baby on a budget: nursery wall art

This afternoon I sat down to make some wall art for Micah's room.  A few weeks ago, I found some cute blue chevron scrapbook paper at Hobby Lobby, as well as some thick letter stickers.  I am hopeless at freehanding this kind of thing, and the stickers seemed like a good idea.  Especially since they were on sale at the time.  I used some of Caleb's construction paper for the moon and stars since I didn't have any other scrapbook paper without some kind of pattern, and I figured that would be too busy with the chevron pattern being the background for the whole thing.

I kept coming back to the phrase "I love you to the moon and back" from the book Guess How Much I Love You.  The story really has nothing to do with space, just a father and son rabbit trying to out-love each other!  :o)

I decided to paraphrase a verse from Philippians as well.  I like the idea of having Scripture on the nursery walls; I did the same with Caleb's room back when he was a baby and it really helped me know how to pray for him (especially during late-night feedings when the last thing I felt like doing was praying).  :o)

All in all these two pictures took me about half an hour total.  The letter stickers were really forgiving too; they were easy to reposition if needed without ripping up the paper too much.  I know we have some 12x12" frames somewhere packed away.  I was planning on trying to find a couple that used to hang in Caleb's old room and repurpose them for Micah's room since the Scripture hangings I made for Caleb are a little babyish for his room now.  Of course since we haven't unpacked any boxes with pictures in them it's been hard trying to find them, especially since a lot of those boxes are heavy and there's no way I can move them around without hurting myself.  Might have to enlist the hubby's help with that at some point.  :o)

I also went ahead and utilized some cute vintage space flash cards I found on Etsy a few months back.

They were very reasonably priced and I had just decided on a space theme when I came across them so I knew I could incorporate them somehow.  I used some blue baker's twine and metal clips I already had to hang them above the changing table.  I went ahead and used a couple of clear push pins for this; I figured a couple of little holes in the wall wouldn't be a huge deal, plus this kind of thing is much easier to hang than an actual picture so I knew I could get it right the first time!

They seem higher above the table in the picture than in real life for some reason.  I hung them at eye-level, that way the baby can't grab them when we change him.  :o)

baby on a budget: circle quilt

It's done!!!

I started this quilt on Monday morning and it went so much faster than I thought it would.  Here it is two days later and it's complete.

I decided to just stick to a circle design.  Originally I had a lot more fabric colors to choose from, but in the end it just looked too busy and random.  I finally set aside six fabrics that I thought went together best, then looked up pictures of other circle quilts online to get a good idea of what kind of layout to do.

That zig-zag turquoise fabric in the upper left-hand corner was leftover from the crib bedskirt I made a few weeks ago.  I chose that black and white chevron fabric to continue that theme, then chose the green and light turquoise prints because they have little stars on them.  I chose the yellow print because I figured the quilt would need another pop of color, and then the navy blue print was used because navy blue and grey have been the main colors used in the nursery so far.

Once I had everything sewn together, I added a navy blue border to the quilt top.  I made it wide enough to where it would still show when I added binding later on.

As for the backing, I found an awesome grey chevron print.  I cut it a little wider on all sides so I could fold it over as the quilt's binding.

And just like that, I was done!

I'm loving it.  Of course it's not without its little imperfections, but once it all came together I realized that any mistakes I made weren't all that noticeable anymore.  It means something to me because I designed it myself and made it specifically for this little guy we've waited for for so long.  :o)

baby on a budget: appliqued onesies

 

This afternoon I managed to expand my baby's wardrobe by using stuff we already had.  Want to read the details?  Of course you do.  If not just humor me.  :o)

Last week I was browsing in Ross and found a set of four striped Carter's onesies!  I had been looking for some more newborn-sized clothes for my baby and I'm a big fan of the Carter's brand (as long as I can find their stuff on sale).

I got the set of four for $9.99, so around $2.50 each.  Not too bad for long sleeves.  But I wanted to make them more interesting.  So I went through my fabric today and managed to make each onesie into a unique item just for my little guy.

Yep, I jumped on the mustache bandwagon.  No regrets here.  :o)

I also wanted to do a rocket ship since the nursery's space-themed.  I found a free printable online and scaled it to fit.  That's how I did the mustache onesie above as well!

I had a robot fabric remnant in my stash, so I just picked one of my favorites and cut it out to fit.

And finally, I found this little cutie on a puppy fabric remnant.

So in less than an hour, I ended up with four one-of-a-kind onesies.  And I love them.  Almost makes me sad that he'll eventually outgrow them.  But I suppose I could do it again with the next size up whenever he does.  :o)