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a huge Thank You!

Hello! I really want to sit and write about all that’s going on but I just cannot tear myself away from brushing my face with the softest head of baby’s hair ever. I had to pop in and say thank you so much to everyone for all the warm wishes for our new daughter! I didn’t realize that many people were out there. Tim and I are still at the hospital with Phoebe (she was a repeat c-section) and our fancy digs have internet access. It’s been so much fun to check in and read comments while we’re here recouping. Tomorrow we go home and we’re very anxious & excited to start our life as 4.

I was sitting down to write a big fat thank you post for all the sweet comments about Oscar’s and the baby’s room on Saturday when my water decided to break – all movie style – gushing down the hallway and bringing this already early bird in even earlier. So wow, thanks you guys for all the room love! I’m so happy with how they turned out. I had a huge bee in my bonnet to get them done before Phoebe came because I knew once she did I wouldn’t be able to bothered by any of it. And I was right. All I can do now is rub my face in baby head!

more soon!

thanks!

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Oscar’s Room

And this is how the other half lives, Oscar’s room.

When we moved Oscar requested green for his room. After many failed greens we ended up with Benjamin Moore’s Jalapeno Pepper. It’s not for the faint of heart but we love it. And Oscar is over the moon for it. He’s a huge fan of green these days. Everything has to be green… the green straw, the green lifesaver, the green spoon, etc. And this is why he says babies don’t like green. Green is for big boys.

When we walked through this house we picked out which would be Oscar’s room right away. It had these great built in drawers with a big long counter desktop and great shutters. Looked like a little boys room. The built ins aren’t actually built in but two pieces that we were able to take out and paint. Everything that didn’t get jalapeno’d got a bright coat of white. The dingy countertop we spruced up with some woodgrain contact paper.

above is Oscar’s new favorite stuffed, a polar bear from Ikea and our new favorite Jay Ryan poster (from a project Tim was on at work). below a close up of the shutters that I redid in some great flannel fabric that was the lining of a vintage boy scout sleeping bag that I found at the thrift store.

Oscar got himself a new big boy bed, a twin from Ikea. He took to it right away and only fell out of it once! or twice. On his new bed is the sewing project that almost killed me. The duvet cover I was working on for him back at the apartment. It got put on the backburner and I started it up again last week determined to finish it before the baby got here. Wrangling with a project this size, on the floor, at 100 weeks pregnant was a nightmare. Pretty much the most unpleasant sewing experience I’ve ever had. Well, except for my wedding dress. That will always win. But this was a close second. And it’s too bad because I was so into it in the beginning. Tim and I worked on all the vehicles together and picked out the fabrics and I had such high hopes for it. Now all I see are its imperfections and wonky puckers. But its saving grace, Oscar LOVES it! He shows it off to everyone who comes over and he talks on how soft the cars are and excitedly points out that there are cars on the other side (the one facing the wall) too! And then shows them how there are VW BUSES on the underside. So that, of course, more than makes it a successful project for me. That kept it from being dragged out to the driveway and run over with the car.

some vehicles from the other side… winnebago below and convertible here.

Here are his new shelves (ikea) with some awesome new striped cubbies (ikea).

The most exciting addition here is the fisher price record player I got Oscar on ebay. He really loves it, funny. It was a crapshoot but I guess we’re raising a luddite. We’ve been searching the thrift stores for some new records. He’s not as excited about my old Sleeping Beauty record as I was. His favorite is this busted up 45 of Big Rock Candy Mountain. That starts playing around 6:30 am at full volume.

Big boys also get their own bookshelves. Grandpa made him these awesome library style bookshelves and it was so fun to finally unpack the book boxes and get all his favorites bedside.

Ok, just a few more things… Oscar’s new old lamp. Again he’s really into this. He gets very excited now when the mail lady brings ebay packages.

and his “sad polar bear” print… actually “do you know what I mean” by marisa haedike

and phew! that’s Oscar’s room. all pics here. yes, all posts from now on will end with phew!

