{DIY}: Bow holder & bows

So after the wreath project was over, I decided to venture on to a more labor intensive project which has now spawned a mini addiction. Like many little girls Brooklyn has lots of headbands and bows and I wanted to get a hair bow holder for her to put them on. As usual, I had a picture in my head of what I wanted and didn't see it on Etsy or Pinterest so I decided to take a stab at making it myself.

I ordered an unpainted 4 peg coat rack (to hang the headbands on) and wooden plaque (for the bows) from hobbylobby.com and painted them in colors to match B's nursery. Once the painting was done I attached her initial to the plaque and matching ribbons to the bottom of the plaque and hung them in B's room.

Which then led me to making her little bow clips. Like 24 of them. I just started and couldn't stop. I had to try different colors, different kinds of bows, I went nuts. I found that adding the no slip grip helps them stay in B's hair and I'm glad I finally have colors other than pink. She has some cute blue rompers and even though they have ruffles on them people see blue and still ask if she's a boy so having some blue clips/bows should make it easier for folks.

I still have some work to do on some of them but wanted you to see the madness for yourself :)

For the bow holder I'd say it probably ended up costing about the same to make as it did to buy (one of the cheaper ones on Etsy) only because I bought 5 yard spools of ribbon as opposed to just buying just what I needed. I had a blast making it and this kiddo is going to have a bow for every outfit ha ha! I have tons of ribbon to make bows so if you are having a girl or have a girl and want some bows or clips call me. :)

{DIY}: Wreath

So I, like many of you all have been gathering oodles and oodles of ideas from Pinterest. I'm pretty sure if I tried to attempt making every dinner, drink, dessert, and craft project I've pinned I'd have to live to be 157 years old (and have a personal trainer to help be burn off all the calories I cook!). But I have gotten cracking on a few and I started with the easiest.

I have a fall and winter wreath but didn't have one for spring so after seeing one on Etsy via Pinterest I thought surely I could replicate it. So I headed to Michael's and bought a grapevine wreath for $4, and grabbed a few artificial flowers (which happened to be 50% off when I was there so that only set me back $6) and an unpainted letter H for $1.

I headed home and got out the trusty glue gun and some white paint I had left from when I did Brooklyn's nursery letters. I painted a few coats on the wood letter and while that dried cut the flowers off their wire stems and figured out where I wanted to place them and hot glued those suckers on the wreath. Once the letter was dry I glued that on and voila! a personalized, hand made wreath for $11 and 30 minutes of painting and gluing!   

DIY: Lamp

I'm back at it again!

I couldn't find a nursery lamp I liked, well in the price range I wanted, (babies don't need $80 lamps), so I made my own (shocker)! I used the "pick your own" base and shade from Lowe's (Target and wally-world have the pick your own options too). Cost was about $20 bucks.

Used 1 yard of fabric (same used in her bedding), fabric glue (which I already had) and bought some decorative trim from JoAnn's (which I didn't end up using). Started by peeling off the fabric trim from the top and bottom of the shade so the edges would be smooth.

 I laid the shade on its side and traced the edge of the top and bottom as I slooooowly rolled it along, then cut about 1/2 inch extra past either side of the traced lines to be able to have fabric to fold over the edges. I also cut it and extra inch or so longer than it needed to be so I could fold over the edge and make a nice seam (as opposed to my jagged cut edge- I've never been good at cutting a straight line!)

This a small lamp (10-12 inch base and 8 inch shade) so really 1/2 yard of fabric would be plenty.

Used my handy fabric glue and started by gluing the edge of the fabric to the seam of the shade popped in a few pins and let it set for about 15 minutes before proceeding glue in the edges, pinning and being sure to pull tight as I went along.

Then I began brushing the overhang edges with the fabric glue and tucking them tightly under the top and bottom rims.

Once finished, I was getting ready to attach the puff-ball pink trim to the bottom and felt it would make it look cheesy. I liked the modern clean lines so decided to leave it as is. (I can always add trim later if I get all girly girl crazy)

Here's the lamp turned on (notice the frilly pink edging laying unused in the background!) Remember when picking your fabric that the thicker and darker it is the less light will go through. Took about an hour and a half  to do and the best part is, like the shades, you can do it to compliment any room!

The bedding just arrived yesterday so there's some sheet washing and bedskirt ironing to do and I still have to paint her nightstand but hopefully there should be some updated nursery pics coming in the next few weeks!

