Nursery Tour

Well, I finally did it, I finished the nursery! I wanted to make as many things in here as possible, so that's why it took me so long. And you thought I was just being lazy!

We'll begin our virtual tour where you first enter the room. On our left are two wall mounted shelves (painted with the help of the lovely and talented Nancy). Here we find a few familiar faces, the elephant shrew, the dachshund lamp, and Karla's elephant, along with a few new faces that include some toys that belonged to my husband as a child.

Moving on to the second shelf, is a stuffed owl I made, a pink rubber duck (everyone needs one of those, right?) and soft letter blocks that my mom helped me finish.

Below the shelves is an white dresser that I made into a changing station. I made the pad using some vinyl coated fabric I purchased at Corn Wagon in Springville (they have the cutest vinyl coated fabric around, if you're in the market) and I got the pad inside at JoAnn's. I also made pockets to go on either side to hold all my diaper changing necessities.

As we continue our way around the room, on the next wall hang a couple of needle point pieces that my grandpa made a long time ago. (Yes, grandpa! He was one of my biggest crafting inspirations.) Next to those is a nice bright window with a patchwork curtain. This was actually the first decor item I made for the room, and was the fabric inspiration for most everything else, including something hanging from the ceiling to our right.

The mobile! I made the birds for the mobile using a pattern I found here, and I attached them to an embroidery hoop, trimmed with pom-poms, fabric, and ribbon. I got the idea to use pom-poms from Lovely by M's mobile. And my mom helped make the bias tape that covers the hoop.

Below the mobile is the crib, a gift from my husband's parents. Hanging on the side of the crib are a couple of afghans my husband's grandma made, and a quilt from Nancy is there to prevent soothie's from falling behind the crib. Yes, this happened once in the middle of the night. Not fun. Around the base of the crib is a crib skirt that is made using the same fabrics as in the curtain. (Okay, so part of the reason everything is made out of the same fabrics, is, well, I bought way too much. I'm really bad at trying to figure out how much fabric I need for a project, and tend to buy about twice as much as I need. Let's just say, I still have more. Maybe I'll make a quilt or something.) To the right of the crib is a painting I did in high school, that happens to co-ordinate with the room. Awesome.

And down inside the crib is the best part of the nursery. :)

Thanks to everyone who helped me finish all my projects!

Puj Tub Review

Whoa.

Did you know that having a baby will totally consume your entire life? It's true. Don't get me wrong, it's not in a bad way. There's nothing else I'd rather have consume my days. And nights. Well, maybe it'd be nice if my nights were still consumed by sleep, but other than that, nothing. I even have an extremely helpful, hands-on husband, but somehow the baby seems to dominate our attentions. But, I mean, look at her. She's so dang cute, how could she not captivate your attention?

Also, did you know that a baby can totally make you feel like an idiot? It's true. Even though I have had previous experience with other people's babies, mine is sure keeping me humble and reminding me that I have a lot to learn when it comes to taking care of her. Fortunately, she won't remember anything from this part of her life. The seemingly simplest of tasks, it turns out, are not always so simple.
For instance, let's say I was changing the baby's diaper, because a good mom knows that you're supposed to change your babies diaper. I've even got these fancy diapers that change color when the diaper is wet, so you know the diaper needs to be changed. See, that sounds pretty easy. I can do that. But maybe I didn't know that sometimes babies will go ahead and relieve themselves right in the middle of you changing their diaper. And there's no way to stop it from getting all over my once sweet little baby, who is now not-so-sweet.

Okay, deep breath to gather yourself. You can handle this. Remind yourself of all your many accomplishments, you college grad, you. You'll just give your baby a bath, and she'll be sweet again. No problem.
So I get out the baby bath tub. It looks something like this:

It got the job done, but not so easily. I had to entirely devote one hand to holding her upright so she didn't go under water. It turns out there's no good way to hold a slippery-wet baby with one hand. Especially not one who's wiggling and kicking, because she's naked and wet, and can tell her mom has no idea how to hold her upright with one hand. But if I used both hands, I couldn't actually bathe her. We'd just be sitting there, awkwardly starring at each other, wishing one of us had telekinesis to move the wash cloth over her. So we muddled through and eventually got her clean.

And then one day, the UPS man brings this to my doorstep:

No, not another cute baby, a Puj tub! Let's all give three cheers for Internet giveaways. Now when I give the baby a bath, the tub holds the baby upright for me, and she doesn't feel insecure, so she's not wiggling and kicking. She's actually quite content to sit there while I bathe her without the aid of super-human powers. Awesome, because I don't have those.

Thanks Puj!

Giving Thanks

1. A beautiful, healthy baby girl. This shot is from when she was two days old, but I think she gets a little cuter every day.
   


2. All the amazing doctors and nurses who helped get her here safely, and took such great care of us once she was here.


3. The worlds best husband and new dad, who has been staying up at night with the baby so I can rest and recover.


4. An incredibly loving and supportive extended family. Seriously, my fridge has never had so much food in it! We are so blessed to have so many people who love us.

Thank you everyone!

It's All About the Giveaways!

It seems like all I've been doing lately is tell you about giveaways, but, really, who doesn't want to know about cool, free stuff?

So here's another one for you, and it's a really good one. Puj Baby is giving away 100 baby tubs! Yeah, that's a lot of tubs, so your odds of winning are actually quite phenomenal. They're looking for product testers, so you need to be a mom with a baby, and you need to have a blog or website where you can post a review. And the tub is yours to keep!

Are you in? If so, click here for more details and to enter. The deadline is November 11th, so hurry over!

Now That Billy Mays is Gone...

Who will fill his shoes?

Especially to Madre

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mothers in my life. I love you!

Image found here.

Win Instantly!

Do you have a baby? or know someone who does? or know someone who might in the near future? or just want to plan ahead for some point when you might have one? Well, if you answered yes to any of those questions, you're in luck! My sister, Nancy, is doing a giveaway of my other sister, Katie's, Puj sling!

Be sure to act now! The giveaway ends Monday, the 24th at 7:00pm.

Katie is also doing a giveaway for $600 worth of Puj merchandise (Just enter your email at the top of the page to sign up). What more could you ask for?

I know, you had no idea how well connected I was, to be related to such people. I won't go on about the rest of my family, as that would take days, but check them out for yourself! A veritable smorgasbord of lovely and talented people. Oh, the pressure of being the youngest child and having to live up to all that!

Shamless Sibling Promotion

My incredibly talented, beautiful, nice, funny, sister Nancy is selling some of her famous bags! And if you're lucky, you get a pendant to go with it. Hurry! And if they're all gone by the time you get there, tell her you want one. It makes us crafters feel good to know that people like our stuff. That's why we blog! The green one's my favorite, and you can see more pictures on her blog. Check it out!