Emskyrooney

In our house, we want our kids to be well-rounded.  And not just when it comes to school and sports but also when it comes to hobbies, interests and capabilities.  We don't want to raise a son who grows up and can't cook or do laundry or sew on a loose button.  Nor do we want to raise a daughter who can't swing a hammer, use a riding mower, or install tile.  We want our children to have a repertoire full of useful skills so that when they're grown they'll (hopefully!) prefer to do things themselves.   And so LP has watched us take on many a DIY project, from rebuilding the deck to putting up a swingset to painting rooms and refinishing hardwood floors.  As a baby Paul would put LP in his carseat next to the car when he was changing the oil, talking through the steps even though LP certainly couldn't understand him at such a young age.  And LP has hung out in my sewing room enough to know that I can take scraps of fabric and turn them into something use...

As the baby countdown draws nearer, and our schedule seems to be getting busier, I was on a serious mission to get the nursery done.  I'm not sure why I was so focused on it, since Baby Sister will sleep in our room for the first couple months of her life anyway, and cleaning and installing the baby car seat and figuring out where my breast pump and bottles are would have been a more efficient use of my time, but I just needed to get it done.  And I did.  At least, until I see some other awesome project on Pinterest that I want to try!  (and oh!  I just realized I didn't update the mobile yet for over the crib!  I'll have to come up with a plan and add that to my list!) Once again, for those of you who might be new to my blog, Baby Sister's nursery started out as LP's nursery.  Here's how it looked back then (these photos were taken before the nursery was totally done- for some reason I can't find any finished product photos and it's looking a bi...

I've been on a roll with the nursery projects lately.  The fact that I only have 9 weeks to go (which could easily turn into 6 if Baby Sister decides to copy her big brother and arrive three weeks early) has me on a serious mission to get stuff done...  Add in all the cloth diapers I still have to sew, a gift for our newest little niece that I need to work on (plus another niece arriving in a few weeks) and my to-do list keeps getting longer even though I'm crossing things off every chance I get! Here are a few more projects I finished up over the weekend.... First, I tackled the crib and made a crib skirt and some slipcovers for the ends of the crib (one end is plexiglass with red, blue and yellow balloons that didn't quite fit in with the look I'm going for).  I made the skirt the right length so that when the mattress is eventually on it's lowest setting the skirt will just touch the floor.   The slipcovers for the ends are just long pieces of fabric with a bit o...

More than a year ago I saw a post on Bloesem Living about the home of a woman living in Amsterdam.  Among the photos of her home was this fabulous shot of a wall mural she had done inspired by a cross stitch pattern.  I immediately clicked over to her blog, Eline Pellinkhof , to try to find out more.  And of course, I pinned  it to my home dec board on Pinterest.   When we found out that this baby was a girl I immediately knew I wanted to do a vintage/sewing inspired nursery and knew that the cross stitch mural would be perfect.  And so yesterday, I finally had a chance to tackle the project. I spent some time online finding just the right cross stitch pattern and then picked up some small bottles of craft paint the last time I was at Michael's.  Yesterday morning I started by drawing out the grid on the wall using a level and some chalk.  I decided to make it easier on myself and just use the width of the level as the size of each square.  ...