Baby Bottles to Battleships: Nursery to Big Boy Room Makeover {Before}

Hey, Friends! I'm so excited to share that we are embarking on our second One Room Challenge this month! The One Room Challenge is put on by Calling it Home every April and October and is so fun! The challenge is to take one room in your house and give it an overhaul in just 6 weeks, posting and sharing your progress every week! Remember last fall when we redid our entire bathroom?

Guess what we're up to this time? Little Man's room! He has been slowly outgrowing his nursery the last couple of years and as much as I try, I just can't seem to slow down time and keep him little forever. So, forward we go! This month, we're taking his room from nursery to big kid!

I realized I have never actually shown you his nursery on the blog before, so enjoy this little trip down memory lane! While we were eagerly awaiting Little Man's arrival, we got to work on his room. Jeremy assembled furniture...

...while I grew our tiny human. Here I am a day before giving birth. 

Just kidding, I was only 5 or 6 months pregnant here. I have the shortest.torso.ever. When I'm pregnant, I look really pregnant. Go big or go home, right? Here's the last belly picture (36 weeks maybe?) before Little Man was born... basketball belly, mom haircut, swollen face and ankles, oh yeah! 

So, back to the nursery. Jeremy's one request was that we paint it blue. I couldn't pick a paint color for the life of me and ended up crying at the paint store because I couldn't decide on a color. Pregnancy hormones don't play, folks. Ha! 

We ended up with a pretty blue that we both loved! It was from Sherwin-Williams, but they have discontinued the exact shade. I should mention, these pictures are from before my blogging days, so excuse the quality. :)

I have never been a huge fan of overly themed rooms, so we went with a simple striped crib bumper and solid green textiles. This was, of course, before I knew that curtains need to touch the ground. Live and learn. And take your curtains down to the floor. ;)

We did bring in some turtle accents, though, which we both loved! The turtle lamp was from my Grandma and aunt and I still love it. The ceramic turtle was an art project Jeremy did in high school! We also had the cutest turtle mobile ever, but I can't find a picture of it. Sad times. The truck was from Jeremy's childhood and his parents collected fun construction vehicles for Little Man to display on it.

Our old house had some cool sloped ceilings, which made for a fun little reading nook in the nursery. That was my favorite spot in the room! 

When Little Man was one, we moved into our current house. To try to keep things calm and familiar, we painted his new room the exact same color and decorated it pretty much the exact same way. I did learn to get longer curtains, though!

When we were pregnant with Little Girlie, we transitioned Little Man into a big boy bed. At that point, we weren't ready to redo his entire room, so we made a few changes and tried to work with the existing paint and curtains. Check out some of the projects we have done to help his room grow with him:

Repurposed Train Table

To the Moon and Back Painting

DIY Bedrails

Monogram Car Art

Brown Bear Sign

Here's how his room is looking now. I left the table out just how he left it this morning so you could see how little floor space he has left when he's using his table. 

That extra closet shelving we added is still waiting for paint. Clearly, we just purged. This closet is usually a mess because the storage bins are not all within reach for Little Man. 

It's starting to look cluttered and hodge podged. He is in desperate need of more floorspace to play and storage solutions that he can actually reach and that work for his specific toys. *cough* Legos *cough* 

Little Man is growing fast and it's time we get his room functioning for a big kid instead of a baby! He is really into Star Wars, so I know he will flip out if I include some Star Wars in the plans. Again, I don't care for overly themed rooms, so expect some Star Wars accents, but not Star Wars covered everything. ;)

Ready to see where we're headed with the room? 

Images via Pottery Barn, Rugs USA, I Love Print, I Heart Organizing, Apartment Therapy, Sherwin-Williams, and Renovation Tracker. 

 Here's what's on our agenda for the next 6 weeks:

-Paint the room.

-Purchase new curtains.

-Purchase new rug.

-Rearrange the furniture

-Add Star Wars art and accessories. 

-Build window seat with storage. 

-Add storage solution for art supplies.

-Paint closet shelves. 

-Get rid of dresser and add closet clothing storage. 

We plan to keep the light, his bed, nightstand, and bedding which definitely helps out the budget!

We decided to keep our room design plans a secret from Little Man and are going to try to pull off surprising him. It's like our own little version of HGTV over here. Ha! I can't wait to see his face when he sees his room and realizes we encorporated Star Wars!

I hope you follow along as we overhaul Little Man's room! Be sure to check out all the other awesome room makeovers going on this month, too! There's some serious talent going on over at Calling it Home!

Linking up with Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, and many other awesome blogs!

Popsicle Stick Mosaic Mirror

*Affiliate links provided for your convenience. For more info, see my full disclosure here.

It's finally starting to look like Spring around here! Flowers are blooming, trees are getting leaves, and pollen is descending upon us in clouds. Ha! With all of the color outside, I was itching to bring in some vibrant colors inside! 

