Painted Wall Quote

Who needs vinyl when you have a 50 cent jar of paint? Ok, vinyl is much cooler but this is what I painted on my wall, just using acrylic paint.

I found a font that I liked online, practiced drawing it on a sheet of paper, and hung the paper on the wall above where I wanted it. The first side came out great, but the other side must be a glossy finish because the white paint kept dripping. It was frustrating, but it turned out good.

The curtain shown is the only finished side I've done but I'm almost done and then I will be posting my ruffled curtains tutorial.

Also, I have been singing The Beatles all day. I have a feeling that will happen more often since I will be seeing it everyday!

Mod Podged Coasters

This is a super simple mod podge project. I found glass candle bases at an overstock store. I mod podged the paper to the underside, and let it show through. On the very bottom I did a very generous coat of the mod podge in case of any spills. I didn't do it for these ones, but a felt piece glued to the bottom would make a nice addition to the project, to further protect your tables.

Cloth Height Charts

I was stuck in a recliner for awhile on bed rest, and I wanted to make a height chart for my baby boy that I was waiting for. I had been taking up a little bit of hand embroidery, and I thought that a cloth one would be perfect, and I could work on it right then.


This is the first one that I did. Click on the picture so you can zoom in to see it better. I was allowed to do stuff while sitting. So I cut the fabric, while sitting. I then ironed the edges under, while sitting. I cut fabric for the tree, while sitting.

I then stitched on the tree trunk and treetop, while sitting, what else? My sister helped with those, while sitting next to me. Those and the clouds are all done with a very simple running stitch. We also added a bird, he was stitched with a running stitch but then I used some back stitching for his legs, a french knot for an eye, and the satin stitch for the beak.

For the lines and numbers going up the side, I put the cloth in an embroidery hoop to make it easier. I measured and marked the lines with a tape measure and stitched them with a split stitch.

For his name I wanted it to be bigger and more special, so I used a bold chain stitch.

I didn't worry about finishing off the edges because most of them were stitched over at some point. For the top and bottom I basically hemmed them with hot glue and slid the dowels in. The top just has yarn tied to it.

I showed off my masterpiece at work, and my boss wanted one for his little girl. I told him he was crazy because it took me about 6 hours to make this one. He offered to pay me for one hourly so I made this next one.

I did this one a little bit differently. I knew I didn't want to stitch all of the lines, that was the most time consuming, so I bought a fabric paint pen.

With using a fabric pen, my edges wouldn't be finished as well, so I ran them through the sewing machine first.

The design is also majorly different, I had fun cutting out the pieces and arranging them. I pinned them all down and started on the bottom pieces first and continued to the top layer of pieces until everything was sewn on. Sometimes I had to move stuff around to get to the pieces underneath. With this one, I used too many little pieces and that was really time consuming.

I did a tiny bit of embroidery on the ladybugs, using a french knot for the spots and antennae ends. I made a long stitch to separate the wings and for the length of the antennae.

Once everything was sewn on I used the fabric pen to make the lines and numbers. This one was shorter because the girl it was for was a lot taller to begin with than my unborn child so I made it to start at 18 inches. She also had a less of a chance of reaching six feet, so it is a few inches shorter there too.

On this one I sewed the hems for the dowels, because if they were to fall apart in years to come I didn't want to fix them.

I still did the embroidered name, using the chain stitch as before.

With the two different versions that I learned from, my next one will be even simpler by using a simple design like the tree and by using the paint pen. Thanks for reading!

The Wild Olive is a good place to learn the basic embroidery stitches if you want to make a fancy one of your own. Thanks for reading!

Linked to:
Somewhat Simple

The (Mostly) Finished Nursery

With the first baby on the way, we have been working for months on decorating and setting up the nursery. It was so fun to plan for this mural by drawing on the walls. It was only with pencil, of course!


All of the accents painted on, the clouds, sun, and tree are all painted with acrylic paints, I found that the Joann's Craft Smart brand worked the best. My husband did most of the painting, I only did the clouds and tree trunk. He also stenciled the sun and tree.


The curtains I made, the valance was actually hand-sewn with embroidery thread while my sewing machine was broken and I was couch-bound on bed rest. I appreciate my sewing machine a billion times more now!




My favorite part of the room is the shelf with the cloud, I wanted the shelf to match somehow, and figured that making it a part of a cloud should work.



The height chart is another product of bed rest, with the exception of the cloth sewn on, it is all hand embroidered. It took forever, but I learned some neat stitching techniques for it. I'll be posting more on all of my embroidery projects later.

There's still a few more things that I would like to do, who knows if they will ever get done, but I have a few things on my wish list. One thing is to paint clouds on the ceiling. (Not an option for me and my big belly, I'd fall!) I would also like to paint glow in the dark stars on those clouds so that they were only visible at night. I would like all the main fabrics in the room to match a little better, so a new bumper and bed skirt that match the curtain and height chart are on the to-do list eventually too.