Summer Tablescape

I do love a good tablescape!

Always have. always will.

Haven't fully decided my plan in the future when we start actually eating dinner at the table as a family.  Any one out there have a good solution for keeping a table looking good and set, but still using it nightly? 

 

Well... while little buddy is still eating mostly "mama milk" and from a high chair, and hubby and I are eating mostly in front of the tv... I will continue to set the table and enjoy it :)

 

So this was our table since March.  Haven't been changing it up as often as I used to. Something about a baby taking up most of my time :)

And I was ready to change it for fall so I decided to take some pictures... (I'll share the fall one soon!)

 

 My mom and I found this awesome tablecloth in Marshall's.  Can't beat that!
Since this technically started as my EASTER table... I decided to use the birds on the table.  Still not sure why birds equaled Easter to me, since Easter usually means eggs, bunnies, or Jesus.  But I went with birds.  And I liked it :)

 And since I only have 3 birds, I did an asymmetrical centerpiece.  Totally a new experience for me. But I really liked it!

The place settings... wooden charger (Williams-Sonoma),  napkin (Crate and Barrel), Blue plate and peacock plate (World Market).

 Here's the other end of the table... I used my green Anthro glasses to tie into the green birdies.

 The "table runner" was actually two blue place mats covered in my great-grandma's handmade doilies.  And then my favorite turquoise pottery bowl as the very middle.  never put anything in it (except large bags of tortilla chips a few times).  But I don't mind the look of an empty bowl, especially this one.

So that was my Easter, end of spring, summer Tablescape! 

I am loving my new fall one!  Totally changed it up this year! 

Summer Chalkboard Art

Found this amazing chalkboard earlier this summer in Canton, TX.  Love the shape, love the size, LOVE the price!  guess how much... $14! Yep, Canton rocks!

It doesn't have a hook for hanging on the wall, which is fine, because I like the look of leaning it. Plus who knows how long I'll want it here by the front door.

Due to pinterest, I've been totally inspired by cool chalkboard art.  Now, I am NOT an artist.  But I can appreciate great art and love cool fonts.  So I made a pinterest board called Chalkboard Art Ideas .  I love looking at this for inspiration, but my inspiration is "what fonts are easy enough for me to copy?" And this is what I came up with for the summer...

I loved it!  Brought me joy each time I looked at it!

And then the calendar turned to September... and I had to change it.  It's time for FALL, even if the temperatures are still in the 100's most days. boo.

Knowing that I probably won't have time to change this for awhile, I decided to go more "thanksgiving theme" rather than just fall....

 I was quite proud of myself for including a little "banner" thing.  I always practice on paper a few times before doing it on the chalkboard.  And the true chalkboard artists talk about making a grid and printing a template from publisher, etc.  Umm.. no. I freehand and I don't use a ruler even.  So it is what it is, off center usually and not quite straight. But I'm okay with it.

After living with the board for a day (and looking at it to admire it often), I decided I needed to move the "give" and "to the"... so here's the final look...

 

By the way... in the time I took to focus on my chalkboard art... (and therefore ignore my child)... I looked up to find my non-mobile, non-crawler, off of the blanket next to me, on the hard wood floor, across the room, and pulling on the drawer under the tv...

Looks like I need to start baby-proofing... and paying closer attention :)

Valentine's Day Ideas

Found these photos from Valentine's Day (of 2012!!).  They were fun ideas then and are fun ideas now. Even if it is the middle of August, 2013.  I'm still going to post, because why not?

 

For Valentine's Day 2012 I had my 7th grade Bible study girls over for a fun luncheon! I had a blast decorating in all things pink and red!

(FYI for Valentine's Day 2013, I had a 1 week old. Hubby and I left the baby with my in-laws for our first time out on our own. We went on a date to... Target! Because my coffee maker broke that morning and you can imagine that a new mom MUST have her coffee!)

 

Okay - back to fun girly pink and red decorations.

 

Silver chargers, red swirly paper plates, heart napkins, red table cloth, heart fabric as a table runner, heart cut out made with a  heart punch

I used paint chips of reds and pinks and punched hearts.  Then I hot glued them to a red thread and glued a heart on the back of each as well so it would be double sided.  Hung it from my chandelier.  I LOVED this!  It was also the first decoration hubby asked me to take down.

