Nursery Wall Decor

I bought these on Etsy, from here and am in love with them!

It was easy to put together once I figured it out.  The numbers on these types of pieces...

Coordinate with the same number on the larger pieces and slide in. 

After they are all in, viola!

and here they are above each of the boys' cribs.

They have a variety of awesome cardboard mounts in different colors.  Check them out!

DIY Curtain Rods + Burlap Curtains

So we have this theme sprinkled throughout our house, and to make the nursery feel a little more "boy like" we did similar projects here, here and here, and DIY'd some industrial curtain rods for their room.

 

And for the tie backs we used kitchen twine....nice touch and we had it on hand!

We added some burlap curtains that I bought from here.

**Word of advice**  I researched the best way to prepare the burlap curtains for hanging, since they are not a normal fabric and it was recommended to wash and dry them.  DON'T!

Two Reasons Why:

1.  They shrink when they dry.  I bought 96 inch curtains, we adjusted the curtain rod to the height we wanted *before washing and drying* and now they are wondering where the flood is.  Not the end of the world, but having the curtain rods already in made it difficult to switch things around.

ALSO....

2. They wrinkle and I despise ironing.  I hate it, and if there is a hell, and I end up there, then ironing ALL day is what I will do.  No amount of dryer balls, taking them out before the dryer is done, happy dancing, or praying would help them.  Just lots of steam, spritzing with water and the dreadful ironing did the trick.

It took me hours.  Hours and hours to iron three curtain panels, and while they didn't turn out perfect, they are a LOT better then they were.  

It didn't take very long for the hubby to get them installed and the curtains and the curtain rod really transform the room!

Needless to say lesson learned, but I love how they turned out!

Fixing a Broken Capiz Light

I have been watching this light at World Market forever, well not forever but a few years now.  Waiting for a sale or for it to go down in price.  Normally it does not work out and the item is either discontinued or snatched up by someone else.  Not this time.

The hubby and I were at World Market and I noticed the large pendant light had a price tag on it for $69.99.  Knowing that the original price on it $149.99, I was cautiously, but with rabid urgency trying to find one in a box....and couldn't.  Finding an employee I was told that they only had the display in stock but they could order one, so I took a "rain check" and got it ordered.  I must have asked the guy FIVE times if I would be honored the displayed price, worried that they would try to tell me it wouldn't be honored, which he probably thought I was crazy but got it ordered.

I got a call a week later that it was in, and rushed up there, to find that the one they ordered was a different one. BAHHHHH!  After speaking with a manger she said I could take the display.  I again confirmed with her THREE times that I would get the price on the tag attached.  I'm sure she thought I was crazy because my husband kept asking me why I was so persistent about THAT light.  If you know me I'm usually really shy when it comes to standing my ground.  She took it down, brought us up to the register and after coupons and gift cards, we paid $13.00 for it!!! Cha-ching!

Since it was a display there was no box, and I never was more afraid of breaking something in my entire life.

We brought our new "baby" home and got it hooked up with this hardwire kit. 

Can you see the problem that we had with this?  Since it was a display, at one point or another one of the capiz petals broke, leaving the metal frame empty.

 But with a little elbow grease....I mean some parchment paper, a hot glue gun and some scissors you cannot even tell.

I have seen faux capiz lighting made with either plastic milk cartons or parchment paper, so I figured I'd give it a shot to fill in the broken piece.  I cut a piece of parchment paper the size of the metal frame and hot glued it on the side of the frame to the parchment paper.

It blends so well it took the hubby a while to figure out which one was the "broken" one.

 

Although I really loved how things were taking shape, it needed a little more.

So I bought this chandelier cord cover from Etsy and finally have my "ah-hah" feeling!

In Emily fashion I wanted to put it up right away, the hubby not so much.  So while he was sitting comfortably on the couch relaxing after a long day, I hopped up on the chair, and made an attempt to put it on.  Easy installation because it just Velcro's together over the cord.  The hubby was not a fan of his pregnant wife being on a chair, so he jumped in and took care of it.  He's great!

I am so proud of myself for the amount of patience it took for me to wait as long as I did to get this baby!

 

Every time I walk by I can't help but smile :)

Jenga

This project turned out great, is a total hit but was the most tedious project we have ever done.  The actual cutting of the jenga pieces was not the difficult part, but it was the sanding of each piece and sealing them each with three....THREE coats of polyurethane.

There are 54 pieces, 10 1/2 inches each.  Obviously you will want to find the straightest boards you can find.

We have a bunch of stain from different projects, so in an attempt to use them up we used the five different stains.  I eyeballed how many boards were used for each stain.

Then came polyurethane coat number one.  Once dried, followed with sanding:

Then polyurethane coat number two, followed by more sanding:

Then once that was dried, coat number three went on.

The ends that were face down on the cardboard go their own treatment on our work bench since the cardboard would have stuck to the bottom.

Once that was all dry and smooth we were ready to rock!



Then came the fun.  Warm summer nights, cocktails, cookouts and jenga on the patio.

Oh how this makes me dream for summer.  If you do not have your own Jenga set, this would be a great project to work on so you have it ready to go when the weather warms up!

DIY Distressed Sconces

To go with our distressed, industrial-ish theme we are working on in our basement we decided to keep the party going with some sconces.  We did the same thing as here and here and really think this finishes that area.

We found the "candle holders" aka drinking glasses from Target for about $2.00/per and hot glued them to the wood platform that was attached to the galvanized pipe.

The candles, I got from Target and are battery operated  because I really do not want to burn down my house.  They are really nice and have a timer so we have one less thing to worry about!

O

One slight problem we ran into was when we hot glued them to the platform, we obviously had issues with being able to get whatever we put in it, out.  So to fix that problem, I added some character to it by adding some acorns to the bottom.  **We will eventually end up gouging out a hole in the platform for the glasses to sit in since the hot glue makes it difficult to get the candle/anything we put in them out.

Tying up any loose ends??