Bumps in the Road

Needless to say, since last Wed, there were a bunch of bumps in the road.

Literally, Bumps..

Bruised head and face scrape from playing basketball with big brothers

The kind of bump that buys you a ticket to the local Children's hospital for a CT scan on a Monday morning.

This after Button had three days of fever.  A lot of tylenol and cuddling Thursday through Saturday.

And then ONE more bump before the night was over on Monday.

Hit the sharp edge of a cabinet in my closet

And Butter turned 15 yesterday.  I threw together some cupcakes.  

A little help from baby brother!

 

Now to plan the party.  Two years ago he didn't have his until July...

 

Needless to say, I didn't get a whole lot done this week!

Finishes:

Dog Bed

Last week I mentioned I didn't have photos of the dog bed project...photos are up on Friday's post!!

Bag Tags

A friend asked for her daughter's volleyball bag embroidered.  After about 2 hours of fighting my hoop...bloody fingers, broken nails...I called her and told her the bad news.  I couldn't do it.

 Funny thing? As we talked about my disappointment, she told me what the problem was..the girls were mixing up their bags at their tournaments.  All of a sudden I had an idea..what about a personalized luggage tag.  She was excited and agreed.

I ran out of plain black cotton a few weeks back and decided to pull out some black Aida cloth I had from my cross-stitch stash.  It ended up stitching very nicely. She reported that her daughter loves it.   Then, her friends loved it so much, they asked me to make about 8 more..so I finished them up yesterday!

Rainbow Layer Cake Swap

I actually sent my fabric ON TIME before the first fever hit!   Excited to get a package back!

In Progress:

Auction T-shirt Quilt

I had a chance to sort them by color and get a better idea.

75 t-shirts in some sort of color piles

All I did was manage to make a mess.  I still want to scan each t-shirt to get it into my EQ7 so I get a better idea of the colors of each graphic on the tees.  I hope it works!! 

Butterfly Kisses

I can't embroider without watching my machine.  To many mistakes happen.  Like the one that I was planning to send Monday?

I forgot a special "title" for the quilt.  I am so glad I caught it before  I mailed it.  

Finish tonight? 

 YES!  NO MATTER WHAT!

No Progress:

Hartley's Quilt (special diamond quilt)

Christmas Quilt

Thank You Quilt

Donation Quilt

Baby Button's Twin Bed Quilt

Linking up with Lee...

 

But I think I might cry when I see everyone's progress!

 

A Nursery for Button

At long last, a year after he is born, I am sharing Button's nursery...

as promised.....

But to be fair...

He was born in February.  We did not buy a single thing for him until after he was born. The only thing we had was his cradle in our bedroom and his car seat in a box in the garage.

We bought his bedding over a week after he was born.  We didn't paint his room until the beginning of May.  He moved up to his room mid-May.  I started his window treatments in August before his baptism.  I finished and hung them at the end of September.

Sharing it just 5 months later, isn't too shabby?

FIRST?

The Before, of course!! 

 The twin bed, dresser, and nightstand have made their rounds.  It was Bunny's "big boy" bed with Noah's Ark decorations and Butter's "I finally have my own room" bedroom with leftover maps and ships from our old house's game room!  It was definitely hodgepodge to say the least! 

 We used the room for about 4 months to store the items we didn't donate or make my "stash" cut after Butter moved to what used to be the guest room. We also had to buy a new crib.  

When Mr. Boss started talking about using wire to "Jerry-rig" the 14 year old crib, I put my foot down!

Crib Bedding

I feel terrible that I didn't make something, but it seemed the wisest choice...you see how much I have gotten done in a year?   

The jumping off point? Kids Line Mosaic Transport Bedding set from Babies R Us.

This set spoke to me because I loved the colors. The blue, brown and green on the crisp white was very appealing to me.  I really wanted something light and not heavy and dark! 

I also loved the different textures of fabrics.

And most of all?

The embroidery, of course!

And yes...I keep bumpers in.  No need for lectures...I know, I know.

