Sweet Annie

I made a quick visit to Dallas to visit my sister and meet baby Annie for the first time. I did a bit of shopping, reading with my nephew, and cuddling with this new niece. Aside from the crazy travel arrangements that go with flying standby, the trip was a very nice getaway. Many thanks to my husband and in-laws for taking care of our girls!

On another note, Casey has the full nursery reveal up on her blog, so go check it out!!

Peek-a-boo Pleated Crib Skirt Tutorial

As promised, I have put together a tutorial for the peek-a-boo pleated crib skirt as revealed in my previous nautical nursery post. Please note, this tutorial is for a crib skirt with a front side only. This works well for cribs with drawers underneath. You can easily adapt this idea to included side panels, but the fabric quantities listed are for a front panel only.

Materials:

• Main fabric (ships in my case) 1 1/4 yds
• Peek-a-boo panels (wheels in my case) 5/8 yd
• Base (underside of mattress) 1 1/2 yds
• Ribbon 1 yd

From the Materials above cut:

• 53” x 29” base
• 2 – 19.5” x 14” end panels
• 2 – 19.5” x 14.5” middle panels
• 3 – 19.5” x 8” peek-a-boo panels
• 6 – 5” ribbon strips

Note: All seem allowances are 1/2” unless noted otherwise.

Pin and sew one end panel right sides together with one peek-a-boo panel aligning the 19.5” sides. Finish seams with a serger or zig zag stitch.

Pin and sew one middle panel right sides together with the peek-a-boo panel you just sewed along the 19.5” side. Finish the seams.

Continue sewing panels and peek-a-boo panels until you have one long rectangle. You should have a sequence of end panel, peek-a-boo, middle panel, peek-a-boo, middle panel, peek-a-boo, and end panel.

Press all finished seams away from the peek-a-boo panels.

Finish the bottom raw edge of the rectangle with a serger or zig zag stitch.

Press the bottom edge under to the wrong side 1/2” and hem.

Mark the middle of each peek-a-boo panel.

Fold the left panel seam in to meet the mark and pin.

Repeat for the right panel seam and lightly press in place.

Use a long stitch to baste the pleat in place at 3/8”. Repeat for each peek-a-boo pleat panel.

Serge or zig zag the top edge of the long rectangle.

Press the short edge of the rectangle to the wrong side 1/2”. Press under 1/2” again and hem.

Serge or zig zag all four sides of the base material. Fold the short sides of the base in 1/2” to the wrong side and hem. Align the top long side of the rectangle of panels with a long side of the base material right sides together. Pin and sew with 1/2” seam allowance.

Press the seam allowance toward the base material.

Press the peek-a-boo pleats open.

Heat seal each end of the 5” ribbons. Then tie them in knots.

Hand stitch the ribbons in place securing the pleats as you stitch.

Place the crib skirt on the crib and admire those pretty pleats!!

Linking up to Knock Our Socks Off.

Girl’s Nautical Nursery Pieces

I love planning nurseries, especially when they are not my own! My sister is expecting a baby girl at the beginning of May, so I’ve been helping her outfit the nursery. Sarah Jane’s Out to Sea fabrics in jewel tones are setting the scene with a preppy nautical vibe. Narwhales, anchors, and sailboats make it fun. I have a pinterest board dedicated to more nautical nursery inspiration. Please excuse the crib and background colors since these photos were actually taken in Tandy’s nursery. I’ll share the full nursery reveal when my sister posts it.

I used a tutorial from this blog to create the contoured changing pad cover.

In lieu of bumper pads, we decided to go with a decked out sheet. I used Sweet Baby Jamie’s crib sheet with piping tutorial. What to know what nearly brought me to tears on this project?

That tiny hole. After hours of work making piping and putting all of this together. I managed to somehow get fabric caught in my serger during the final pass. A little applique anchor to the rescue!

I actually think it ended up as a happy accident!

I made another peek-a-boo pleated crib skirt, and the good news is that I have all the photos to put together a tutorial. This one is very similar to Tandy’s Moroccan Crib Skirt.

It was a lot of work, but my little niece is worth it!!

Linking up to girl.inspired.

Moroccan Elephant Nursery

Are you ready for the full nursery tour? Thankfully, I have Brooke’s beautiful photos to highlight the details. You’ve seen a lot of the process as the pieces of Tandy’s nursery came together, but here it is all assembled. It's a bright, colorful, and fun place that I hope the girls will enjoy!

 We enjoy having company visit (especially my family from Texas) so this room has to double as a guest room. Thankfully we had plenty of room for the crib and extra bed. Check back to these previous posts for the before and afters.

Teaser

One more before and after before I post the overall nursery. This elephant was another garage sale snag Todd found. I added a few coats of my favorite watermelon spray paint and topped it with the birdie wall decal. The bird actually came as a test piece with our main wall decal order. It was too cute not to use!

Paint Projects

Here are a few before and after shots of some paint projects we’ve completed for the nursery. I scored this table on ebay and the basket on etsy.



I’m loving Krylon’s watermelon spray paint.



Remember this dresser Todd found for us.



He worked his magic and made this happen!

Let Your Light Shine Bright

We're wrapping up so many little projects in the nursery that I can't keep up on the blog. I should have a few more posts in the next few days if I can squeeze it in between company visiting, football games, etc.

I scored the most wonderful elephant lamp at Home Goods during my summer visit to Texas. I had to stuff it in my suitcase for the trip back and ship the lamp shade, but it was so worth it! This is the lamp shade that came with it. I started riping off the ribbon trim thinking I would use shade and improve it, but it just wasn't working. The shade was too big and when the light was on, the check pattern showed through my fabric.



Plan B, I found this lamp shade at Tuesday Morning. Not quite the right look, but the right size and shape.



A few ruffles and cute tiny pom-pom fringe later and we have ourselves a happy fix.

Crib Skirt and Ellie Pillow

It's time to start checking a few more things off the nursery to-do list. Can you believe we're roughly 7 weeks from the arrival of the new little munchkin? I chose a little peek-a-boo pleated design for the crib skirt. I can lead anyone to various tutorials or ideas if need, but I did things a bit differently for mine. Since my crib has a bottom drawer and is backed against the wall, the crib skirt only needs to hang down in front. Instead of a standard skirt with a piece that goes under the mattress, I elected to attach velcro to the mattress base and the backside of the skirt. I should be able to adjust the velcro when we need to move the mattress height. That's the idea anyway; we'll see if it works in practice.



Here is a detail shot of the skirt with ribbons where I tacked back the pleats.



We'll have a full size bed in the room as well, so I thought this fun elephant pillow would tie it all together. I found a free pattern on the Farbenmix site here. I adjusted the trunk, eye, and tail just because I can't seem to leave anything as is lately.



We should be done painting some furniture soon, so things are finally coming together! Inspiration for the pillow and crib skirt can be found on my pinterest board.