For the centerpiece, I used my antique candle holder with red candles, on top of a white tray full of Valentine's candies.  (this was the girls favorite part of the whole day- there was no candy left in the end.)

On the fireplace... I hand cut some small hearts and sewed them with red thread.  I thought this was super cute too.

The guests were greeted with this cute chalkboard and candle right by the front door.

(as a side note, I received these adorable measuring cups from one of the girls that day.  Haven't used them for measuring yet, but have used them to serve small items.)

This was in the kitchen, some white roses, a gorgeous Anthro plate on display (I love buying single anthro plates to put out like this), and a heart bowl.

I punched red hearts and used them to label the food. (note to self: 7th grade girls are still picky eaters.  They do not care for home made chicken salad or home made pimiento cheese.  Stick to pizza and quit wasting your time.)

After the party was over, I left this table out for a few days (until the actual Valentine's day). I changed out the paper plates for some pretty white plates. 

And now onto a fun idea from my school Valentine's party (of 2012)... one of the sweet moms who was in charge of bringing bottled waters really spiced it up! She used red duct tape to cover the water bottle label and then let her daughter add Valentine's stickers.  So festive and SO simple!  Love it!

Okay... maybe I'll post some more recent photos soon :)

Fabric Bunting

Hubby's out of town playing golf with college friends.

Baby fell asleep after only 1 minute of crying! (yay sleep training is working!)

And it's 8:54 on a Friday night, so I'm blogging.

Of course I have 1,000,304,204 photos of my boy I could post, but instead of trying to pick a small assortment of them, I thought I'd post about a craft project I did LAST year and never posted about :)  Timely.

 

My bestest friend had a sweet baby girl, last July.  As in the baby is now 1 year old.  I made this fabric bunting for her nursery before the baby was born.

 

The colors of her nursery are yellow, pink and blue. So I chose some fabrics in those colors with very slight patterns.  She already had a lot of pattern in the room and wanted this to be more subtle.  Since the fabric was pretty thin, I chose to use a white lining on the back as well.  Below are my supplies... fabric, lining, white grosgrain ribbon, pinking shears, and a triangle template I found online.  No clue where online, I made this LAST year.

 

 First I cut all of my triangles, making sure the pattern was going the appropriate direction.

 Then I IRONED the triangles!  This is a big deal because I never iron! But also it was important in an attempt to sew straight. (also something I never do.)

 Here is the basic idea that we're going for...

 I sewed the lining to each triangle then used the pinking shears to trim them up (because in some places the lining was showing along the edge.)
Then I laid out the triangles, placed the ribbon on top and pinned the triangles in place.  Then it was simply a matter of running the whole thing through the sewing machine along the ribbon.  Easy peasy.

 The finished product!  Somewhere in the archives of my phone I have a photo of the bunting in the nursery.  But it's Friday night and I'm not that motivated to find it.

I had some left over fabric, plus a bunch of fabric in similar colors from random crafts over the years, and I was inspired to make a mini bunting. (I actually like this one more and it was much easier to make).

Again, I cut out tons of triangles, using pinking shears and a template. Because the triangles were so small, they didn't really need a lining (yes, one less step!).  And because this was a mini bunting, I actually liked when the patterns went in all different directions for more interest. 

 Again, I ironed them all.

Then I stacked them by fabric.  I wanted a random order this time, so I just picked from different piles as I went.  I didn't use a fabric at all, just ran the triangles through the sewing machine.  Most of the time the triangles were touching at the corners, but if not, the thread was visible and that was just fine.

 Here's the bunting laid on the bed.

 And here it is hanging on the ironing board :)  (funny thing- this is now Caleb's nursery- my oh my how the room has changed!)  Funnier thing... I love bunting, I enjoyed making it, and I didn't make any for Caleb's room.  Is it girly?  Or am I just weird?

That truly was a fun and easy craft. I think I actually like the look of the mini bunting better than the large. It can hang on the wall or on the crib or on a window.  The options are endless. 

Ok- off to read and go to sleep. Because one thing I've learned as a mom, if the baby's sleeping, I should be too!

