Ava's Nursery Reveal!

Well, I am finally getting around to posting about our nursery (at 38 1/2 wks pregnant!)  It's finally finished and ready for our little girl!  Get ready for lots of pictures ;)

(view from the door)

My hubby did a great job on the paneled wall behind the crib.  It turned out just as pretty as I imagined!

(view from the closet.)  There is my old dresser we refinished for the room!

You may have also noticed that my vintage mirror isn't in the room....   I hung it and it just didn't 'fit' in the space, I wasn't happy with it.  I decided to hang this round one that I had gotten at a consignment sale and I think it goes better with the room.  I love my little DIY mirror but if I don't think something looks right in a room, it literally eats at me till I 'fix' it!  Anyway, it is now back up on my mantel....I'm not in love with it there either:-/  Ok, back to the nursery!  Here is another view of the room.  It bugs me that the balloon shade looks so sheer in these pics, I wish you could tell how pretty it is in person!

Love the little dollhouse.  My hubby refurbished a funky table/cart we got at a thrift store for it to sit on.  Turned out so cute!

My hubby also made these great bookshelves!  I decided they also make great shelves for displaying photos!

Another thing we did was get rid of the popcorn ceiling and Jeff re-surfaced it with a trowel and texture paint.  Turned out beautiful!  We painted it a light beige color that I lost the name of :-/  And installed crown (of course!)

I replaced the wooden knobs on the closet doors with these pink glass ones for more of a vinatey, girly look.

The tiffany lamp was mine from my room when I was young.  Works perfect in here!  And you probably recognize my DIY blocks ;)

The tea saucers are all thrift store finds.  It was a little more difficult than I thought it would be to find them and my mom helped me gather a small collection.

My dream crib.  It was a gift from my grandmother and it's my favorite part of the room.

I also love her beautiful bedding. 

I envisioned having little flower vases above the crib but didn't want to use glass (for obvious reasons) but had a difficult time finding anything!  I ended up with these plastic bottles from Hobby Lobby and I think they work ok.

Sweet little chandelier

Gotta have throw pillows!  I had the worst time finding a rug for this room.  I'm not 100% thrilled with this shag number but it works for now.  It's actually 2 smaller rugs that I put together.  I actually wanted to make it twice the size but I got them at a discount store and there weren't any more so I had to work with two.

I hope you have enjoyed this little 'tour' of our baby room.  It was a labor of love and I look forward to enjoying it with her.

Ok, I will post product details as best I can with this crazy mommy/preggo brain I have going on!

Details:

Paint color: Valspar Pink Air (eggshell)

Crib: Bratt Decor Venetian Iron Crib from Pottery Barn Kids

Rocker:  I ordered it from WalMart.com when I was pregnant with Hayden 3 years ago.  I'm not sure if they still carry it, I was unable to find it.

Bedding:  Little House by Annette Tatum in Pool Rose Khaki.  The set has been discontinued, I found it on ebay.

Chandelier:  Home Depot (not sure if they still carry it, I snagged it on clearance for $50!)

Balloon Shade: Target

Doll House: Hobby Lobby (again, I think that style was discontinued.  We got the store display for a steal at $37!!!) 

 

p.s. I'm linking up to:

 Funky Junk Interior's Sat Night Special "Picture Perfect" link party!

Fingerprints on the Fridge

French Country Cottage

At the Picket Fence

Somewhat Simple

All photos taken by Kristen (blog author) unless otherwise stated. Do not copy/save or print without permission. Thank you!

"De-personalization"

We are hoping to put our house on the market by this weekend...I will have more on that in a later post. ;) I am in the process of de-personalizing our home in order to appeal to more buyers by allowing them to picture themselves living in my home.  This means, I am taking down all personal photographs which is much harder than I thought (emotionally, not literally!)  I love photographs (if you can't tell) and I have them displayed throughout our home.  But, in an attempt to make our house a place that perspective buyers can feel at home in, I am removing them for showings.  Most of them I just put away, but there are a few that I will leave out and put away when we have showings.  I mean, I can't be expected to pack away every photo of my precious baby for who knows how long, right?  :)  Anyway, as I was putting them away, I realized that I would need to replace some of them with something to avoid it looking a little too sparse.  I kept trying to think of things to put on my shelves to take up space without having to buy new stuff and without it looking mis-matched and ridiculous if I just tried to use items I already had.  Then, it came to me...subway art!  I had been seeing a lot of it around bloggy land lately, but didn't really think it was for me (probably because I didn't want anything taking up space that could be used for displaying my precious photos!)  But, I thought it would be perfect for some inexpensive, neutral art and I could use the frames that I already had on display!  So, I found a free subway art printable here and printed it out, cut the excess paper off and stuck it to a piece of brown craft paper then placed it in an 8x10 frame.  If I had some nice, tan resume paper it would have looked a little nicer but I just used what I had. 

(Don't mind the un-even lines, I can't cut straight to save my life, plus it was like 1 a.m. when I did this...)
Then, I decided I wanted one more for my favorite Pottery Barn frame with a burlap matte.  I didn't want to do another subway print, so I decided to create something myself on the computer and print it out.  I just went with a simple "dwell" that I typed up in wordpad and printed it out on a piece of resume paper I found in my craft bin.  It's not really the color I would have chosen for the paper but again, I just used what I had.  I love how it turned out.
The best part is, the cost of this project was basically free since I just used supplies that I already had. 

So, now we have some 'neutral' art displayed so that when we show our home, people won't feel like it is 'someone else's house.'

All photos taken by Kristen (blog author) unless otherwise stated. Do not copy/save or print without permission. Thank you!

PB inspired 'trash to treasure.'