Friends... Roman Shades... Nurseries, lend me your eyes

Our house is an east/west facing house, with the nursery in the back. It has big windows that let in a ton of light. The large nursery window happens to face directly west, which will be great, when the baby doesn't need to sleep at all hours of the day. We bought the "blackout" roller shade which works except there is about a 1/2 inch gap on either side (due to my poor measurements) that still let a significant amount of light peep in. Also a plain vinyl-ish roller shade isn't exactly the most fashionable thing to hang in a nursery.

I wanted to have Roman shades made out of the fabric we are using for the bedding and the quotes I got to have them made were outrageous, Every quote ranged from $180 - $230 per window (and there are 2 in the nursery)! Considering the fabric I'm using is like $15 bucks a yard, I'd say these folks are overvaluing their ability to sew a hem on a rectangle and stick a string through it.

So Like any crazy person with ZERO sewing experience, I decided I was going to try to do it myself. So, as I do with all projects I googled it. I stumbled across a blog that had a no-sew roman shade  step by step tutorial....using mini-blinds. JACKPOT! I highly recommend it. Below are the after pics. We are just getting started on this room (sad, I know) so there's a lot more to come (like bedding, a glider, lamp, wall art etc.). I think it turned out pretty nice!

Here's the $ breakdown:
4 yards of fabric - $60
2 cheapo sets of mini blinds - $15
fabric glue - $4
heat n' bond $7
Total spent: $86

I got 2 custom roman shades for half the price it would have cost me to have one made. It's a great solution especially since we are renting and dropping major bucks on window treatments just isn't something renters do. The best part is if you already have mini-blinds up your halfway there just go pick out some fabric you like and some fabric glue and you are good to go!

Now go make some shades!

DIY Nursery Letters

It's official! Having a kid makes the "do- it- yourselfer" in me ecstatic.

I wanted to try my hand at the wood nursery letters and it was easier than I thought! Here's what I came up with (and also Baby Hare's name, love it or hate it- it ain't changing)

Pardon the ridiculously dark dinner table- not the best backdrop

If you know me, you know I can't draw a straight line, so hand painting designs on the letters was out of the question. Thank goodness for ultra fun scrapbook papers, mod podge, and an x-acto knife! The best part is that I got to pick papers and designs that will compliment Brooklyn's nursery bedding.

 

 The wood letters came from woodlandmanufacturing.com where you get to pick the size, thickness and font of your letters. I needed a thinner font since there are so many letters in her name. The regular block style letters they carry at Michael's would have taken up an entire wall. I also didn't want all caps for that same reason. They come unpainted (you can purchase them already painted) so I had to put a few coats of white paint on them before decorating.

 

 After deciding what papers would go where and lots of cutting, gluing, and trimming I added a few embellishments and that's that.

 

We still have 4-6 weeks until the furniture arrives so once that's in and all up I'll post pics of the letters on the wall.

The dresser transformation

I'm back at it again. Just another wild idea that I had to implement! I like to use the "google method" for all of my projects....I get an idea - google it and go from there. Haha!
My hubby's family has passed along several items of furniture some of which are here. One of the items is a 6 drawer low-boy style dresser that we've been using after finally getting rid of Daniel's fake wood dresser that I think he's had since college. Eek! We like it a lot but it was a cream color and doesn't go with any of our bedroom stuff so instead of getting rid of a perfectly good dresser/tv stand I decided to attempt to spruce it up.

Before. I'd already taken out drawers & taken off hardware!

Our bedding is a wacky paisley-ish patterned bedding with bright colors in it (the rest of the house is in neutrals so I decided to have a fun colorful bedroom) yellow, aqua, red etc. I lurrrrve it.

The cream dresser didn't fit in with the funky brightness. So I lugged that bad boy downstairs to my design studio (aka the garage) took off the hardware and primed it...... 

then painted it and gave the brass hardware (which I'm a dummy and didn't to a before pic of) a coat of oil rubbed bronze spray paint as well.

Painted and ready for glazing!

Then I took my first stab at glazing to make it antique-y looking. I did fine with the nooks and crannies part but need to improve on my flat surface glazing techniques.

New fun yellow dresser in our room!

I've got to figure out a better way to have the tv set up, and yes that is a white wire shelf that is supposed to go in your kitchen cabinets. Judge me. :)

 

I took this one so you can see the bedding a little (It was impossible to get a shot with both the bed and dresser...it's the 1st time in history I've been annoyed by having a huge master bedroom) . Not an exact match, but I think if I would have done the yellow in the bedding it would have been too bright.

