It’s another one of those days where my brain is on overdrive and I just dump the things I’m thinking about here. Ready? Here goes!

1. We made a trip to Ikea on Monday (thank god for 3 day weekends!). It was only the second time we’ve gone since Easton was born, so it was nice be back in the land of Expedits.

While there we restocked our frame collection for another gallery wall and bought some ledges for book storage in the playroom. We grabbed quite a few of these new (at least to me, it’s been a few months) glossy gray Ribba frames.

(via Ikea)

I’ve made it my own resolution to hang these things ASAP so they don’t sit around driving me nuts. But…

2. It’s Pinterest Challenge time again, so I have an excuse to be unfocused! Probably for the first time since these things started, I know exactly what I want to make… a play tent for Easton. Wish me luck as I buy dowels and sheets this weekend…

(from Twirl via Pinterest)

3. We’ve been behind on posting Easton’s monthly laundry basket pictures, but we have them hanging around on a memory card. I’ll get them all caught up on one post soon.

Yeah he doesn’t even fit laying in that basket anymore and he’s, um, almost 9 months now. Whoops.

4. We recently lowered Easton’s crib to the middle setting. Just as I was going to tweak the no sew crib skirt I made to fall flat with his crib, I woke up to this at 2am yesterday.

The face says it all, he’s not a morning person either. Luckily, I didn’t take a picture of my face at that moment. My hair was sticking up way more than his

We lowered the crib fully yesterday and now I have to decide how to work the crib skirt for the small amount of space left. Seriously, the nursery feels like it will never be “complete”. Every time I plan to take room reveal pictures, something happens, like I ram a vacuum into a piece of molding…

I’m such a jerk.

5. Speaking of my baby growing up, his first birthday isn’t too far away (3 months! only 3 months!! ) so all of that planning is stashed in the back of my head. I don’t want to do a set theme, but I’ve been playing with his Zany Zoo beads and I think I’ve settled on a color scheme…

Aqua, orange, lime green and royal blue/navy (whichever I can find more easily). My only expectation is that it be fun and fit for a one year old. I’m not trying to win any Pinterest party planning awards here. A happy baby and some full bellies works for me!

Considering all of these are on my to-do list, I’m obviously not doing a very good job at my New Year’s resolution to streamline my life. Good thing my current resolution is to get more sleep, though my miniature boss is in charge of that one.

The last time you saw the playroom, it was looking like this…

This weekend, we finally got around to taking down the floating shelves.  While we loved them for an office, we didn’t think they were too practical for a playroom.  So down they went; they’ll probably reappear somewhere else in the house.  We also took down the ceiling fan which will end up in the new office upstairs.

The bracket holes were spackled and sanded once and need to be sanded again. We originally painted around the shelves, so we now have a slightly raised edging.  We’ll have to spackle and sand, and then spackle and sand a couple times to get everything flush again.

I apologize in advance for all of these pictures I took at night (like an hour ago).  Our camera settings were all wacky from the last time we used it and I couldn’t get the lighting to look right at night. Oops.

So what did we replace the ceiling fan with?  Well, a long time ago we picked up a light at Ikea. We had always knew we wanted to use it in the playroom, but never got around to installing it…until now!

(via Ikea)

We wanted something fun in the playroom, but nothing that screamed childish.  We found Ikea’s Fillsta, a playful hanging light for $29.99.  It was simple, had some shape and was cheap.  Perfect.

But much like any Ikea product, the install resulted in some head scratching.  And Mike dropping the f-bomb just a handful of times.  For anyone landing on our lil blog scratching their own heads trying to get the Ikea Fillsta installed, here’s the trick: cut the extra slack from the hanging cord to the length you need.