PAINT

Mr. Boss painted the entire room with a complimentary blue paint.  We then worked together to draw out my 18 inch wide stripe of white.  For a crisp line...Frog tape is your friend!  I came back with the green and stenciled my "stitching".

Inspiration for the paint treatment?

Ripped from Pottery Barn Kids Catalog

I found this photo and another that I liked from my Pottery Barn catalog.  I ripped it out about three months before Button was born.  I thought it was a beautiful neutral nursery, even though this one time I was determined to decorate gender-specific!

I was ecstatic when Mr. Boss agreed that the paint treatment would be fun!

I found the "button" to mimic the stitching online, copied and pasted it on a word document, then stretched it out to the width I wanted.  I then laid quilt template plastic over the printout and filled it in with a sharpie.  A not so clean cut with my exacto knife, and I was in business with a stencil of sorts!

I ended up liking that it is a bit imperfect.

Wall Decorations

Baby Photos, of course!  The special photos my friend took the few weeks after he was born.

See How To Mat a Photo Tutorial

I had to frame them all!!!  He already had a bit of a personality so early.

And to help balance the photos, I had to have transportation on the walls.

Wall decals that came in sets like it showed on the backside of the kit.  I decided to completely copy the backside for each frame!

It was as simple as sticking them to art boards the size of the frames I found on sale at Hobby Lobby.  I chose really simple brown frames to give the room a modern touch to offset the very feminine sleigh bed and crib.

Window Treatments

I decided to copy my idea of making the window treatments have a stripe to match the paint treatment like I did for the Big Boys room!

I designed all of the embroidery/applique and wove the ribbon in and out.  I have a "tutorial" of sorts I might post...

I hope to share the applique/embroidery on Etsy soon, but things are so busy around here lately!

Twin Bed

First...I love the lines of this bed.

I found the sheets at Target, and the old denim is a leftover from the boys' old room.   I have tossed more ideas than you can imagine making a decision about this bed.

Right now, I really like the pop of the white of the blanket, and hoped that I could use the off-white fabric I had cut awhile back, but it didn't look good with the white everywhere else.  

But, no worries...

I have a stack of fabrics that I will figure something, right?

Rocker

 The rocker has been in our family room, game room, and the nursery for the last 15 years!  It was my very first Mother's Day gift in 1997.  So it had to stay!

Right now, it holds the crib quilt...however it is on the docket for a new cushion!

Dresser

Love this thing!  

THIS PHOTO IS THE MOST TRUEST EXAMPLE OF THE ACTUAL COLORS!

It has a lot of storage and a great place to display some favorites.

 A maternity photo frame and matted by myself!  Lamps that I bought from Walmart about 7 years ago, and my favorite pair of shoes...he only wore once.

And some fun board books and a ceramic truck that came from his great-aunt and uncle filled with flowers.  They didn't even know that transportation was his theme!  

Nightstand

 A sweet nightlight from Target and another lamp and shade from my "stash"!  And one more maternity photo.  

I love this one of Bunny!  He was so excited for Button to come...his dream of being a big brother so bruised by the loss of his baby sister!  This photo says it all!

The most cherished item of the whole nursery? 

 The only reason I can sleep with him out of my sight.

Angelcare Monitor!  

It alarms if there is no movement from your baby in 20 seconds. It has given us a bit of a fright when it has alarmed, but it was always for a good reason. 

 If you ever want to buy someone a fabulous baby shower gift...this is a good one...especially if they have experienced the loss of a baby.  It is truly my guardian "angel".

Oh?  Where is the changing table?

Why in the closet, of course!?!??!

With the two beds, there wasn't room for a changing table, and his closet seemed to fit the build despite the funky angles inside.

I also keep extra frames on the shelf.

And these shelves in the closet store all his books.  My hope is that when he gets older and no longer needs the crib, we will get him a nice bookcase to put in it's place!













And I apologize for all of the different quality photos.  I think the REAL reason I haven't posted his room is that every time I take photos, I cannot get the right color/tint/light.  It is a very bright room, but it plays funny games with my camera!!! 

And it might have to do with the fact that there are a few things I still need and want to do!  Maybe by the time he is ready to move to the big boy bed?