I love getting my Pottery Barn catalog in the mail.  It makes me happy to thumb through the pages and see all the beautiful home decor.  I don't usually purchase things from them since their prices are not really in my SAHM budget ;)  But, I love getting ideas from them!  There are lots of things in there that you can easily re-create/make yourself.  Like, for example, these book bundles they are selling...

A mere $39 for a bundle of four old books with the covers ripped off and tied together with string.  I wonder how many of these they are actually selling since it seems pretty easy to find some old books and make these yourself! 
Anyway, I thought these would look great on my ladder shelf but obviously I wasn't going to purchase these from PB  ;)   I found 4 old hardcover books at a thrift store.

 I paid $1 each and if it were 'yard sale season' I'm sure I could have found some old paperbacks for a quarter.  Anyway, I didn't have any hemp string either so I had to buy that too.  I spent about $6 total on supplies but if you already have old books, you could make this for practically free!
Here is my little version.  I decided to use darker string to go better with my living room decor. 

I think it makes a nice addition to my shelves ;)

Decorchick! also did a version of a book bundle she saw in the Ballard Designs catalog.  I think Ballard is charging around $25 for their bundles.  Either way, I did mine for a very small percentage of what they are selling these things for!  I don't think my hubby would be too happy if I told him I spent $40 on some old books with the covers ripped off  ;)
p.s. I am not trying to imply that books are 'trash' by the title of this post.  I love books and think that they are important!  I just think this is a great way to re-purpose unwanted old books from a thrift store.  :)
Happy Decorating!

P.S. I'm linking up!

Christmas Home Tour

So, the Nester is having an awesome Christmas Tour of Homes linky party and I just had to link up!  A lot of these photos are from my previous posts, but there are a couple newbies and I will probably add a little to this later since I am not 'done' but my impatience got the best of me (as usual.)  I didn't go all-out this year since I don't have tons of Christmas decor and this SAHM is on a budget!  ;)  I am, however, looking forward to hitting some day-after-Christmas sales with my mom this year and hoping to score some great stuff for next year!!!
Here is some of our home for Christmas...
Starting with the front door  :)  My DIY mossy wreath (which is getting featured on Polly Want a Crafter 12/16/10!)

Next is the enrty table...

I did pretty much the same thing last year except this year I added a wreath above the table and I love it!

Next is the dining room complete with my DIY cardholder...

I added a little Christmas cheer to the chandelier...

And to the candle holders...  (you can find the post on both of those here)

This is all I managed to do in the kitchen  :p

And of course the trees...

 My little man has a tree for his room and I staged this little photo of him sleeping in front of the tree.  I will cherish it for years to come!

The changing table/hutch in Hayden's room...

Some gifts are already under the tree.  A decision I regret since I failed to realize that my son would be very curious about them!  ;)

A little centerpiece for the ottoman that doubles as a coffee table...
please excuse the crappy/grainy quality...it was DARK and my camera did not like the high ISO setting  :)

I wanted to put some glittery acorns in the tray, but I did not have any tonight, so the ornaments will do for now.

The vase is filled with a yummy smelling scented mixture of pinecones and such...

And of course a bokeh tree photo!

*update*

I did a little in our room...basically, I just hung this wreath and put some 'snow' in my little mini vases  ;)

As you can see, I didn't bother to clean the baby handprints off my mirror before I hung it  :p

Here is the link to the Tour of Homes party!  There are lots of homes to look at, so be prepared to stay a while if you decide to browse around!  :)

Christmas Time is Here!

Today I started putting up our Christmas decor!  Well, technically I started a couple days ago with my Christmas card holder but today was the day we put up the tree (which has yet to be decorated with ornaments) and got out all of our things from the garage.  I am using mostly things we already have this year since I got a bunch of new decorations a couple years ago but I have added a couple newcomers including my DIY wreath  ;) 
I had planned to finish pretty much all of the decorating today since Jeff had the day off, but I ended up sleeping in (I was up till about 4am last night) and being a little lazy early on in the day so we got a late start.  I guess we'll be finishing up tomorrow!  Anyway, here is a little bit of what I have done so far. 

I love changing the decor of this table in my entry each season.  I decided to hang my wreath from last year above the table and I really like the added touch! 

These canisters in the kitchen are normally filled with faux pears but I thought it would be fun to do ornaments ;)  They are a little bright and shiny but I just used what I had. 

More to come when I get the rest of the house finished as well as the tree!  I love Christmas time!!!

Fall tablescape for around 10 bucks

I hosted a dinner party (mommy night) for my friends tonight & did this little fall tablescape. Let me just start off with a little disclaimer...first, this 'looked' better in my head than it turned out in reality. Second, I got the supplies and even did a trial run on our dining table which is a small square shape. Well, I made a sort of last minute decision to put one of the leaves in the table to make it bigger (even though there was only going to be 4 of us) so that we would have plenty of room & not feel cramped. Well, once I got everything on the 'bigger' table, I noticed the scale was a little off & the candlesticks/candles looked a little small for the table. Of course, I wasn't going to go buy all new stuff, so I just left it but I was sad that my table didn't look as good as I hoped. :( Anyway, its perfect for a small table, though. And I got most of the stuff from the Dollar Tree (love that place!) I already had the fall dishes and cloth napkins, but I bought the faux leaves (3 packs), candlesticks & candles at the dollar tree and the little pumpkins were 2/$1 at the grocery store.

I wanted to 'dress up' my plain old dollar candles, so I used a little raffia and some faux leaves to give them a little fall touch :)

Is this not the cutest little white pumpkin you have even seen? I love the twisty little vine :)

My table might not have been what I wanted, but my party went great and I had a blast with my friends! I made a yummy, easy taco soup. I think I am going to post the recipe since it is a wonderful fall dish and did I mention it was easy?

Linking up to this awesome party!