Caleb's Nursery

A little boy's nursery...

If you start looking at the bedding out there for a boy, you better like animals, cars, trains, dinosaurs, cowboys, or sports.

Same with boy clothes.

Why do they make so many cute girls clothes and bedding with fun patterned fabrics but not for boys??

 

I knew from the beginning I didn't want a "theme room."  Nothing against theme rooms, I just didn't want one.  Plus this nursery was going to serve as our guest room as well, and I didn't want grown up guests staying in "monkey land" or something.

So I consulted my favorite resource, pinterest.  I found an amazing bedding full of blue and yellow and gray and white!  And I tracked it down and found where it was sold online- PLUS they sold matching twin size comforters! 

I literally cannot remember the website where I registered for this bedding, but here is the website for the brand... www.cadenlane.com

 

So... here is our tour... the view when you walk into the room.

 

Crib: Babies R Us
Rug: Homegoods
Glider and Ottoman: Buy Buy Baby
Dresser: Buy Buy Baby

The curtains I made, purchased the fabric from fabric.com

 

 Found this cute little side table at a thrift store. I spray painted it gray.

I've had this blue lamp from Pier1 since I was in college.  I love the "Caleb" artwork, a gift at a shower.  The knick knacks on the table were from my nursery as a baby. Fun fact, apparently my hubby and I both had Peter Rabbit in our nurseries.

A view of the "guest bed" (Or my bed on rough nights). 

The balloon art is actually a photo from our Gender Reveal Party- I love having it in his nursery as a reminder of the moment we found out it was a boy.

The other prints I found on pinterest and printed at home.  Frames from Hobby Lobby.  I have actually replaced the yellow one on the left with an AWESOME print from Recipe For Crazy on etsy. 

I don't have a photo of it in the room, but here's a copy of it from the store. It's a quote from the Jesus Storybook Bible (which we read every day and LOVE).

 

 

 Caleb already has quite a collection of stuffed animals. This is only a few of them.  I made the yellow and gray throw pillows, all fabric from fabric.com

the wall when you first come in the room is a plethora of items... apparently it couldn't all fit in one shot, so here are the "parts."

At the top of the wall is a hand - me down shelf that I spray painted gray.  On top of it sits some super cute items that were decorations at one of my showers.  And the red cowboy boots were a gift from Hubby's aunt. 

Under the shelf is this cute "ruler". I saw it at a little boutique awhile back and was so excited that it works in our room!  Everything hanging was also decorations from that super cute shower... his sonogram, an awesome Bible verse about Caleb, and baby pictures of hubby and me.

Near this "ruler," I hung this cute print, also found on pinterest. It says "He's got the whole world."  I love it.

 I was totally inspired by... pinterest (again) and made this shelving unit for his toys and books. I bought unfinished crates at Joann's and stained them.  Then I just stacked them. I may actually attach them eventually, but I'm not sure what configuration I want long term. 

The wooden train on top was made by hubby's uncle when he was little. 

 

Next to the chair, we have a side table that doesn't fit in our living room anymore.  Found this cute yellow tray at Hobby Lobby.  The little "we loved you before you were born" sign was a gift- LOVE it! 

 The lamp is from Target.  And we have a large basket of burp cloths under the table (because Caleb is a "spitter" so we go through the whole basket every couple of days.)

 

Aha!  the star of the show!

 

Here's the shelf wall again...

And to top it all of (and bring in more yellow), we have a ruler growth chart.  I saw something like this on pinterest and wanted to make my own... but then I was 8 months pregnant and found a fabric version at pottery barn kids, and well sometimes it's worth it to just pay for things. 

We use the dresser as his changing table.   This artwork hangs above the table.  He LOVED looking at these and has since he was little.  The bottom left picture is a painting by hubby's grandma of a train station.  The top right picture was the bottom of a birthday invitation.  The other four animals are actually gift bags!  Sometimes you just have to be creative when looking for art.  All frames from Hobby Lobby.

 My sweet boy!

 And his precious hands!

And that... is Caleb's nursery.  It was so fun to brainstorm, shop, plan, and put together!  And the result is a room we love to spend time in!  And hopefully a room that can grow with him.