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the baby’s room

Well.. it’s June! Junebaby’s month. Actually she’s due to arrive in less than a week. And while she probably won’t be sleeping in this room for months I’ve been trying to finish up the nursery before she arrives. I still have a few more projects I wanted to get to. I really want a shaker peg board and the hunt continues for the perfect mid-century rocking chair. And we definitely need a little chair-side table of some sort. I was going to head to the antique mall today to see what all I could find but after being woken up last night by something suspiciously contraction-like I’m calling it. Finished! for now…

Here’s the finished doll quilt wall. I love it so. It turned out so much cooler than I ever imagined. I’m very tempted to cover the entire house in tiny little textiles. Or maybe I just want to cover the whole house in wood paneling and then paint it over in Benjamin Moore’s Popcorn Kernal because this soft yellow makes me so dang happy. To hang the quilts I used tiny little tack nails and then either nailed them right through the quilt (hidden in the binding corners) or I sewed little loops of floss on the back of the corners and hung them on the tacks (thanks amy for the idea!).

More quilt wall pics here.

Here’s the crib all decked out in its hand-me-down bedding…the pink dot bedding from dwellbaby! My friend Cindy had a girl when I had Oscar and man how jealous I was that she got pink dots.

Here’s a close up of the quilt that’s hanging on the crib. It’s a side of that same thrifted cutter quilt I used to make the house doll quilt. It’s purely decorative, I just sewed it together over the edge of the crib with a few stitches. Since these kids can’t have covers for a year anyway I thought it was a perfect solution.

This vintage mobile is one of my most favorite things in the nursery. A thrift store find from Lisa and Stephanie, it’s just the cutest thing, the perfect colors and it still works. I love it! Thanks girls 🙂 xo

We bought Junebaby some new Ikea shelves to store all her treasures. I’ve been going a little ebay crazy and they’ll be jammed full of crap very soon. Right now they’re all organized and pretty with some of my favorite things like… my gorgeous birthday gift from Amy smartypants who knew I was having a girl before I did. And look how cute it is next to these perfect little booties I bought from Catarina.

The new baby book and photo album by Hello! Lucky, my treasured Loobylu kitty doll, my new favorite perfectly round tomato doll and some favorite books

The first doll I made for her, pink baby (the sister to Oscar’s blue baby), a new Haba rattle I couldn’t resist, yellow pocketbook and vintage puzzle that we had up in Oscar’s room too.

Here are some of Junebaby’s new dolly friends.

And finally some more fun mail I just received… curtain tie backs from Morgan. I love these funny little guys… they’re salmon and gold and folky… perfect!

Later this week… Oscar’s new room, otherwise known as “babies don’t like green!”

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makie

I’ve received some really wonderful mail in the past week. I keep meaning every day to post photos and write thank you cards and share all the happy wonderful cute things that keep popping up in my mailbox but my swelling to overcapacity body has slowed me down to a crawl. Tonight Junebaby seems to have decided that sleeping is for chumps and so here we are up at 3am. Perfect time to catch up! I’m getting the feeling that most of my blog reading and posting will be taking place in the middle of the night very soon. Might as well embrace it now. So anyway, these gorgeous items arrived in the mail from Catherine from her favorite baby store in NYC, makie. They are so delicate and simple and perfect and are making me very excited to meet the tiny person that will fit in them.
 

a classic japanese hadagi and bear

and this gorgeous teeny tiny perfect little bib that is never ever going to get spit up on. I hung it on the quilt wall so it’ll be safe and sound.

and geez, if I owe you a thank you, please please know I’m so grateful and sorry I suck and I am hoping to catch up very soon!

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dense

The thing one quickly realizes when trying to cover a wall with doll quilts, even a small wall, is that you need a certain density or it doesn’t work. To that end this week produced a few more additions for the wall. They’re all pretty much quicky specials — three of them I made yesterday.

