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.

DIY: Teacher Appreciation Gift

Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week! This year was the first year (obviously) that Emerson has had a teacher. We love Em's daycare and her teachers are so great. They love her so much (and we love them)! They are the most caring teachers and take such good care of Em and the other kiddos. 

To show our appreciation, I whipped up these quick and easy little gifts for them. They probably cost around $3 each and are pretty darn cute.

Supplies:

- Patterned metal buckets ($1 from Target)

- Hershey's Kisses and Hugs (I used two packs for all three)

- Scrapbook paper

- Tape

- Stick of some kind (I used shish kabob skewers that I had on hand)

- Pack of flower seeds

I just traced Emerson's hand on some colored patterned paper and cut out about five of each color. I taped the hands together with double sided tape. I then cut a circle out of coordinating paper and taped that on, as well as the skewer. After pouring in the kisses and hugs, I just popped in the skewers. The candy held the flowers upright. And that's it! 

The teachers thought they were great (I mean, who wouldn't want a bucket full of chocolate???) and they are such a quick and easy way to show some love!

Did you make anything fun for Teacher Appreciation Week? I'd love to hear!

My First Mother's Day

The past week has been quite busy around the Kane household... My birthday, Mother's Day and Teacher Appreciation Week! I had a great Birthday and Mother's Day and definitely got spoiled by my hubby and the little stinker. The hubby got me a piece of art that I had really been wanting (for my bday) and then a spa day complete with facial and massage (for mother's day). Spoiled. Too bad I couldn't schedule the spa day until the end of June because we are jam packed with events every weekend until Zach starts residency mid-June! Oh well, it will be great whenever it is! 

At daycare, they had a "Moms and Muffins" breakfast Friday morning. It was so cute! Em and I did a little DIY art project and then got our picture taken - so sweet. I love our daycare!

I also got breakfast in bed for Mother's Day! Eggs Benedict, coffee, and orange juice and a sweet homemade card (Emerson even "signed" it!). So sweet and I felt very loved this whole week. We had both sides of our families over to celebrate Mother's Day on Sunday. Unfortunately, Em was running a fever and has a little cold... she was a little clingy to me the whole day and was definitely more fussy than her usual cheerful self.  Zach took her to the doctor this morning (weird, right?) and she has some fluid behind her eardrum, most likely because of her cold. :( Poor thing. Still has a little fever and if it still hasn't broken by Wednesday, back to the doctor we go. Thankfully, she was acting more like her normal self today with Daddy - some giggles and smiles, but more snugly than her usual busy body self. I don't like it when my baby is sick!

My first Mother's Day was awesome and I definitely have a greater appreciation for my own mother (and mother-in-law) now. I don't think you can fully understand until you are a mother yourself, the sacrifice and love that your own mother has for you. It's pretty amazing and I have so much respect for such awesome women! I love you Mama! Love you Nae!

How was your Mother's Day? Do anything exciting or fun? I hope it was filled with lots of yummy good, some good sleep and as little poopy diapers as possible! :)

Seven Months

Time for a seven month update! I told you I was slooooowwwwwly catching up! Here it is!

Herringbone Quilt for Emerson

It's only been over a year since I worked on this project... sheesh! Last year towards the end of tax season I got the major nesting bug. Like whoa. I hadn't done anything for the nursery yet besides gather my overall inspiration. I really wanted to make a quilt for Emerson and I loved the quilt from my inspiration nursery (see it here). I also wanted to do something really easy - those are my favorite kind of quilts. I like having something creative to do that isn't overly complicated. That I can still work on while I watch my "stories." 

I used this tutorial, which was super easy to follow. I made this crib-sized (or close to it), so about 42" x 52". 

