Bedroom Makeover

A couple of months ago, I finally got around to making over my Princess' bedroom from a toddler-looking room to a big girl room.  A double bed is now in place of a twin bed.  I switched to white furniture instead of natural wood color.  And of course, I sewed all of the pillows, curtains, tableskirt, bedskirt, etc.
I found the head board, which is very Pottery Barn-ish, in bad shape at a thrift store for $5! I sanded it, replaced some of the wood spindles, and spray painted it white and it's as good as new.
This room is the hottest in the house during the summer, so I had to line her curtains with black-out fabric to reduce the light and heat coming in the windows.  iI couldn't find a pattern I just loved, so I did it without any pattern and it turned out perfect, much to my surprise!  The curtains are full-length roman shades with pom-poms at the bottom and large ties for detail.

Here are the fabrics I used, some from Fabric dot com and others from Custom Baby Boutique dot com.

Unfortunately, I did not take "before" shots, but here are the after shots!

new curtains

new pillows

monogrammed pillow and table topper

new places for photos on the wall

happens to match her princess castle rug perfectly!

Project: Back Porch

Living in a hot climate, I sure do love having a back porch.  It's just too hot to go out in the sun for at least two months of the year.  My kids love to play out there, and in the spring and fall, I especially love to entertain outdoors.  However, I've been wanting to make our back porch more of a cozy living space rather than a boring place to sit in the shade.  I've also wanted to add something for privacy, without adding curtains or blinds on the inside of our house.  So i'm starting a DIY project to spruce up our back porch on a very strict budget:  keeping it around $100.
Here's the before pictures:

Latest Baby Items

Lots of my friends are having babies, so I'm staying pretty busy just making gifts for them right now!  Here are a few of the latest baby items I've made in the past few weeks:

This last burp cloth, for Grace, I added "taggie"-type ribbon at the bottom to double as spit-up-catcher as well as entertainment for baby. :)

Taggie Blanket

This blanket is minky on one side and soft flannel on the other with plenty of ribbon "tags" to keep Baby busy!

Diaper Bags

Since Lil Man was born this past winter, I've slowly been working my way back into sewing.  The biggest challenge is finding the time to do it...Lil Man is sleeping in the master bedroom currently, and that's where my machines are.  We hope to get him into his own room soon!  It's also taken some getting used to caring for two kids rather than one during the day.  It doesn't leave much time for anything else!

But here are a few diaper bags I've completed over the past couple of months...

The Nursery is Complete!

...and just in time!  Lil Man was born on the 22nd.
Here are the pictures.  The only thing left to do are to fill those empty picture frames!

pillows for the futon

the valance

Nursery Valance

The valance has been hung and now all we have left to do for the window is add room-darkening floor-length curtains. 

I had picked out the valance design in my head long before I went pattern shopping.  Unfortunately, when I finally found the perfect pattern, it wasn't on sale and for some reason never could catch a sale price for it.  So I turned to a good friend who also sews and I should have known to just ask her first.  She had the exact pattern I needed and had already used it before.
The only changes I made to the pattern was that on the back, for the lining, I used ivory-colored black-out fabric in order to keep the light low.  Because I used a curtain rod that "wraps around" the window, I shortened the length of the curve of the valance and added more length to the straight sides so that it will "wrap around" the curtains once we get them hung. 
So here is the partially-finished window...note that eventually, the side edges will wrap around the curtains hung from behind the valance.  Oh, and the walls are not pink. :)