So there you have it folks. Yippee for Yellow!

DIY: Spicy!

You know how I told you about starting several DIY projects that I may or may not finish? Well 1 down and 2 to go! Giddyup! Here's DIY #1.

This is what my spice cupboard looked like:

It's a smorgasbord of spice containers in varying sizes, colors, shapes, and brands. The worst part is they all have those dadgum sprinkle tops that you inevitably break a nail trying to remove because NO recipe calls for a "sprinkle" of something, nor does it help your sanity to attempt to sprinkle a spice into a 1/4 teaspoon. I like to be able to just dunk the appropriate measuring spoon in the jar and -shazaam! Got me some basil. 

I thought the ol' spice cabinet was due for  a little "prettifying".

So I ordered a gazillion little glass jars from http://www.specialtybottle.com/  (Ikea has cute 4 packs for $2.99 and the Container Store has several fun options as well). I chose these because they are fun and have an opening wide enough for a tablespoon.

 I popped them in the dishwasher for a rinse and let 'em dry overnight (wanted to be sure the inside of those suckers were bone dry) and proceeded to print my own labels. I purchased oval labels from http://www.onlinelabels.com/

Here's what I came up with:

I toyed with the idea of using more color in the labels but decided that it'd take away from all the fun colors of the spices once they were in the jar.

I popped on the labels and began transferring the spices. I made a paper funnel to use with some of the ground spice jars that were more full so I didn't end up with a spice festival all over my table!

And here's the now more uniform spice cabinet!

now on to the art project......

Christmas Cards

So I'm having a bit of a Grinch moment. Well, an inadvertent Grinch moment. 

We didn't send out a Christmas card this year...actually, we never send out a Christmas card. I figure we don't have a kid, we don't have a dog, we don't even have a plant. Nobody wants to get a holiday card from our two ugly mugs. Not to mention the last good picture of the two of us was at our wedding.  

The past 2 weeks have been a Christmas card jackpot at our house. I open our little mail cubby (no individual mail boxes, it is clustered with 10 of your closest neighbors- P.O. box style) and Christmas cards and holiday greetings just shoot out. It's glorious!! I forgot what it's like to get a piece of mail that isn't a credit card offer, bill, or sale paper. 

I've really enjoyed seeing everyones family photos, and reading about how everyone is doing, especially since we can't see friends and family whenever we want. I mean most of this I already know/see on Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, Skype, etc., but there's something about opening that envelope! Which leads me to the point of my Grinch moment. Here I am enjoying these holiday greetings thinking "these are so great....Daniel, look how big Sar.....oh crap, I bet everyone thinks we're cranky holiday card haters." I realized that if I enjoy getting all these holiday cards maybe folks do wanna see our ugly mugs.

So I'm sorry for being a holiday card Grinch. Seeing as Christmas eve officially starts in 8 hours Pacific time, please accept this as the 2010 Hare Family Christmas card.....

(done in homage to my new favorite blog du jour, Hyperbole and a Half, that my co-worker Lisa got me hooked on!)

Merry Christmas everyone!

Learning Curve

You may have noticed lately that my blog header keeps changing. I wanted to be able to change my blog header whether it be for the season or to match my mood or because I'm indecisive. One week I want girly, next I want modern, no vintage..no....wait...whimsy...aaarggh! (all the more reason my blog title suits me so well) .

I enjoy blogging and wanted my blog to look original and fun. I know there are very talented folks out in cyber-space who can make you custom blog headers, buttons, backgrounds, signatures-etc....for a price. Some affordable... some pricey. And therein lies the problem...I don't want to have to pay every single time I want to change it up a bit (and I don't want to wait 1-6 weeks to do it. Did I mention I was indecisive aaand impatient?? I know...my poor husband!) Therefore I have started the journey of teaching myself (with Google as my assistant) graphic design 101...well more like digital scrapbooking to put on a blog.

So join me on my journey (and let me know what you hate, like or if you see something misspelled!) of learning! As you can see I started really basic:

and have learned a few new things in the last few weeks:

Sadly, one of them isn't how to center things or get rid of the white edges when I re-size the width in the middle of my project (see current header hehe!). Heck, it may not be possible to re-size in the middle of the project! (and you will all know if and when I figure that one out!)

I pre-apologize for any clashing colors, wonky patterns, bad fonts etc. you may be witness to in the coming weeks. Just think of it as your laugh for the day!

Cheers!