Crafty

Now that I'm starting to feel settled in our Navarre, Florida home, my crafting instincts have kicked into overdrive. I feel more like nesting now than I ever did while I was pregnant (probable because I knew I would be moving right after I gave birth). Thanks to my newly rediscovered craftiness, I've decided to chronicle all of my crafts here. And since I haven't been posting as much as I initially intended to, I'll start off with a couple different projects. Hope I don't bore you to death!

TENNESSEE'S NURSERY

First up: Painting

I wish I would have taken a picture of the original color on the walls. It was awful! A yucky yellow color that had been painted over a darker color (maybe green?) without any primer. And the paint job was so messy that it was the edges of the ceiling, as well. After spending about 2 minutes in the ugly room, hubby and I set off to Lowes to pick out an appropriate color. We bought primer and got the walls primed:

 

We picked this lovely Valspar Soft Coral in the paint plus primer.

And yes, it took regular primer, and this combo to cover the ugly, ugly color!

 

 

 

CRAFTS

 

 

Project One: Yarn wrapped letters

 

After many hours spent on Pinterest (God bless this site!), I had several ideas for projects to personalize Tennessee's soon to be room. First up, yarn wrapped letters. I ordered cardboard letters from paper-source.com to make the TENNESSEE version of this idea, then I hit my local craft store (emphasis on LOCAL - the nearest Michael's is almost an hour away!) to buy yarn in pretty colors. I also searched my local craft stores for fabric that I liked and found absolutely nothing I felt inspired about. So I got on Amazon.com and ordered a yard of several different gorgeous fabrics - all at much cheaper prices than I could have found locally.  

Because I'm cheap and chose the free shipping, I waited anxiously for my cardboard letters to arrive almost a week after I ordered them. When they finally arrived, I spread out my supplies on my kitchen table (I stand when I eat, anyway) and set to work.

If you attemp this project, here's what you'll need:

Glue gun
Cardboard (or wood) letters
Yarn in colors of your choice
Fabric of your choice cut into strips
Patience
Thick skin

 

Literally

 

Getting Started

 
It takes a little getting used to, since you have to find the right way to wrap your letters so the yarn covers all the weird angles, but you'll get the hang of it. Just make sure you start, stop, and add glue on the back of the letters so the front stays nice and purdy. I ended up cutting short strips of yarn to cover the odd angles then wrapping around to make it all look good. And be sure to add a few dots of glue along the way to keep the yarn nice and tight. I was also careful to wrap the yarn the same way around the letters so all of the "e", "n" and "s" letters matched each other.

 

Letters all wrapped

 

 

Next I set to work on making my flowers. I cut strips of fabric a few inches wide, and just went with the length the fabric was already cut to. I did have to cut some shorter because the fabric was thick and the flowers started getting too big. Here's what I did: I tied a knot in the end of the fabric strip, then twisted and rolled around the knot. I kept twisting and turning, and adding dots of glue often. Once I finished, I made sure to glue the end of the fabric to the back of the flower. Here's the finished product after I glued them on the letters:

 

 

This picture shows a sneak peak of another nursery project,

and check out the pretty peachy pink on the walls!

 

 

Project Two: Shelves

 

I SO wanted to do the front facing bookshelves using Ikea spice racks, alas, there isn't an ikea within hundreds of miles from me. I didn't realize how spoiled I was living in Phoenix with the Ikea 30 minutes away! And guess what, every other spice rack I found was crazy expensive. No thanks. This is a nursery on a BUDGET. So, David and I set off to our trusty Lowes in his brand new (to us) truck and bought a few boards that we had the lumber guy cut to our desired length. We then painted them white, but didn't bother to fill or cover the imperfections. We both like the distressed look, and that's exactly what we got. Originally we intended the shelves to be floating, but that wasn't too practical when we realized the studs in our walls are less than straight. SO we bought the rails to attach them to the wall. Much more sturdy this way.

 

Once we got the shelves up I attached the letters with a little dot of hot glue to keep them from falling off.

 

Project Three: Canvas quotes

 

I drove an hour to go to Michael's because they had a good sale and I hadn't been in the one here yet. When I got there, they were pretty much out of everything I wanted, so I just picked up a pack of stretched canvas and went on my way. I decided to put a couple quotes on the canvas to put on the shelves we built for little miss Tennessee. Here's what I used:

 

Stretched canvas

Sticker letters

Spray primer

Spray paint

Spray sealer

 

First I primed the canvas with white spray primer. I let it dry completely, then wrote out my quote with the stickers. Then I spray painted the whole thing in my desired colors. That easy!! Here's the finished product:

 

Shakespeare, Midsummer Night's Dream

 



 

The light reflects off of the yellow really well, so in case you can't read it, it says:

 

Girl (n.)

Sweetness with Attitude

 

 

I placed on the not yet finished shelving unit and added a few stuffed animals for good measure.

Still need to break out all of my children's books to add to the shelves.

 

 

That's all for now, folks.

Oh, MOMMA - will you show these to Dad for me? <3