was nervous. I really wanted to do this one all on my own, without the help of my Renaissance-Man brother in law who always ends up doing the hard work.

So....I began....

This dresser was definitely a fine piece of good quality craftsmanship -

engraved branding...


...and dove-tailed drawers...
(& I totally love the grandma contact paper - awesome!)


The first hiccup (that should have been a sign of doom) was that the little tiny screws that held the hinges on the cabinet doors were old and stripped, and I could not for the life of me get them off. UGH! So, the drawers would have to stay on while I painted which I knew was less than ideal.


The next true bonehead move I made was not going with my gut, but taking the word of a 20-something paint employee at Home Depot, telling me if I buy paint & primer in one, I shouldn't need to prime nor really sand anything. Um...DUH!! Was I just born yesterday?! He is dumb and I am an idiot for listening.

Here it is after 3 coats of paint (no sanding or priming of any kind). The bright yellow color had a greenish undertone due to the ugly brown color showing through. Also, the piping on every drawer made it impossible to get a smooth coat that didn't look stripey or clumpy in the grooves.....



I tried, I really did, but . . . .

*The rollers I chose had too high of a nap, so they left lint all over everything & the entire thing was a textured mess.
*The cabinet doors kept falling open and bonking the dresser while it was drying, causing dings the size of CA.
*Painted hinges are always pretty and functional, right??! :/
*I had no idea how I would paint the base of the thing, as there was no way I was going to be able to lift the thing up....!!!

It was a certified D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R!!!!!! I wish I could have flown Cassie out, as she is an expert in all things painted, and she would have surely knocked this one out of the park!! Needless to say, I called my brother in law with a major SOS, and he came to my rescue. Not only did he have to sand off basically EVERYTHING that I had done (*sigh), he then primed it, and painted it from top to bottom...

My hero! (seriously!)
(side note: he was able to get the cabinet doors off just fine - of course.)

After poly-ing it, he helped me bring it in, but we still needed to spray the hardware, and let the drawers finish drying, so here it sat for over a week, waiting....
...until it was finally done and ready to go.

Here it is all shiny and bright :)

What do you think!!!?? I am SO happy with how it turned out and am SOOOO lucky to have such a competent, helpful brother in law in my life. This dresser was a pain from start to finish, but in the end it was worth it and I am in L-O-V-E.

I hope you like it too! I am officially hanging up my brush (can) and most likely won't be attempting to paint/re-finish anything again for quite a while. I need a skills class before I try again.

I will master it though - someday!

:) Happy Tuesday!

-lisa

{Bringing Our Vision to Life!}

-OUR VISION -

Part 1:
As I have mentioned, my beautiful sister and I have been working on painting a crib for baby Oliver. It is a white Jenny Lind crib by Delta that Ali got at Babies-R-Us before Noah was born almost 6 years ago.

So, it was Noah's crib first....


and then it became Hayden's crib next....

....and now it's going to be Oliver's crib. There's something so amazingly special and nostalgic about the fact that all 3 of our babies will have slept in the same crib. I love it! That being said, the white of the crib had seen better days. I either needed to re-paint it white to make it look shiny and new again, OR pick a new color. So, I opted for a new color. I ended up choosing my favorite color of the moment (for decor especially) - GREY!

Being pregnant, I wasn't super excited about getting out the old paint can (or spray can in this instance) and tackling the project myself, so my favorite sister stepped in and took care of it for me (have I mentioned how awesome she really is!? Seriously!!).

On her blog, she showed a little of this....


and a little of that.....

It took over 9 cans of spray paint (you lose so much into the wind and in between the spindles) and a can of polyurethane to get it all spiffy and new looking again, but it was totally worth it. We were both really happy about how everything was turning out.

Once Ali was done (so she thought), her wonderful husband brought it over to my house to help me set it up, but once we got it into the room and ready to assemble, we noticed this....


DOH!!!! Those darn spindles are impossible!!! Ugh! You can't tell if you've gotten them all unless you scrutinize EVERY single area multiple times over. SO annoying. So, that piece unfortunately headed back to my sister, and the crib sat around like this for a few days waiting for it's 4th side to come back....

After a few days, the sides were all together again and the crib was finished!!!! (and like a dumb dumb, I totally spaced on getting a picture of the crib all together (sans bedding), but I think you can envision it, can't you? ;). Our one small regret is not painting the plastic hardware on the crib, but at the end of the day, that part needed to be function over form (it needed to be able to be adjusted without sticking, etc.), so we left the hardware white. No big deal in my book.

I am SO happy with how the color looks and how the entire thing turned out. I owe EVERYTHING to my sister!! I couldn't have done any of it without her! So, thank you sister for bringing this part of my vision to life :) You're my HERO!

PART 2:

The next part of the vision was the bedding. In an earlier post, I showed you the fabrics that I had chosen and told you about the color scheme that I was going for - grey, black, white, and yellow. I ordered the crib bedding from an Etsy shop called "Tuft Love Fabric & Interiors". It is owned by a lady named Sally out of Arizona. From the look of the crib sets she was selling in her shop already, I could automatically tell that she had an amazing eye for putting colors/fabrics together that looked cool and hip and more "now" than any other crib bedding I've seen. I chose the fabrics on my own, but I knew that she would be able to make it all come together. She also had great feedback from previous customers, so for both of those reasons, I was super excited to order from her.

Once I placed my order, the lead time was 4-6 weeks. I don't think I have to tell you how hard it was for me to wait for it to arrive. The crib was ready - waiting - bedding-less, and I was SO excited to see my vision come to life. Thankfully, she finished it within 4 weeks of placing my order, and it arrived this past Thursday!

YAY!!

So, without further ado, here it is in all it's glory......

Isn't it AWESOME!!!? What do you think???? Do you think it turned out as COOL as I do??! I am in L-O-V-E with it!! I think it turned out even better than I had hoped it would. I hope you like it and are on board with my vision. Now that this part is done, I can start working on the rest of the details. :) It's all so exciting!

Oh.....one little snafu to mention - due to the combination of slightly sub-par packaging, and how NOT careful UPS can be, THIS is how the package arrived on my doorstep....

No joke!!! Uggggh!!!! CRAZY!!!! I couldn't believe it and was so worried about what I would find when I took the bedding out. Luckily, no major damage occurred (thank goodness), and the vendor was so awesome about making things right (she offered to refund the shipping, which I REALLY appreciated)! I was super lucky because an hour after I brought it in the house all open and exposed, it started raining. If it was left out there, it would have gotten drenched and I would have been devastated. We were very lucky!

Happy weekend everyone!
:)
-L