DIY Baby Mobile

After spotting some cute paper mobiles on Pinterest, I decided I would try to whip one up on my own!  Much cheaper than the $30-40 sell price of similar items on Etsy

          

I picked out 5 pieces of scrapbook paper, that would coordinate with Noah’s bedroom (free! – since I already had them).  I picked up an embroidery hoop from Walmart ($4), and some jewelry hoops from a dollar store ($1).

I used an old-school scrapbooking tool called a Coluzzle to cut out 3 sizes of circles.  I decided which order the 5 papers should be in, and then laid out each of my mobile strands.  I made 8 strands.  4 of the strands had 7 circles (3 big, 2 medium, 2 small), and the other 4 strands had 8 circles (4 big, 2 medium, 2 small).

The green leaf patterned paper, and the orange spotted paper were white on the back, so I cut out 3x as many of those circles and decided to make them all 3-d.  I took 3 circles, folded them each in half, and then glued them together to get the 3-d circles you see below.  This added some fun dimension to the mobile!

I used a sewing needle to poke holes in the top and bottom of each circle.  Then, using pliers, I attached the circles together with jewelry hoops.  Easy-peesy!

All the while… Noah played happily on the floor with his Sophie

I attached the strands to the embroidery hoop with clear fishing wire, alternating the 8-circle strands with the 7-circle strands.  I took 4 long strands of fishing wire and tied them to the 4 sides of the embroidery hoop, pulling them up so they met in the middle (sorry, no pictures of this exciting step!).  I decided where I wanted the mobile to hang from the hook in the ceiling and then tied all 4 strands into a knot.  By hanging the mobile from the knot, it is really flexible to move and twirl around.  As you can see from Noah’s flailing arms and legs, he LOVES it!  He talks to it, and stares at it from across the room when he gets his diaper changed.  Best of all, it cost me only $5! You should make one

                    

                     

Photo Credit: First 2 mobile images from Etsy. 
All other images by Kim Norcross.

Stuff We Like ~ DIY Projects

Kim likes…
Fabric Covered Lamp Shade
I saw the adorable fabric-covered lamp shade pictured above and just knew I had to try this diy project on the little lamp that is in Noah’s room.  Luckily, there is still zebra print and brown fabric left-over from the various other items that my Mom made for Noah’s room.  I plan to follow this tutorial on YHL’s website and cover the lamp shade.  It will amp up the coolness of the lampshade (currently a boring beige), and also soften the light, as we leave the lamp on throughout the night so that I can see what I’m doing for those middle-of-the-night feedings and diaper changes!

Ashley likes…
My DIY list is a bottomless pit –  it keeps getting bigger, and nothing ever really gets completed.  Nevertheless, I still dream of the millions of amazing projects I’m going to get around to, and this one is no different.  We have an old crib mattress that we got for free with our thrift store crib, and I’m hoping to use it as the top of a storage ottoman.  Sorry about the super bad pics, I snapped them super fast in the As-Is section of Ikea, so I could show my husband how to copy their construction.

So the basic construction will look like this:

  

So really this is a two-man DIY: hubby builds, I make pretty.  Ultimately, I’d like it to look like the photo featured above, but in fabric.

Nicole likes…
Rust-Oleum Chalkboard Paint
So often I have a brilliant idea and look around me to find nothing in the vicinity to write on. So often I look at my banged up coffee table in disgust and think “I want to write all over you” but then the logical side of me is like “no wait, that is silly, you’ll run out of space”. And then I ponder these facts.

Obvious answer: chalkboard coffee table.

Danielle likes…
Spring Cherry Blossom Tree Wall Decal
As a mother-to-be, you might expect that I’ve been excitedly planning the nursery for months. Not so. This is yet another one of those preparing-for-baby things that sends me into a mild panic. Thankfully I have a cool-as-a-cucumber husband who is also uncharacteristically into home decor (Trust me, this little tidbit has shocked both friends and family). One day in passing, I mentioned that it might be cool to have a wall decal of a tree in the corner of the baby’s room. (An idea I klepto-ed from Ashley’s first nursery). Designer-Dad-to-be loved the idea and began googling some options. We both dug the spring cherry blossom tree and instantly set to measuring the dimensions of the wall. Now to choose the colour of the leaves: Is lipstick red gender-neutral? How about turquoise? Or Sunrise? The colour dilemma almost got us to change our mind about finding out the gender. Seriously. Arguments about bonding with the baby prior to birth couldn’t convince us, but choosing the just right shade of cherry blossom tree almost made us reconsider. What colour will we choose? I’ll keep you suspense for just a wee bit longer…

Photo Credit: All images as linked above.

