Weekend Warriors.

Let me start by telling you some history.

I've always had a "Why pay money for something you could make?" attitude because that's how my mom was. This was out of necessity, as we were apparently very, very poor when my brother and I were young, so if my mom wanted to keep us outfitted in matching clothes, she had to stencil them herself! (I am not kidding here!) So to this day, there are many things that my mom and I will set out to make... only to usually have something end up going a little bit haywire. Most of the time we get lucky and it's nothing too major, just some time spent and frustrations that usually end up being a funny story. This time though, it could have been bad.

There was no way I could justify (or even want to try) paying $400 for crib bedding. The bedding is really just for looks so that I can be proud of our cute nursery. Plus, anything I did see, no matter what the price, didn't really fit with what I was looking for.  I am not a muted, baby color person. I like it bold and bright and wanted the same for Griffin's room. I lovingly asked my mom if she thought her and Bami would mind sewing the bedding for me so we didn't have to pay all of that money and some how I got her to say yes. (After all, she did sew my brother's baby bedding almost 30 yrs ago!!)

So off we went to Joann's and stumbled into the perfect fabrics. It's fun, whimsical and all the bright colors that I wanted. (Including some pinks!) We then figured out the dimensions and started prepping the pieces. The only thing we kept saying was... this seems so easy... too easy. Are we figuring something wrong?! But we would go back, re-figure, and still come up with the same numbers, so we charged along.

Fast forward to Friday when my parents arrived and she proudly brought in one of the bumper pads. After unloading the car, I went to try it out in the crib to see just how good it looked. Here's what I found:



In case you can't tell, that would be the bumper pad hanging OUTSIDE of the crib! (these pictures were actually taken after my mom ripped out all of her beautiful sewing.) Yep... turns out we were working with the outside dimensions of the crib (which weren't even accurate) and never stopped to think about the INSIDE!! While it definitely stinks that my mom had to take a part one of the finished pads, we are both so thankful that she hadn't finished the whole set!! Plus, we obviously had a feeling that something was too good to be true with this bedding from the beginning!

Now on to the first project, which is actually not nursery related but something that was on our "Before Baby List!" anyway!  When we bough our house, one of the selling points was the "brand new tile!"  Yeah, this brand new tile ended up being ugly, peel and stick, faux wood stuff from the Dollar Store. (I apologize if this is in your house and you love it.)  There have been several times I've been tempted to just rip it up, but have somehow resisted. While I know real tile would be a better long term investment, we didn't have the time or money to put it down right now. I actually ended up finding a peel and stick tile from Home Depot that I really loved, so the boys ended up fixing the flooring in both of our bathrooms. Poor Cody had to do a lot of prep work to get the floor ready so my dad could lay it down, but oh my, I sure do love it now!


While the boys were working on tiling the bathrooms, painting the baseboards in the nursery, spackling the walls and hanging up blinds, my mom and I were busy working on sewing projects. Once again, our super simple curtains ended up taking us almost all of Saturday to finish! We have decided there is a reason people pay good money for pre-made bedding and curtains... so you're not sick of the pattern by the time you hang them up! :)  Here's a few funny stories about the curtains:

Cody and I went to Walmart on Friday night to pick up the fabric. (note: Walmart has some REALLY cute stuff right now, surprisingly enough! Just be warned that the downfall is there's no 40% off coupon like at Hobby!) We ended up finding this fun orange/pink/purple/turquoise strip print at the last minute and loved it. As we're getting it cut, we happen to mention that it's for our nursery curtains. The worker goes, "Oh, so you must be having a girl!" Then I had to laugh and tell her otherwise.

The next day, my mom is back at Walmart to pick up some more purple material for the lining. (This would be her second trip for fabric that day due to our wrong measurements. See, we always make things more complicated!)  Apparently there was a new girl training at the time who happened to ask what the fabric was for and my mom told her we were lining curtains with it. She then repeatedly said: "You're lining the curtains with purple?! Like it's going to show through the outside window? To THE STREET?! Do you really want people seeing purple?!?!"  Apparently she does not share a love of color like we do! (and for your information lady, it will face to the backyard... not the street!!)


Cody built a cornice board to go with our curtains. I was a little bit worried this would be a time consuming project, but it turned out very simple! Want to know why? My mom and I weren't quite strong enough to make sure the staples went in far enough to the wood! So if you're looking to make a quick cornice board in under an hour's time... make sure your dad is around to do the majority of the work for you!

And finally, here are is a picture of the finished work with our curtains and cornice board. Not only do I love how they turned out, they look so good in the room AND they make it nice and dark for the perfect nap space! Let's hope the cool, dark room they create combat all of the bright, stimulating colors we're using :)

And that folks, is our weekend projects in a nutshell. Whew... I'm tired just from typing about them!