Better Late Than Never

The collage above Baby Z's crib has finally been hung. Please ignore how crappy the photos in this post are, I was battling sunset and a general I-don't-know-how-to-use-my-camera-ness.  

Seriously. It's been how long since I posted the first DIY nursery art project? At least it's made it up on the wall before Baby Z's birth. In all fairness, I wasn't sure capable of hanging each individual piece so I had to wait until I could wrangle the husband for the task. And with all the other "nesting" projects in motion, the collage was just placed on the side for a while. 

*Speaking of the husband, he has graciously pointed out that I've been calling it a "mural" when it is in fact a "collage". My bad. I didn't graduate from the University of Michigan with a degree in English for nothing folks! 

Since it's been so long, here is a little recap of the DIY art projects that came together to create the collage. 

The wall letters:

The button art:

And the embroidery hoop art:

All made (mostly) with things I had at home. 

To start, we laid out the art and decided on grouping/placement. You can always adjust this later as necessary, it just helps to know what you are aiming for before attacking the hanging process. 

Then I traced each piece on paper and cut the shapes out. This is helpful for two reasons: 

1) You can tape the "pieces" to the wall and play around with the arrangement without the damage and permanence of hanging. Getting a visual for how things will be laid out is extremely helpful. I have my good friend Stefanie to thank for this. *Again, ignore the terrible photo. 

2) You can put the nail directly through the paper and tear the paper away. This way you avoid the tedious job of measuring, guessing, marking the wall, etc. 

I wasn't 100% sure that the colors and styles of the various art projects would work together once they were hung up on the wall. I was ready for it to be a total failure. I have to say though, for how cheap each project was and how quickly I put them together, I'm completely and totally pleased with the little wall collage Baby Z will soon be looking up at.  

Pretty Little Dividers

Closet dividers: not 100% necessary but too adorable to pass up. Especially when they end up being so cheap to make. 

There are several ways to make your own closet dividers and many tutorials out there. My only problem was that I have this contraption in the nursery closet: 

The whole hanging contraption is attached to the wall in numerous spots. There may be a way to remove the hanging rod, but I wasn't brave enough to attempt it. Therefore, DIY closet dividers like these or these were out of the question because there would be no way to place them around the rod. I wanted to make closet dividers like these but I couldn't find any ready-made dividers that were affordable and I didn't feel like ordering them online. So I took a quick trip to Joann's for inspiration and found these bad boys for $1 a pop:

Since these hearts were hung with twine it would be easy to just loop them around the curtain rod, avoiding any unnecessary damage/work. Once I got them home, it was a matter of removing the twine from each heart so that I could paint and Mod Podge them. 

I painted the sides of the wooden hearts with the green paint I had leftover from the DIY nursery wall letters. I chose to cover both sides of the wooden hearts with scrapbook paper. If you don't have enough scrapbook paper or would prefer to only cover one side, at this point you would paint one side of the wooden hearts as well. 

Once the paint dried, I traced each heart on the back of the scrapbook paper. 

If you are using any wooden shapes, make sure you trace each shape separately on the scrapbook paper. When I was ready to glue the scrapbook paper to the wooden letters, I realized all the wooden hearts were different sizes. It was no big deal, all I had to do was trim the paper pieces down as I glued them, but knowing this beforehand would have saved me even more time. I used Mod Podge to glue the pieces of scrapbook paper to both sides of the wooden hearts. I was able to use the leftover scrapbook paper from the nursery wall letters project and save even more money. 

Once the sides were dry, I placed the # stickers on each wooden heart for the necessary size (0-3, 3-6, 6-12, 12-18, 18 & up). At one point I ran out of the necessary numbers so I had to cut some stickers and do some rearranging. So if you run out of numbers, don't get discouraged and immediately go out and buy more - try to cut and rearrange them first. Then I put two coats of Mod Podge on both sides to make sure the scrapbook paper and stickers would not peel off. One coat probably would have sufficed but for some reason...2 coats always makes me feel better when it comes to Mod Podge (it's weird, I know). 

Easy Peasy and Oh So Cute! Once everything dried, I looped the twine back through the wooden hearts and hung the hearts in the closet. 

Total cost of the project? Just the $7 + tax I spent on the wooden hearts and the # stickers - heck ya! 

I've Bin Crazy

Nesting has officially taken over. As if I wasn't a neat freak already, now I need to organize and reorganize everything in the house. This week I attacked the linen closet. A small feat, yes, but it has momentarily appeased my inner clean freak. 

This is what it looked like pre-organization session. It's looked like this since we've moved in - I've completely ignored the poor thing.

After a trip to Target for clearance/sale bins and a trip to Joann for some medium sized tags, things looked much better. I took a few minutes to separate the linens into their appropriate bins and then labeled the tags and attached them with some leftover twine from this project. 

Now the husband doesn't have to wonder where everything goes and I don't have to spend the night giving him the stink eye. He says I've gone "bin crazy". Personally, nothing makes me happier than everything in its rightful place in a bin. I'd put everything in a bin if I could. And when Baby Z is old enough, she'll be able to read and learn where everything goes (yes, my child will be as neurotic as I am). I'm still pondering what I'll do with those robes in the upper left corner. They're so bulky and we never use them, maybe I'll be able to part with them eventually. 

The bins are the most expensive part of this project, but if you can snatch some on clearance or even find some at your local thrift store - even better. It's a quick organizational redo that everyone can feel good about. The best part is the reusable tags. They can be flipped over in case the contents of the bins ever change or completely replaced if need be (since I chose not to write anything on the actual bins). So when we no longer need "baby linens", I can change the contents and the labels. There's also still plenty of room at the bottom of the closet for additional bins (tee hee) or maybe a mini vac. 

I'm on to obsess about the next organizational project :)  

Persistence

Every day I tell him to get out of our bedroom. 

Every day he finds a new way in. 

He's even figured out how to pry certain doors open. 

When I tell him to get out, he gets ugly.

And threatens to eat his appendages. 

Then he digs his head in the blankets as though that makes him invisible. 

Telling him to get out breaks my heart every time. Just look at that face.

And...then...he tries to ignore me and go back to the same spot.