Noah’s Nursery

When we found out that we were having a baby boy (as discussed in a previous post here), it was time to makeover our office into a nursery!

Here is what our ‘office’ looked like before.  This was probably one of the least used rooms in the house… mostly we used it for storing bills, books, camera gear, and for printing/scanning.

As soon as I saw the nursery that the Young House Love folks created for their baby girl I was in love!  You can check out their complete nursery reveal here.  The fresh and cheery green colour on the walls and the art wall were definitely elements I wanted to think about when planning our nursery decor.

With this inspiration in mind, I knew I wanted to paint the nursery green (bonus – it would be neutral enough that if the ultrasound happened to be wrong about the gender of the baby, the room would also work for a little girl).  Next up, I began the search for crib bedding.  After spending endless hours searching online I finally purchased the crib set that was my initial favourite – Carter’s Tall Tales.  The colourful bedding, with its cheery stripes and circles and the adorable momma & baby giraffes was perfect!

After purchasing the bedding, I thought it would be fun to create a little ‘mood-board’ of all of furniture and ideas I wanted to incorporate into the space.  This also allowed me to compare using white furniture to using black/brown furniture.  We ultimately decided to go with the white because the Ikea furniture we purchased was more durable and kid-friendly in the white finish.

I took the bedding over to Benjamin Moore to select a paint colour.  I wanted to go bold with the colour choice, since this is a kids room and the first room I’ve actually gotten to paint in our home Jamie sanded and mudded up the walls and we got ready to paint!

 

We went with Stem Green, which seemed a little bit bold at first but, once we got all the furniture in and some things on the walls, it was perfect.  Super cheery and fun, the perfect room for our little boy to grow up in!

Here are some of the final after photos (well, final for now… I have some other art projects ideas in the works for the walls!):

Now… to explain some of the elements of the room.  My amazing mother sewed up the curtains, a pillow for the rocking chair, and a diaper sack (hanging on the door handle in the 3rd photo).  It took us a while to pick out a fabric for the accent on the curtains, but we choose the fun zebra print – keeping with the jungle theme, and not too matchy-matchy with the crib bedding.  I love how it turned out, and was happy we had enough extra after Mom made the curtains to make the pillow and diaper sac!

I’m all about organization… while waiting for baby to arrive, I bought bins and sorted through all of the clothing and baby things that we had already been gifted and/or had purchased ourselves.  What a difference an organized closet makes! (Ignore the different paint colours in these photos!)

And finally, the art wall!  I loved what YHL created for their nursery, specifically the idea of adding mine and Jamie’s baby photos to the wall.  I picked up frames whereever I saw them on sale, and made a trip to our local MCC for a couple of frames as well.  I made sure all of the frames were paintable, and painted them with the same white paint we used on the closet doors and baseboards in the nursery.

Here is a close up of the art wall I created, and an explanation of each piece of ‘art’!

1. Picture of a giraffe that Noah’s cousin Alex drew
2. Baby picture of me
3. Scrapbook paper from Noah’s Aunt Jackie
4. One of the maternity photos our friend Tanis took for us
5. Photo of one of Noah’s stuffed giraffes (also taken by Tanis)
6. Photo of Jamie holding a pair of Noah’s baby shoes (also taken by Tanis!)
7. Scrapbook paper
8. Photo of a Jamie as a newborn, with his mom and 2 older siblings
9. Adorable wrapping paper from one of Noah’s gifts

In case you are interested, here is a breakdown of the cost of the ‘make-over’:

• Benjamin Moore paint/painting supplies: $85
• Crib (hand-me-down from our nieces): $50
• Crib bedding – Carter’s Tall Tales 4-Piece Crib Set: $140
• Crib mattress – Safety First from Costco: $77
• Hemnes 3-drawer chest from Ikea: $170
• Expedit shelving unit from Ikea: $40
• Glider/Rocking chair (hand-me-down from our nieces): $0
• Storage bins from Canadian Tire: $33
• Fabric/misc other supplies for curtains/pillow/diaper sack (courtesy of Noah’s Nana) : $0
• Throw blanket for the rocking chairs (courtesy of Noah’s Nana too!): $0
• TOTAL: $607

And there you have it! Noah’s Nursery revealed… he seemed to like the space so far  He is sleeping soundly in his crib already (you know, for a few hours at a time!), and you can often find him staring at the stripes on the bumper pads

Photo Credit: www.younghouselove.com/, www.carters.kidslineinc.com/,
all other images by Kim Norcross.