I've been needing something round to complete Little Girlie's gallery wall, so I decided to make her a super colorful mirror! I wanted the mirror to incorporate the colors in her room and have a bit of texture. After a bit of brainstorming, I came up with a design that used the most unlikely of materials... popsicle sticks! 

Here's what you need to get started! 

-Popsicle Sticks* (I used the wide, thinner ones so they would be easier to cut)

-Acrylic craft paints

-Beveled edge wreath form similar to this one*

-Hot glue

-Paint brush (This one* is my favorite for knocking out a job like this quickly!)

I started out by prepping my popsicle sticks for painting. I only needed the rounded tips, so cut the sticks in half so I could paint both tips at the same time. I knew I needed to get the tops and the sides/tips painted and would have a million to paint, so came up with a quick way to paint them... tape them hanging off the edge of the counter! That way, I could paint them all at once and could easily get to the sides without them sticking the a surface. 

Quick tip: I taped them on in groups of 10 for easy counting. 

Of course, I underestimated just how much counterspace I'd need to tape 240 popsicle sticks onto! 

After I finished taping, I stepped back and surveyed the kitchen. It looked like a crazy town. It was then that I realized I had crossed over to the crafting dark side and needed to be admitted into a support group. People probably fear coming to my house for fear that I'll paint doodles on them or hot glue embellishments to their clothing. 

Anyway, back to the crazy town kitchen with 240 popsicles hanging on for dear life... I gave them all two coats of paint and am happy to report that my wacky taping method worked wonderfully. I was done super fast! 

Side note, if you wanted a more neutral color scheme, you could stain the sticks different shades instead of painting them! Ohhh, so sophisticated! :) If you do that, tag me in a picture. I want to see! 

To assemble, I cut the popsicle sticks down and glued them on to the wreath form in overlapping rows. I worked in vertical rows until I had gone around the entire wreath. It's helpful to cut the sticks as you go because the inner ones need to be a bit shorter (about 3/4") and the outer ones need to be a bit longer (about 1- 1/2"). I could only get in 5 full rows across of sticks, so ended up cutting my popsicle sticks lengthwise to create a sixth row and cover the remaining exposed outer edge. 

Quick Tip: When you start, only glue the first row near the straight end, leaving the curved tip unglued. This will allow you to slide your last row under your first row and avoid a start/stop seam.

When I was done, I simply glued a mirror and picture hanger onto the back!

It was a bit of a process, but really so easy! I just love how it turned out! 

It's the perfect finishing touch to Little Girlie's gallery wall! I'll show you the rest of the updated gallery on soon, so be sure to check back! (Update: check out the updated gallery wall here to see where this cute mirror landed!)

I love the bright, vibrant colors!

What's the craziest thing you're ever done in the name of crafting? I want to hear your stories!! :)

Linking up with Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, Thrifty Decor Chick, and many other awesome blogs!

Anthropologie Inspired Ikea Play Kitchen Hack

Hey, Friends! I've been so excited to show you this little Ikea hack for months now! Little Girlie had been raiding my kitchen pans and utensils for items to play with, so we decided to buy her the Ikea play kitchen for Christmas. I was super excited to give it to her since I loved my play kitchen as a kid! Of course, you know I just had to jazz it up a bit for her!

Little Girlie is into pink and purple, bows, jewelry, and accessories right now, so I wanted to give it a feminine touch without being too in your face pink, if you know what I mean. ;) I have LOVED this Anthropologie wallpaper for years and wanted to use it for the backsplash on the kitchen, but it was way out of the budget. Instead, I grabbed some craft paints and got to painting! 

We cut a 1/4" sheet of plywood to fit the opening in the back of the kitchen, leaving a lip so we could nail it in. After giving it a good sand, I rolled the entire thing in a pretty blue-green. 

For the flowers, I used two shades of pink for the petals and just randomly alternated the colors as I went around. If you look closely, you will see the petals are just blobs with a bit of blank space in between. Super easy! For the leaves, I painted them in one shade of green, then streaked on another shade of green. The trick here is to not have very much paint on your brush so the bottom color peeks through. Again, super easy, I promise! The centers are just yellow paint that I dotted on, followed by a few dots of darker yellow. 

I left off some of the details from the original wallpaper, because, elementary painting skills, that's why. ;) That's why I called it "Anthropologie Inspired" instead of "Anthroplogie Dead Ringer". Haha! 

After the backsplash was dry, we just attached it to the kitchen from the back! That's it! I really wanted to paint the wood parts of kitchen white, but decided against it for durability sake. I knew it would be played with hard and didn't want to worry about the paint chipping on the more trafficked areas of the kitchen. 

I love how the colors tie into the playroom decor and add a feminine touch! 

Now it's the perfect place to sip some pretend tea made by the sweetest little girl I know. 