For The Dogs...

Is there ever a project that you feel completely satisfied with?  

It is very rare for me, but this one I can honestly say has me thrilled!

I covered my dog's bed with a quilted, very washable cover!

But first, I promised some friends...the location of said dog bed?  Why in our in our dog room, of course!  

What is a dog room?  

It is a small room off our laundry room.

We had the builder bump out a small room into the garage so our precious little family members could have a special place.  They actually love it so much that we just have to say "bedtime" and they run to their room.  And I took this picture of them just waking up...at around 11 am.  They seriously love it in there!

This is the BEFORE look of the bed. 

A rather nice black on off white pattern, but not washable whatsoever! 

I have had a bundle of fat quarters that I picked up from Hobby Lobby.  I actually planned to use them for something else.

But Sunday, we realized that the blue sheet that I had tucked in on the bed until I could decide on a proper cover for them, was just not cutting it.

So I came up with a plan.

Cut my fabrics and laid them out on the foam circle.  I had no particular rhyme or reason of the patch sizes.  I just knew that I wanted to have it look non-uniform!

I was pretty pleased that my drawings were panning out and went ahead and pieced it.

Button played with his new Fisher Price toys as I laid out the square.  I don't have pictures because he kept climbing on top of me when I was sketching out the circle.  I broke any and all quilting rules and used a sharpie as I laid the foam circle on top of my square. 

 I was excited when I remembered that I had some denim fabric from the boys duvets old bedroom decoration.

I sprayed the layers with basting spray and went back to my Symphony.  

I decided to do loops again. It was a little rough going since I felt strange working in a circle instead of a linear rectangle or square!  It sounds strange, but I kept getting lost!  Ever so often, I doodled a dog bone or a paw-print.

When it was all quilted, I took the top to the cutting table and trimmed.

I grabbed some more of that old duvet denim to make the sides.  This was the moment I had an epiphany of sorts and am REALLY excited to share with you.  I was dreading this moment at first.  I had originally planned to make sides and then either a zippered bottom, buttoned bottom, or just a pocket bottom.

But then I thought I would extend the sides an extra 5 inches for a total of 7 inches.

I folded one side to make a channel about .5 inch wide.

Pinned the strip the circumference of my 31 inch diameter circle and stitched a 1/4 inch seam, right sides together.

I placed the foam circle inside making sure I had it nice and snug.

And ran .5 inch wide elastic in the channel to make a gathered fitted cover!  Like a fitted sheet, I can take this cover off and throw it in the wash with ease!

No zipper...no buttons!!!

After that, I covered the bumper piece very much the way you make a bumper for a crib!  I decided to piece some remaining pieces that were all the same height of  7 inches.  I treated the bumper the same way as the cushion and used batting to quilt the patchwork side.

I then grabbed some more of that denim duvet (I LOVE it when I utilize scraps!!) and cut a long strip the same length of the pieced portion.  I also added 9 inch ties to the denim side before seaming together like a long tube.  Then I stuffed the bumper in there!  I did hand sew the end closed with a ladder stitch.  I did not make it removable because the bumper can fit in the washer well...the foam circle cannot!

 I wish I had taken pictures of the process...but I was at that point in a project where I was getting eager to get the project finished and it was getting close to their bedtime!

I am so pleased how well it turned out!  I really wanted to use this fabric for such a long time, and this seemed to be the perfect use!

And, again, I apologize, but I am so excited about the elastic! I just think it could be useful to anyone who wants to make a simple dog cushion.  This technique would even work on a rectangle/square foam bed too!

Now I have to figure out what to do with their toy basket...because that was what I originally had intended the fabric for!

The room still needs a little something.  I am partial to the photo collage I made when I had the three boy pugs together. 

But now it is just Prancer and Biggio. I don't have a picture of her in there!

The boys picked out this poster a long time ago, so it is a keeper.

But my corner rack needs some cleaning up!!  Especially the dog food bin at the bottom!

I am thinking some paint treatment, or bead-board and maybe new curtains.  But Button babbled that he liked the bed, so we will just enjoy it for now!

Isn't he a great model...