The dome base is actually held in place by tension in the cord.  So the tighter the cord inside the base, the tighter it will fit against the ceiling.  With most other light fixtures, these components typically slide or screw into place.  Nope, not with the Fillsta.  Mike originally rolled up the extra cord and stuffed it into the base.  Then he tried a bunch of zip-ties.  Finally after a couple milkshakes and a solid nap, Mike decided to just cut the cord down to the size we required.  Sure enough, it worked.  Now we just have to touch up the paint around it (though I love the white light against the dark ceiling!)

Here is the Fillsta with the light off.

And here is with the light on. Glowing! I love the little bit of whimsy it adds to the room, which the direction I’m sort of going in here. Clean and modern, yet fun! We’ll have to get a better room shot once we finish some other items in the room. What other items you ask?

These roman shades. We were originally going to dye them when the room was an office. We were even going to dye them when we switched it over to the playroom. But after doing some Googling, we’re not quite sure how to get the color we really want (so, um, anyone have any experience dying blinds? Using fabric spray paint?).  We’re thinking we just might replace them with the white version.  Any suggestions?

I think we have all had heavy hearts lately, saddened that the world can be such a cruel place for those who are so innocent. After watching/reading the news all day on Friday, I decided to doodle on something I made the weekend before. Doodles always make me smile, maybe they do the same for you.

I started with an Ikea frame we already had.

I checked to see what the backing to the frame looked like. Turns out, it was a nice smooth board. Perfect for some chalkboard paint

As a kid, I always loved playing school and writing on the blue chalkboard I had in my room. I was always the first to volunteer to write on the board at school and I loved trying different types of handwriting (my middle school speciality was that I could write on a chalkboard just as well with my left hand as my right). With the chalkboard trend making the rounds, I have wanted one for over a year. We’re planning on making one wall of the office a chalkboard wall, but I got impatient. Need. Doodles.

While I was taking an initial look at the frame, I broke the glass. It was a total accident that actually worked out for me because I felt bad wasting it. Now the only part I wasn’t using was the mat, which I ended up placing behind the board to keep everything fitting tight. Whew?

I used Valspar’s chalkboard paint in black and rolled it on with a foam roller we had hanging around.

Each coat took me about… 1 minute. I waited maybe 10 minutes between each coat and ended up doing 3 coats.

I let it completely cure overnight, then I rubbed some chalk over the entire surface. The Valspar can said nothing about doing this, but I had seen it all over other blogs. Better safe than sorry.

Once it was all done, I got to writing. In the past, I’ve watched some YouTube videos of professional chalkboard writers and took some hints. One of these days, I’ll try something elaborate with proper spacing and planning but for now, this is what I did in a total of 10 minutes.

Needs work, but not bad for a first attempt at chalkboard art. I then stuck it on the mantel, which is still a work in progress.

We’re waiting for some Christmas prints of Easton to arrive to fill a frame or two, then I might add some wrapping paper to the remaining ones. Once that happens I can take some decent daylight pictures of our Christmas mantel.

I planned this post out in my head and then jumped in the shower. It didn’t feel right to me to not fully address what happened in Connecticut, though I really don’t feel like I have the right words to say. “Making Spirits Bright”, while positive, still felt like I was being cold.

So I just ran downstairs, erased my chalkboard, and changed it to this.

Twenty little hearts, for twenty little hearts.

Because a picture is worth more words than I could string together.

This weekend we inherited my brother’s old king mattress. We’ve wanted a king sized bed since we moved in, so much so that when we got married, we registered for a king sized bedding set. That was over 3 years ago and it’s been sitting in it’s packaging, in our linen closet. When Easton arrived, our want for a king sized bed turned into a need (okay, in a first world problems sort of way)…

Every morning, my one ass cheek has been clinging for life off the side of the bed. So when I heard that my brother was looking to get rid of a king and that my other brother, who just bought a condo, wanted our queen, it was perfect. Plus, my brother’s friend was willing to pick up the king, bring it to our house and take away the queen. Talk about an ideal scenario

This all happened so quickly that we are bed frameless. I’m currently typing this from a mattress and boxspring sitting on my bedroom floor. We held off on a king because a) we didn’t want to spend money on a mattress and b) we hoped to build a bed because c) we didn’t want to spend money on a bed. We wanted to build the farmhouse bed from Pottery Barn…

(via Pottery Barn)

But once we had a mattress (on the floor), I thought maybe we could find an expensive bed frame at Ikea. So we packed up the kid and headed out!

