Maternity Photos (One Year Later)

So this may be a little weird, but I realized I forgot to share with you guys my maternity photos! We only got them taken about a year ago... :) If you follow me on facebook, then you probably saw when I posted a link to them (you can see them here). But, I also want to share them on the ol' bloggy blog since this is my little diary. :) We used Katia Hudson (she also did Emerson's newborn photos) and she did an amazing job! We love how they turned out so much! Check her out if you are in the Centralia/Olympia area - she's awesome.

DIY Latch Board for Emerson

I'm back with a quick and fun little DIY project for all the little ones out there! I first saw this idea a couple years back on my favorite blog, Young House Love. At first when I saw it, I had no idea what it was - a bunch of hinges and latches on a board? Huh? Well, that was before I had a kid. And now that Emerson is here, I will do anything and everything to keep her occupied. New things are always welcome since she has the attention span of about 1.5 minutes (please share any other cool ideas you have for 11+ month olds)!

STEP 1: PICK OUR YOUR HINGES

After work one day I picked up Em and headed straight to Home Depot to pick out some latches. I spent so long in the aisle (Em fell asleep) picking out a good assortment of different latches, hinges, and handles in varying finishes. I basically tried to find the cheapest ones (some of those are expensive!) that had a lot of movement, would be fun to un-hook/re-hook, and weren't too sharp for Emerson to use. I think I spent about $30-40 in total on latches. 

STEP 2: BUILD YOUR PLATFORM

We had some leftover wood scraps laying around from our headboard and console table projects, so I commissioned Zach to build me a little platform after laying out all the hinges and latches where I wanted them to get a good idea of how big I wanted the platform. I think it ended up being about 2 feet x 1 foot.

STEP 3: SPRAY PAINT (OR PAINT) YOUR BOARD

I'm kind of obsessed with this color lately - Tropical Rain Forest from Valspar. It's bright and vibrant and almost like a kelly green, but with more teal. I love it.  A couple coats and it was good to go! Maybe we should have just left it as a platform for Em! :)

STEP 4: LAYOUT & ARRANGE YOUR HINGES

Layout your hinges to get a good idea of what you want the board to look like before you start screwing in everything. As you can see, I played around with it quite a bit. Also, make sure to keep all the nails and screws close to the hinges so you don't lose them or get them mixed up!

STEP 5: SCREW IN YOUR HINGES & LATCHES

Pretty self explanatory. I started using the power drill, but it was running out of batteries (always happens right when I want to work on a project). Using a regular screwdriver seemed to work better, though since it didn't split the wood as much. I added a little piece of pom pom trim I had leftover from Emerson's pom pom curtains I made for her nursery to add a little texture. I also added the E wrapped in twine which is actually a pin on letter for Christmas Stockings, but it was a little too heavy for our stockings to hold the weight. It fits perfect on her board!

STEP 6: ENJOY!

Emerson seems to like it (off and on when she is in the mood). Her favorite part is the doorstop. She loves flicking it to make it go Boing! and after each time she claps! It's so cute. She also loves the wheel. I love that it is substantial and will take a lot of wear and tear over the years. Check out my instagram feed for a cute video of Em having fun with her Latch Board!

Have you made any fun baby toys lately? Or, do you have any suggestions for awesome toys that your baby loves? One of the reasons I wanted to make this, is because it's made of non-traditional items, and these days it seems like that is all Emerson wants to play with! She loves the bottom drawer in the kitchen filled with (safe for baby) kitchen utensils! It's her favorite. So I'm hoping she will like this for years to come!

Nine Months

I'm so behind, that Emerson took her first solo steps tonight!!! She's currently 10 months old (almost 11 months). The most she took was six steps in a row! We'll see how long it takes for her to really get the hang of it and then she'll be unstoppable - and we'll be in trouble!

But anyways... I'm slowly catching up with my monthly posts. Emerson turned nine months on 5.25.14 and she was 19 lbs 12 oz and 29 1/2 inches! Still in the 98th percentile for height! Here's some of the fun stuff she was up to this month...

DIY Tufted Headboard

Before we got our new king bed I wanted to update our queen headboard. A few years back, my mother in law and husband DIY'd a tufted headboard for our master bedroom. It was awesome! Here's a reminder on what it looked like...

The cream fabric was great for a while, especially since it was easily interchangeable with different colored duvet covers. But, I was ready for a change. My friend, Kim, had just gotten a similar headboard from Wayfair that I really liked, plus, I had seen a similar DIY version on Sarah M Dorsey Designs (she does the best DIY projects!). Since we already had a good frame, I thought we would give it an upgrade. 

Instead of fabric, I used curtain panels from Target - another tip I got from Sarah! I used two panels similar to these and got them for about $17 each. So, less than $50 we were able to have plenty of fabric to cover our existing headboard, plus add arms. If we weren't going to add the arms, we probably would have only needed panel.

I won't go into detail on how we did it since we basically just had to recover buttons and then put the new curtain panels over the top of the existing fabric. The arms were a little tricky, but Sarah's tutorial was really helpful. 

We also added the brass nailhead trim. It was a pain to get enough matching nailhead tacks - I think I made half a dozen trips to Lowe's to get enough little packs (of about 25 each) to have enough to cover both arms... not an easy or quick process. But, I love the way it looks!

I love how it turned out and honestly, I was a little sad when we got our new bed that we would have to get a new headboard because I loved this one so much! It didn't move far though... now it's in our guest room! 

We also made a headboard for our new bed, which hopefully I will be sharing soon! Still need to get some good pictures of it though... :)