I added a couple kid-safe finishing touches to the top cubbies since Little Girlie is too short to reach those spaces anyway. The tin vase is from the Dollar Spot and the frame was one my Grandma had that she picked up at the Dollar  Tree. See where I get my dollar item obsession from? I like that the frame is sentimental and that it doesn't have glass in case it falls. 

Little Girlie was SO excited about her kitchen on Christmas day! She opened it up then ran over and gave me a big hug before playing with it. Love!

Linking up with Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, Thrifty Decor Chick, and many other awesome blogs!

Quick & Easy Easter Bunny Craft

*Affiliate links provided for your convenience. For more info, see my full disclosure here.

Thank you so much for all of your sweet comments regarding my last post about losing my grandma. I go back and forth from disbelief to feeling liking I can't breathe from the weight of it. But, your comments were a bright spot, especially the ones with stories of Grandma. I love hearing how much others loved her! She had a big fan club! 

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things around the house and get things decorated for Easter. I don't do a whole lot for Easter, just a few cute touches here and there. I decided to make a bunny to add to my everyday centerpiece and just love how it turned out!

Here's what I started with: a wooden bunny from Michael's (scored this week for only $2!), craft paint*, Mod Podge*, paint brush, scrapbook paper, and twine (not pictured). 

I started out by giving the bunny two coats of white paint. When that was dry, I attached strips of scrapbook paper to the edges using thin dabs of hot glue. Then, I gave the entire thing a coat of Mod Podge to seal it off. 

I was going to stop there, but the seam where the paper met the wood was bugging me. It wasn't laying flat. Maybe I should have used fabric instead of paper and attached it with Mod Podge? Anyway, I decided to hot glue twine around the edges to finish it off and cover up the seam. That worked great and I ended up liking the last minute twine addition! #happyaccident

I mean, look at that cute little bunny bum! 

I love how it looks peeping out of our table centerpiece! 

This little guy didn't take much time at all and is such a cute Easter touch! What are you doing to decorate for Easter? Do you go all out or add just a few touches? 

Linking up with Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, and many other awesome blogs!

How to Frame a Wood Sign

Hey, Friends! As promised, I'm back to spill all the details on how we framed our DIY lettered wood sign! If you missed the tutorial for making the sign, check it out here!

We designed our frame to have a groove inside for the sign to fit into. This allowed us to be able to frame and hang our sign without putting any nails into our sign. Here's how we did it!

Step One- Measure and cut a 1x2" board to the length of each side of your sign, adding 2-3 extra inches per side to allow for adjustments or mistakes. If you try to get a precise measurement before cutting your grooves, your measurements will be off. You'll trim the boards to exact length in Step 4.

Step Two- Next, make a groove in the wood for your sign to slide into. To accomplish this, lower the saw blade so that it is only sticking up about 1/3". Then, place your wood, broad side down, so that one edge of the wood extends about 1/4" past where the saw blade will hit. Place your saw guide along the other side to hold the wood straight, then make your cut all the way down the length of the board. 

After you've made your first groove, you'll repeat the process 2-3 more times on the same board, moving your wood over less than the width of the saw blade each time. As you do this, your groove will gradually get wider and wider. The goal is to get your groove wide enough for your sign to slide into. You want a good, snug fit. We ended up doing 4 passes over the table saw to get the perfect sized groove, but it may take you more or fewer passes depending on your sign width. After each pass over the table saw, do a check to see if your wood will slide over the sign. 

See how the groove gets a little wider with each pass? 

Step Three- Now that you have your grooves finished, dry fit your wood by sliding your two side boards onto the sign. Once your boards are in place, measure the width of your sign inside the side frames. This will give you a precise measurement for the top and bottom boards. Trim your top and bottom boards to your precise measurement. 

Step Four- Dry fit all sides of your frame, squaring up the corners. Both side boards will be too long, so mark and trim off any excess wood. The boards should be in the order below. 

Step Five- Paint or stain your boards. I only bothered painting the sides that would be exposed. Hey, ya gotta save time where you can, right?

Step Six- When the paint or stain is completely dry, assemble your frame and secure it with a nail on each corner. We used a nail gun for this and it made it so easy! You can go back around and fill the groove and nail holes on each corner and touch up your paint, but I found that it wasn't even noticeable on my frame once on the wall, so I didn't need to. Your choice!

Step Seven- Screw two short screws onto both of the back sides of your frame, leaving them sticking out about a quarter of an inch. Make sure not to screw them in too far or they will come out the side of the frame and that would be sad. ;) Wrap and string a wire from the screws to hang your sign. Done!!!

Both the sign and the frame ended up being so much more simple than I anticipated! Can you believe that I had figured out my plans and purchased the supplies months and months ago, then procrastinated because I was intimidated and thought would be hard?! Seriously, if you love these signs, try this method out! It's so simple!

Click here to see the simple and foolproof tutorial for how I made the lettered wood sign!

Linking up with Savvy Southern Style, Remodelaholic, and many other awesome blogs!