Fabric:

1/4 yard each of the patterned fabrics (I did not use the gray pictured above)

1 yard of white fabric

1/2 yard of solid aqua fabric

1 1/2 yards for orange/coral polka dot fabric (used for back)

(I think overall I spent about $50 on fabric at a local quilting store)

Fabric Cuts: 

15 squares each of the patterned fabrics (ish)

60 squares of white (ish)

The method used for cutting the triangles was so easy it is a major "DOH!" moment once you realize how awesome it is. Instead of cutting and then matching up a zillion triangles, you just keep the squares intact, place them right sides together and pin. Then, from one corner to the other draw a diagonal line with a pencil and ruler. From there you can just sew a 1/4 inch seam on each side of the line. Once you sew on each side, you just cut down the line and now you have two new squares, but made up of two different patterned triangles! Genius! 

As far as layout goes, I used the "organized chaos" method. No official pattern, I just started laying down the triangle/squares making sure that no two patterns were right next to each other and were somewhat evenly spaced.

Helpful hint for keeping the layout preserved while you are sewing... we (and by we, I mean my Mom and Me - she is the quilting queen!) set out the squares on top of the backing, then rolled up the backing with the squares (another genius idea from mi madre!). It keeps everything compact and in order so you don't have to keep it set out on the floor while you sew. Also very helpful if you need to move it, but don't want to take apart your layout! 

I sewed the squares together horizontally first and then sewed the long rows together vertically, if that makes sense. Then came the ironing. Lots and lots of ironing...

My mom had the top and bottom quilted together by another lady that specializes in quilting. I had her keep it simple and quilt "in the ditch." My mom did the aqua binding to finish it off!

I absolutely love how it turned out and it works so well in Em's nursery! I hope Em loves it for years to come!

DIY Rustic Console Table

Hi guys! I'm back with an awesome DIY for you today! I've been slowly wanting to update our IKEA furniture to more "grown up" and non-IKEA looking furniture. I mean, there comes a point in your life where you start to do that, right? IKEA is great and affordable with modern and minimalistic design, but their furniture definitely doesn't last forever - at least not in my experience. To be fair, we have moved four times in six years... which can be pretty rough on furniture. Anyways, it's time, and the first piece to get changed out (and by changed out, I mean got moved to the dining room and is now being used as our buffet) was the Kallax shelving unit. 

I saw this console table on Liz Marie Blog a while ago and fell in love with it (the actual plans can now be found here). At first, there were no plans for the console, so I went over to Ana White, my favorite source for DIY woodworking projects, and she happened to already have plans for a Rustic X Console Table! We've used Ana's plans before on our end table with success so we followed her plans again for the console table. 

Zach was awesome and built this whole thing all by himself during the last two weeks of busy season. He's definitely getting in as many DIY projects as he can before residency starts! He did such a good job!!! Our family and friends that have come over think that we bought it at a store! It's that good. So thankful for my handy husband!

The plans were easy to follow and he finished the table pretty quickly - over the course of a week, working at night after work and on the weekend. We made some modifications so that it would fit in our space. That's the nice thing with Ana's plans - it's not too hard to adjust them to customize the pieces for your own space. 

All together, I think it cost a little less than $100 for lumber and supplies (we didn't have anything on hand). Such a great price for a large console table that is sturdy as a rock! We used one coat of Minwax Wood Stain in Special Walnut because we loved how the knots in the wood came through. Then, we did two coats of semi-gloss polyurethane on top to protect the wood. 

To say we love it would be an understatement! It's so awesome and I'm so proud of my husband that he made it from scratch! 

Emerson's Six Month Photos

A few days before Emerson was six months old we had her photos taken by Tami with Lorene Photography. I was referred by a friend and couldn't be happier with the photos! We had an hour long session and Em did so well for the first 45 minutes or so. We got lots of good smiles and poses. It was so much fun! Em loved the fluffy pink carpet. We also tried to recreate her six-day-old photo with the tutu and the gray background, but it was during the last 15 minutes and the little stinker was not having any of it.  

I would highly recommend Tami if you are in the Seattle/Snohomish area! So many good ones, it's hard to pick a favorite, but I LOVE the ones with the fluffy pink carpet.