Love Letters by Jen

Now that we have revealed our nursery, I want to "zoom in" on one of my favorite details in the room. I am IN LOVE with the letters over Noah's crib that spell out his name. They could not be more perfect!!! My friend Jen, owns an Etsy shop, Love Letters By Jen, where she makes these letters completely custom! I sent her pictures of the fabrics we were using in the nursery and she made a set of letters to compliment them perfectly. The "O" is handpainted to look identical to my funky chevron fabric! The little cars on the "A" match my car fabric perfectly in style and color.

I could not get over how perfectly the letters fit in the nursery!

Here's a little more info about Jen's shop! She sells customizable letters to display on the wall or on a shelf. She can create anything you'd like to display: names, initials, or even special dates. Completely customizable, completely unique!

All the letters you see below and listed in her shop are completed orders and are examples of what can be purchased. Each order is made to order, so you can get creative or share your ideas and Jen will do the work for you! Letters are $10 per letter for up to 5 letters and $5 per letter for each additional letter.

 

You've got to check out her shop: Love Letters by Jen!

Our Little Man's "Garage" Nursery

We have been working on our little man's nursery ever since we found out we were having a boy!

Back in June, my wonderful sister in law got us off to a great start by painting the nursery for us! It was such an amazing surprise gift!


We started thinking of ideas for the nursery and came up with a Vintage Car/Garage theme! We have had so much putting things together and we are finally finished!!!

Check out the pictures of the finished nursery...

Here's a list of where we found and purchased things:

FURNITURE:
Dresser: Flea Market Find that the hubs repainted
Corner Shelf: Flea Market Find that the hubs repainted
Crib: Target
Chair: Thrift Store find that we had reupholstered
Ottoman: Thrift Store find that I recovered
Bassinet: Antique Find
Coca-Cola Locker: Flea Market Find
Little Rocking Chair: HomeGoods
Rug: HomeGoods
Standing Lamp: HomeGoods

DECOR:
Pegboard and Baskets: Home Depot
Burlap Car: Made by Aunt Blair!
Speed Limit Signs: Flea Market and Antique store finds
Model Cars: Family hand me downs, antique finds
Mobile: Made by Nana Moss (Aunt Blair's mom)!
Letters over crib: Made by a good friend, Jen B!
Giant "N": Flea Market Find
Tire Clock: eBay
Car and Chevron fabrics: Fabric.com (The ottoman and crib skirt were made with car fabric, changing pad was recovered in the chevron)
Curtains: WalMart black out curtains

I think I mentioned just about everything! We are so excited to meet our little man in just a few more weeks!!!

Baby Fan!

 There are a few things we would love to change about our house... some big expensive things and some smaller and cheaper things. One thing that I have been itching to change for a while is our kitchen lighting fixture. Our previous fixture was a large florescent light shown below. Nothing crazy wrong with it, just a large clear blob that caught every bug and put it on display :)

The before pic below isn't immediately before, in the excitement of it all, I didn't think to snap a pic...so this is a little outdated...

BEFORE:

Over Labor Day weekend, I saw that Home Depot was having an online sale and I started looking through the lighting section! I found an awesome baby fan that is made for small rooms. We thought it would be awesome in the kitchen! It is only 24 inches in diameter, so it is tiny and I LOVE IT!

The hubs worked really hard on hanging it perfectly in our kitchen...

AFTER:

I think it is so cute! Since it took away our large florescent light, it definitely changed the lighting in the kitchen. Ofcourse I knew this would happen but had to do some readjusting of lamps so that lighting is evenly distributed again :)

I'm so happy with the change and with the Labor Day Sale, it was a steal! :)

Living Room Shelf Makeover!

Last week the hubs and I decided to make a big change in our living room. The wooden shelves that sit on each side of our fireplace were in need of a change. We had been flirting with the idea for a while and finally bit the bullet last week and painted them! I never realized how much they pulled your eye away from the rest of the room until they were painted. Now they blend in so nicely and I love the change! Check out the before and after pictures below!

BEFORE: 

AFTER:

 

Corner Shelf Makeover

We found this old corner shelf at the local flea market and snatched it up for $20. It needed a lot of work but we thought it was worth it for that price! We thought it would be a perfect piece for the nursery!

Here it is before:


We began by scraping all of the paper off the shelf...


Gabe gave it a good cleaning...


Then he painted it...


Then he moved it...


Now it's in the nursery ready to be loaded with fun goodies!


I can't wait to show it to you in the nursery reveal!

DIY Garden Stakes

For Father's Day, I made my dad some garden stakes to mark the plants in his garden. I saw the idea on the Silhouette Blog to make plant labels using wooden stakes and vinyl.

Supplies I used:

• Wooden fencing-- I found some small wooden fencing at Wal-Mart
• Black Vinyl and Black Duct Tape sheets
• Polyurethane Spray
• Silhouette Machine

I used my Silhouette to cut out the names of each plant in Black Vinyl. I ran out of vinyl half way through and used Duct Tape sheets to finish the project. I was so surprised that the Duct Tape sheets worked so well in the Silhouette. The letters weren't as easy to transfer as vinyl letters but it still works.

Once all the letters were on the posts, I sprayed them with Polyurethane to make them water proof.


Here they are completed!



Here they are in my dad's garden!

Nursery Dresser Makeover

We have been working on our nursery a lot lately and it has required a few furniture makeovers. A few years ago we bought a dresser from the local flea market and left it "as is" in our guest bedroom. I have been wanting to make it over for a while but have just held off.

Once we found out we were pregnant, we started moving some furniture around and decided that the dresser would be perfect in the nursery.

This past weekend, the hubby gave the dresser a makeover and it looks incredible!!!

Here is the dresser BEFORE:


Here it is AFTER:

He taped off the top so that it would stay as it was...painted the drawers gray and the rest of the dresser white. We reused the original hardware. I am SO in love with it! Very masculine but whimsy enough for a nursery!

And a shot of my cutie working on it:
 


You will have to stay tuned to see it in the nursery! We have another furniture piece that we are working on. I am also making a crib skirt and a valance! Can't wait to show it all to you!

Sweet Southern Baby Shower

My best friend and neighbor is having a precious baby girl later this summer and we threw a baby shower for her earlier this month!

My amazing co-host, Sarah, came up with an awesome theme of a southern shower. We decided to have it at 7 PM on a Saturday and serve desserts that are popular here in the south!

Most of our decor had a southern vibe as well, using burlap and mason jars.

Check out the pics I snapped of the decor and invitations! We had a blast!

Sarah cut out the invitations using her Silhouette Cameo....they are shaped like mason jars! I printed out the details on cardstock and we glued them in place and tied some twine around the top!

 This little station was set up for our shower activities....we had diapers for writing messages for those late night diaper changes! We also had a calendar for our guests to guess when Savannah will arrive!

We put this burlap "baby" banner over the buffet in the dining area...we had a mini candy buffet there as well.

On the mantel we used my "Celebrate" burlap banner and a bassinet to hold all of the gifts!

We served drinks in mason jars! Sarah made little tags (also cut by the Silhouette) and wrote a sweet southern name on each one!

 

I didn't ever take a pic of our food but our menu consisted of:

• Pecan Tarts
• Peach Cobbler with Vanilla Icecream
• Moonpie Banana Pudding
• A Veggie Tray
• Pimento cheese and pita chips

We also served sparkling strawberry lemonade, sweet tea, and Coke in glass bottles :)

We had so much fun putting everything together and shower itself was so much fun!!!