Showing posts with label beginning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beginning. Show all posts

Saturday, August 10, 2013

I'm back!

This past year was one of the busiest of my life. I graduated university, finished renovations, worked a new full time job and prepared for a new little one, who arrived July 15! So, now I am one maternity leave for the next year (yeah canada!) and I am able to update on all the projects I have completed this past year. Yes I have still done a lot, but just haven't been able to blog about it. I'm so excited to share all my new projects... I've attached a little photo preview to get you all a bit excited... Stay tuned :)

 
 

 

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Little Dude's Room

I have been wanting to blog about my little dude's bedroom for quite a while. He is now 2 and a half, so no longer a nursery, but a big boy room. This was a big project and was a lot of work. We had just bought our house and there was still a lot to do. In this room, we had to pull the carpets and baseboards, the room was basically gutted. We were on a very tight budget for this job, after recently purchasing a home and expecting our first child as a young family.

Hubby started by replacing the carpet and baseboards. He went discs end of the roll place and got some carpet a bit cheaper, which hubby installed himself. He also managed to replace the baseboards himself. Then we needed to paint. This was one of the largest project in the room. I had this idea to do big squares and was inspired by colors on all the baby stuff I had gotten!

After we had colors picked out we wanted to do bedding and curtains. With the help of my mom we came up with some great ideas. We went to Ikea and bought a long beige curtain. We also purchased baby duvet, so we just needed to make a cover. When I was looking around at different bedding sets, they were all super cute, but, they were so expensive and included lots of things,such as bumper pads, that I wasn't going to use. Anyways, we also went to the fabric store and bought some fabrics. We brought along our paint chips and choose fabrics with the same sorts of colors. We weren't that concerned about what the patterns were, because the colors would tie it all together.

My mom took the long curtain from Ikea and cut it to a good length for the window, then with the rest She made the front of the duvet. For both, she cut bits of the colorful fabrics and sewed them in strips. We had also purchased a softer fabric, which we used for the back of the duvet. We used some big bright buttons to fasten it closed on the bottom. With the scraps she made some little pillows for the glider chair.

As for the furniture, The crib was a gift from the Inlaws, and we put an old bookshelf in the room, that my dad had made for my mom, years ago. Lastly, we looked everywhere for a dresser/change table. Everything was so expensive. I waited until babies r us had a big sale. When we went they were clearing out a lot of stuff. The one I got was more than 50% off the original price and then the guy loading it in our van took a chip out of the bottom, so we got it even cheaper. It was a great deal!

When we were traveling in the mountains shortly after little dude was born, we found these stuffed animal deer heads. If you can imagine, they were kind of cute. After much debating, we bought one (which we call ray). This however, turned into a bit of a joke, and now we also have a bear hear and a polar bear rug... Overall, I still love his room and like that it is a bit different than other babies room; there is not a "theme" per say, but, just colors that we liked.

 

Monday, April 23, 2012

What came first the crafty or the cheap?

What can first the chicken or the egg? - this is another one of those questions...

Am I crafty and therefore doing it myself saves me money, or do I save money because I think I can do everything just as well without spending a ton of money? I am an idea person, I always see things, often online, sometimes shopping, or at a friends house, and I'm pretty sure that I can reproduce it. My parents instilled a bit too much "you can do whatever you set your mind to" in me. Etsy is the worst for me. I see things and decide I can make it just as well myself, so I can not possibly justify spending so much money on it... It does generally comes out slightly cheaper, but has taken 10 times as much time as I guessed. My hourly wage ends up being like 10 cents. Not very often do I do something that I think wow that was easy... Anyways, it doesn't really matter what came first.. Truth is "My name is Sara and I am a cheapy crafter."