The verdict was… he loved Ikea.

I think this is only the second or third picture that I have of us together. I really need to work on that.

We were pretty disappointed in the bed selection. I couldn’t snap any pictures because, as you see above, someone decided he didn’t want to sit in his car seat anymore so we ended up carrying him around. The only thing we liked was this Bekkestua headboard.

(via Ikea)

It seemed overpriced though, the Ikea website lists $300 for a king headboard alone, though I swear it was $400 something in store. Combined with the frame it it ran over $600! Still not much compared to other stores, but still more than we wanted to spend. Needless to say, we left Ikea empty handed for perhaps the first time ever.

We think we’re going to make Easton like the Travelocity gnome and just take pictures of him in front of random scenes.

Since we had to travel to Philly, by the time we were leaving it was time for the bub’s next meal. We may have spent just as much time in the parking lot as we did in the store.

Yes, his bottle matches his outfit

After striking out in the bed search, here is what I’m thinking. The bedding we have is aqua/white…

But we also have an orange/white duvet cover, so I want to keep things as neutral as possible. I want to be able to change bedding easily if need be (and because I have an accent pillow addiction).

After seeing the upholstered headbard at Ikea, I think maybe I’ll make my own for now. In my dreams I would still like a canopy bed someday, but I know our to-do list is endless and it’s just not a priority now. After browsing Pinterest, I found this headboard/wall color that I’m liking…

(from Bedding Experts via Pinterest)

I’d probably do the headboard a lighter gray like the Ikea one and keep the walls a darker gray/brown/greige color. I’ve always loved patterned headboards, but I think keeping things neutral is the smartest idea for us. I’m also not sure about the tufting and I prefer a straight, more modern headboard. So yeah, I pretty much just like the lighter headboard on a darker wall. As for the frame, we’ll probably just expand the current full sized metal frame in our guest room and rock a bed skirt.

For now, I shall sleep on the floor… sprawled out

Before Easton was born, I posted about my plans to make some sort of an alphabet print for his room. My original inspiration image hailed from Pinterest…

(from Free Home Decorating Ideas via Pinterest)

My previous post covers how I went from planning this out using paint and canvas, to printing on canvas, to finally just making it a print using Photoshop.

I’ve said this before, but I am no Photoshop expert. In fact, I have no clue of what I’m doing 99% of the time. When I posted about deciding to make the art using Photoshop, I figured Mike would make it because I was lacking the skils. Well, throw in a late baby, a husband who is busy with his own work and me spending hours in bed and guess what? I did it all by myself

I camped out in bed the last days before Easton came and one of the things I did was whip up a little art on my laptop. I started as just playing around to give Mike an idea of what I wanted, so that he could then do it better. As I played around, I realized I could do it on my own if I just kept tweaking it. It ended up being far easier than I thought!

I started with a rough draft… all I did was type some letters in Photoshop and change the font, color, size and location of each individual letter until I liked the way it looked. I was surprised at how easy this part was since each letter was it’s own layer and I could go back and tweak whichever letter I didn’t like.

My first attempt looked like this…

I liked it for the most part, but there was a lot of dead space. I had to figure out how the letters would look in the frame and make sure there wasn’t too much white space at the top and the bottom of the letters. We had picked up a large Virserum frame from Ikea before even starting this project, so that we were sure that we could size the print properly to fit the inexpensive frame. You may remember seeing the frame hanging around in some pictures…

The frame is 30 ¾” x 41 ½” and the mat opening is about 27 ½” x 19 ½”. I mentioned in my previous post that I saw on Shutterfly that I could order a print as large as 30″ x 20″, which was perfect. I would just have to make sure that my text was centered around the  27 ½” x 19 ½” size of the opening and that I made the image large enough pixel wise to print clearly.