Pinky here is made from thrift store linens. I ran out of batting so it has just flannel inside and I did a pillowcase binding and a stippling quilt pattern.

Here’s a little fussy cut number from some folky vintage fabric and orange gingham. I made this one earlier this week and hand quilted it and hand sewed the binding. I like hand quilting when there’s a little gingham grid to follow. Makes me less obsessed with getting my stitches even.

I found this cross stitch at a thrift store ages ago. I thought this would whip up into a quicky little quilt but it went through 3 different bindings until I found this one, a tiny vintage polka dot binding tape, that actually worked.

Another fussy one, this one is made from my stash of japanese storybook prints and the yellow dot flannel was Oscar’s crib skirt. close up here.

This one I made from a thrifted kids quilt I’ve been holding on to forever. It had lots of stains and tears but some great big appliques that were waiting to be saved. This little house just needing some binding and it was all set!

I hate to jinx myself but I think the wall may be full. I have one I’m on the fence about. I’ve nailed all but that one to the wall. I need to sleep on it. Now I’m waiting for hand-me-down bedding to arrive in the mail and to get the curtains up and then I’ll have some nursery pics to share 🙂

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miss bunny and her outfits doll quilt

This doll quilt has been brought to you by the amazing phenomenon of… yard work! The exciting new activity around here that keeps both Tim and Oscar entertained for hours on end. It was heaven to sit in my craft room all weekend and putter while watching those two outside the window puttering in the backyard. We’ve become the putterers which is just how we’ve always wanted it. It was awesome to have a big chunk of time to work. I was able to sketch out the idea and start embroidering on Saturday and finish up on Sunday.

I think this may be my favorite of the doll quilts I’ve made. I used all my favorite colors and fabrics and of course I’m a sucker for anything paper doll-y! I was helping a friend of my mother with some ideas for a redwork baby quilt and got inspired to try one out for myself.

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a quick pop in on the craft room

Back in the old apartment before we moved I would sit around at night daydreaming about decorating and styling glamorous photo shoots of every "corner of my home" with big dramatic results. The reality, as I keep saying (rather defensively) is it’s just an everything-in-a-place-any-place free for all over here. I feel like an ass for not wanting to share my amazing new craft room because it isn’t just so or not wanting to show all the pics of Oscar’s room because it’s "in progress". Especially since this is probably the nicest it will ever look! All clean and spare, before the "craft misc" boxes are unpacked and before I really start working in there. So I tidied up the craft room this morning and decided it was time to peek in. Then of course I realize it’s a bear to photograph because it has really bright sun in the early morning and then is pretty dark (for photo taking but fine for working) the rest of the day. So I tried every setting on my camera and this is what I came up with.

We really lucked out with this house because we got one of the standard 3 bedroom ranches that litter this neighborhood that actually had an addition added back around when the house was built in 1957. So we have less backyard but two good sized rooms off the back of the house. Dick and Dot had three kids so they used one of these rooms as the master bedroom. We decided to make their master my craft room/the guest room. The other room we set up as a playroom and it’s pretty funny in all its wood paneled loveliness, but that’s a photo shoot for another day.

So one wall of the room is all closet and that’s where I’ve stored all the fabric. Another wall faces the yard (with a snazzy space heater in the middle) and that’s where I’ve put my sewing table and work table. Another wall I left open and am using it as my feltwall to hang quilt projects. And the last wall holds shelves, the daybed and some awesome built in shelves (another Dick masterpiece).

the sewing table and some new shelves.

the work table

the day bed

and the built ins. this is one area I really need to work on. I just threw things up there as I was unpacking. I’d really like to set up lots of little just so vignettes but for now it’s like a softies high rise.

And that’s my big shiny white craft room with at least twice as much space as I had in the apartment, big fluffy new shag carpet and it’s own bed! I’m a happy girl.