Ten Months

So... I have a one year old now. Yeah.... so crazy! I can't believe how fast this past year has gone - so many changes and so much fun. Now it's time to force myself to finish up these last couple months of Monthly Updates for Emerson! I can't stop now! Must. Finish. All. So here we go!

DIY Deep Diamond Tufted Headboard

Remember a couple months back when I shared my headboard inspiration with you guys? Well the time has finally come to share the finished product! A while ago I shared our gray tufted headboard that we DIY'd last fall to go with our queen bed. But since we got our new Cal King bed (as you can see it fits just right in our master bedroom...) we needed to come up with a headboard that wouldn't break the bank. The size and style we wanted would have probably cost over $1,000 if we were to buy the headboard. After DIY'ing the gray headboard, we knew we could make another one, so we made some plans. 

Full tutorial and more pictures after the jump...

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... :)

Eight Months

She's ten months old now, so I guess that means I should probably do an 8 month update! I'm so behind... I should have known this was inevitable!

Six Years.

Friday was our 6 year anniversary! We don't usually make a big deal about it, but we usually try and do something nice around this time. This year, it felt like we were celebrating for a week! It was kind of awesome! 

Part I - I had planned a date night last Sunday to go out to dinner and a movie because with residency starting and not knowing Zach's schedule, I wanted to make sure we at least did something before he got busy. Auntie Jenn and Brian came over to watch Em (there were only minor tears this time) and we went out to celebrate at Melrose Grill in downtown Renton for dinner. Melrose Grill is a delicious steak place and it did not disappoint! A little spendy, but we were celebrating! We both got the Ribeye and it was so good. Probably the best steak I've ever had. We split a bottle of wine and even got dessert. So fancy! It had been so long since we'd been out to a really nice dinner. Such a treat. Then we went to see 22 Jump Street and it was hilarious. I loved it. CT and Jonah Hill definitely have the Bromance thing down. :)

Part II - Zach had planned to go the Mariners game on Friday night (our actual anniversary) so my Mom came over to watch Em and got her Emerson fix. :) It had been forever since we'd been to a game and it also happened to be Fireworks Night! I'm not a baseball fan at all but I do like to go to a game every once and a while. It was fun sitting out in the bleacher seats, people watching, eating greasy ballpark food and after the game (they won!), watching the fireworks! It was nice that we got to see some fireworks too, since we will probably be at home on 4th of July with Em in bed. Haha. Or maybe we'll get adventurous and see how long she can last out and about... TBD... :) It was such a great night! 

So much fun celebrating how far we've come over the past 10 years of knowing each other. I love the life we have grown together and our little family. Here's to many many more years of love, fun, and most importantly, laughter! :) I love you mister.

Emerson's Weekly Photo Project

Hey guys! You may have noticed that in my Monthly Emerson posts there are weekly/monthly photos at the beginning of each. And, if you follow me on Instagram you probably notice my weekly and monthly photos of Miss Emerson too (#weeklyemerson and #monthlyemerson). I decided to organize them all in one place on the blog too (in case you can't get enough). It's just so much fun to see how she has changed over the weeks and months. Check out the new page here (you also can find a link on the main blog page - see below).

And here's some more of my favorites!

DIY: Instagram Collage Prints

Hey guys! Wow it has been a crazy month in the Kane household! We crammed all our travel for the year into the past four weeks before Zach starts residency TOMORROW!! We had such a great time on our travels - camping on Lake Cushman, medical school graduation in Arizona, family reunion in Bend - but let me just say that this Mama is exhausted. With a capital E.

I just wanted to share a little project that is one of my favorites and is so easy to make (and cheap too!) 

Last fall I was itching to get all my Instagram photos on display. But there are so many! What to do? What to do? I saw this post and this post on Pinterest and was relieved there was an easy (and cheap!) way to make a collage in Picasa that you could order straight from Costco. 

First, I figured out how many pictures I wanted on each collage. I liked the look of the inspiration that was six photos across and nine photos down. With the photos about 2x2 inches, that meant that my collage needed to be 20x30. 

In Picasa, I selected the photos I wanted to include in the collage and then hit the button on the top left "Create Photo Collage" (it looks like a little mountain scape photo with a plus sign in the top left corner). From there I adjusted the grid spacing between photos and the overall size of the collage. When I had it just right, I hit "Create Collage".

To order the prints, I used Costco Photo Center online. You can order 16x20 prints for $5.99 each(!). I uploaded the collage and ordered just like a regular photo. So easy and a good price for so many photos!

I got three of these IKEA frames in white for only $3.99 each. Total cost for all three frames and prints was about $27 ($9 each). Not bad! 

I love these so much. They are so fun to look at - every time I take a look I see a new photo I haven't noticed in a while and it brings back a great memory. Emerson loves them too. She loves seeing all the different pictures - always something to look at!

PS. If you want to see more of my photos, find me on Instagram (@mykane). I'm kind of obsessed. :)

Upholstered Gray Chair... Finally Done!

Well, almost two years after I purchased this chair, it's finally finished. Stick-a-fork-in-it finished. Wait, you say. Didn't you already finish this chair (ala this post)? Well, yes. Yes, I did. Almost... We finished everything but the detail on the front of the arms and around the back along the edge. 

I finally got my act together and decided to go with some nail head trim. The original had some wood detailing on the front of the arms, but it was damaged and irreparable. The arms are too curved and unique in shape to try and recreate the wood piece myself, so nail heads it was! I'd done nail head trim before on our Queen Headboard (post forthcoming) with individual brads I got from Lowe's. I had seen this nailhead trim at JoAnn's which looked much easier to use since all the brads were connected. Um, no brainer! And with a 50% off coupon on my JoAnn's app (it is my goal to never pay full price for anything at JoAnn's or Michaels!) it was a great deal. 

The trim has actual nails every five brads so there is much less time spent nailing and the brads are also evenly spaced, which makes it much much easier and faster to put on the chair. It's also somewhat bendable, which helped for the front arm detail. I just molded it to the shape I wanted and made sure to nail in the brads where they would stay put. Easy peasy. 

If you look closely, you can see the difference between the trim and the brads that you actually nail in, but not unless you look really closely, which no one probably will. :)

I'm glad I finally finished this bad boy! Such a handsome chair (for my handsome husband). Good to know there is another alternative out there besides having to nail in 100 individual brads!

See this post for a DIY in pictures of how we reupholstered the chair and this post on how we picked the fabric.