Projects

In order to keep from getting too stir crazy with the suppressed nesting urges, I have taken upon myself a few fun and easy (emphasis on the easy) DIY projects for both home and baby.

It helps when I've hit a wall with packing (where I finish packing one batch of stuff and can't figure out what the best thing to tackle next is), or have an hour to kill before work/a few hours to kill when Taylor is at school, AND will most likely spill over into fun things to keep me busy while baby is napping (so many people have said the key to surviving the newborn stage is to have things to keep you busy).

Anyway, since we had a bit of a fiasco/miscommunication this morning with the car situation, I am stranded at home with nothing to do... what better thing to occupy the next hour or so than document what I've been doing to stay busy as of late? :)

 

Project #1: The Bookshelf

I have always been a person with a huge love and respect for books. I love stories, and I love people who love to read... unfortunately, while I was blessed with a love of books, I was never blessed with a talent/love for reading. Let me explain...

Most people who love to read can just gobble down a whole delicious book in one, maybe two, sittings and walk away feeling satisfied and refreshed! Me on the other hand? I can't do that because:

a.) I read VERY slowly. I've tried to develop my speed reading abilities and it just doesn't work out for me, I can never quite remember what it is I read and it also never seems quite as satisfying in the end.

b.)This...

Reading puts me to sleep. Always. Never fail. Every time.
I can't explain the phenomenon, but whenever I sit down and really start getting into a book I can feel my eyelids start to droop and before I know it I'm yawning and slouching into a more comfy position and then BAM! I'm out.

So while I absolutely love books, I've never been much of an avid reader... more of an average reader. My husband on the other hand? He's always reading multiple books at once, his Amazon Wishlist is made up 95% of books he wants to read, and the majority of his belongings besides his clothing are probably his books.

I love it. :) It's one of the things that first attracted me to him.

However, when we got married we suddenly found ourselves in the difficult position of having to FIND a place to house all of his precious books (I had a few as well but they took up like... MAYBE one entire shelf).

That is when I decided to bring this beauty into our lives:

I found this gorgeous bookshelf on Craigslist for maybe 30 bucks and snagged it right away! It was super solid and gorgeous and provided PLENTY of space for our extensive book collection. I bought it with the intention of painting it but once I got it into the apartment and set all the books up I got lazy. Also, the natural wood color started to grow on me a little bit and I started debating whether or not I actually wanted to paint it.

HOWEVER once I decided for sure that I wanted to paint our crib (more on that in a minute...) I knew that I would want to have a practice project first. I had NEVER before painted a piece of furniture and I was NOT confident in my skills that I felt I could just tackle the crib head on. That's when I remembered the lovely bookshelf I had always wanted to repaint... :D

See where this is going?

I'm about halfway through painting this bad boy, all of the shelves just received their last coat of paint and are just waiting for some touch up spots on the front lip. I am now working on priming the rest of the monster so that I can start painting IT!

After I am finished painting the rest of the frame of the shelf comes the decision-making... I want to give the book shelf a wax finish since that is what I will be doing with the baby's crib and I'd like to have a forgiving job to practice on first. HOWEVER! I'm not sure yet if I want to be brave and try using both clear AND dark wax to "antique" it or just a clear wax for a clean finish. I'm also bouncing back and forth between the idea of stenciling the back of the bookshelf for a more unique and custom look, like this: 

Decisions, decisions...

Since I am trapped at home I can't go out and grab some more primer so all of that fun stuff is currently on hold until I can get things going again, but that pretty much sums up this project. It's been sort of my baby for the past little while and I have been having so much fun doing it! :)

 

Project #2: The Crib

Okay, this one I touched on just a little bit in my post about nesting (linked above) when I talked about my plans for the nursery, but I'll go into just a little more detail here.

We got this beautiful little crib from a friend of ours completely FREE! How can you say no to that?!? :)

It's in great condition, and aside from the safety measures needed to secure the drop side is 100% ready to use! However... part of me just couldn't help but look at this crib and think of just how much MORE beautiful it would be if it was white.

I know... I know... I thought that I would get at least an eye roll if not a "let me talk you out of this" speech from Taylor when I brought up the idea to him, but crazy me had to go out and marry a wonderful and supportive man who jumped right on board with my idea and supported it 100%. ;)

I love that guy.

Anyway, this project hasn't been started yet because, well, the guinea pig project hasn't been finished yet... ;)

As soon as the book shelf is done, I'm going to get straight to work on this bad boy. There isn't too much of a time crunch because we aren't planning on putting baby to sleep straight in her crib right when she's born, but it would still be so nice to have this one done before she is here.

 

Project #3: The Rug

This SUPER easy and SUPER cheap project has actually been so much fun to do! :) I'm about 1/3 of the way done with it and decided to just pack it up and pick it up later since it's so easy. It something that I could easily do while baby girl is here napping or even nursing, so it's not as pressing of an item on my list of things to get done. :)

It's so much fun though, and so crazy easy and affordable to do. I used this tutorial as my inspiration but all you need is:

-yarn

-scissors

-either two round objects (used two empty toilet paper rolls and my prenatal vitamin containers) or just your hand

-one of those no-slide rug mats with the holes in them

All you have to do is take your yarn and make a bunch of yarn pom poms (this is the most time consuming part) by wrapping the yarn around whatever you choose to use (for smaller pom poms I just used my hand and for medium-large ones I used the toilet paper rolls and vitamin bottles), tying, and cutting accordingly. After that you simply tie them onto the mat however you desire and voila!

You're finished!

How darling and easy is that? :D

I decided to make our rug a bit bigger than the one in the tutorial and instead of making it a rectangle I made it a big circle. However, the color scheme is pretty similar to the one in the tutorial, just minus the yellow. :) I'm pretty excited about it and it has been sooo easy... my kind of DIY project! ;)

 

Project #4: The Leggings

This one, like the crib, is another project that I haven't yet started but 100% plan to. I already have two different patterns of stretchy knit fabric and found a bunch more on sale at fabric.com that I'm tempted to buy.

I got this free pattern/tutorial from Pinterest (I freaking LOVE Pinterest) and fully plan on borrowing my mom's sewing machine (and possibly her expertise) for a day and cranking a few pairs of these bad boys out.

 

Project #5: The Curtains

Another sewing one that I haven't started yet, and this will probably be the last that I get around to finishing. I definitely need to wait until we move in so that I can measure the dimensions of our windows and what not, but don't worry... I fully plan on completing this one, however daunting it may seem!

I searched and searched for tons of different tutorials for blackout curtains and this one was by FAR my favorite one! It was the least intimidating and most clear-cut "in English" tutorial I was able to find. ;)

This seems like one of those projects that will be SO much less scary once I actually get started on it. Keeping my fingers crossed for that!

 

Phew! And there you have it folks!

Now that this is published I officially have no excuses for ever complaining about being "bored" for the next few months... ;)