So I set my Photoshop canvas to the size of the print (30″ x 20″) and began to tweak my first draft. A little bit of making fonts bigger, a little bit of overlapping letters and just playing around, then my final product looked like this…

I ordered it and it cost me a whopping $15 to print through Shutterfly. It was supposed to take over a week to come, but it ended up arriving in a few days and coming the day before Easton was born. If you remember from my birth story, I was already in labor at this point so Mike ran it upstairs to show me how great it printed. He put it in the frame just so I could see how it looked, but I didn’t snap a picture of it.

The large canvas size I chose worked because the letters were not at all blurry.

We planned to put it on the wall in between the giraffe sconces.

Since the sconces are white, the dresser is white, the frame is white and the mat is white, I thought it was too much white. It would look nice and clean, but I was just looking for a little more fun and contrast on this wall. So I decided to spray paint the mat navy blue.

I picked up this can of paint while I was in labor. I figured walking around Lowe’s would help, though I was in such pain that I could hardly walk and I had to stop and sit on a pile of wood. Whoops.

Finally this week, I decided to take the hour I had in between feeding, burping and cuddling to run outside and spray the mat. Hello backyard, I haven’t seen you in a while.

I just laid the mat on the grass because Mike was due to cut it anyway. The blue will be gone with one pass of the John Deere

It took several coats to make sure there were no white spots. My hand started cramping since the Valspar trigger was really hard to push down, so Mike took over.

Once we were done, the grass looked like this (which was actually really cool looking)…

But the mat looked like this!

Fast forward a few days after it completely dried and I had another baby nap to put the mat in the actual frame. Sidenote: Mike’s been spending most of his spare time working on the built-ins in the new office that we abandoned to work on the nursery. So I’m usually on baby duty and can’t work on projects, but I can’t complain because the built-ins are looking awesome

First I wanted to make sure the blues looked good together. The lid of the spray paint can looked more bluish than navy, but it was the most navy one I could find. Thankfully, it dried much darker!

I put it in the frame and I was surprised that he “glass” in the frame is plastic. No wonder why Ikea can sell such a large frame, with a mat for just $29.99!

We couldn’t find the hardware that came with the frame, so I just leaned it up against the wall to see how it would look.

And I love it. I’m shocked at how well the colors match the color scheme of the room. I really just tried to incorporate the blues of the bedding/curtains/ceiling, the greens of the bedding/closet/bookcase and the gray of the walls. This artwork was meant to be the glue that brought everything together, and I think it does.

The plastic “glass” of the frame made for some awful glare, so it was hard to capture pictures. I may actually just remove it when we mount the frame, at least to take better pictures for you guys

Though the glare does allow you to see the other elements in the room with the art, like how you can see the chevron curtains hanging out in this picture…

One more picture from the other side of the room!

Not to shabby for $15 for a DIY print + $29.99 for a large frame and mat. Oh and a couple of bucks for spray paint!

Since this post took me 3 sessions to write, Mike is actually at Lowe’s at the moment picking up some stuff for the office and some hardware to hang this bad boy. Hopefully this weekend we can both have time, at the same time, to hang it since it’s a two person job. Then we’re one step closer to actually being ready to give you a full nursery reveal and tour. I’m so excited

Update! Since I just completed this and I didn’t have time to tackle a new project, I decided to use this as project as my summer Pinterest Challenge entry, hosted by Young House Love, Bower Power, Centsational Girl and Ten June, all of which are some of my favorite blogs. 3 out of 4 of my Pinterest Challenge projects have been some form of wall art, guess you can tell what I like to do for fun…

Oh and we did get around to hanging this print on the wall, which I posted about here.

Tada!