Nursery

It is about 95% done.

I still need a lamp for those late night feedings and fill a couple white frames from Ikea.

Here is the nursery just waiting for baby!

Looking in from the hallway.

 Looking from the window.

 

Stepping in through the door.

I have a few frames that will go above the chest of drawers.

The moose that brought on the animal inspiration!

The great artwork that we received from D!

 One of the projects I took on that Nolan did!  He's so nice!

Before

 

After

Nursery Trees

Trees for the animal room!

I alluded to the nursery design in my last blog entry.

Here are a series of photos depicting our before and after of the nursery wall with the trees.

Before we reveal the rest, I need to clean up a bit more and hang the curtains!  I also wish I had taken photos with some other device other than my iPhone - sorry for the graininess.

 PINK!

 BYE BYE PINK!

The color is rightfully named 'SQUIRREL' for our forest animal room!

 Nolan, happily cutting out some shapes!

Painter's tape goes up along with the shapes.

 It all gets painted white.

 

The RESULT!!!

Nursery Room

Slowly over the last week we've made a LOT of progress in the nursery.

I am so excited for the outcome which will be revealed soon because I still need to take off some of the blue painter's tape.

Below is my inspiration for the room's paint job.

I was also inspired by Jen Loves Kev blog; she painted her master room with Birch trees.

Tonight we take the tape off and see how it all went!

Moving

As I eat cereal for the last time in my old address I contemplate life....  not really I think that's the baby kicking and me wondering what else I can stuff in my mouth.

We're moving this weekend, hooray!

My old boss allowed us to move in early even though our current lease doesn't end until 5/31.  Because we have a baby on the way, I think she pitied us!  So with ~6 weeks to go we're moving.

Just so you know, I DON'T SUGGEST MOVING IN YOUR THIRD TRIMESTER - EVER!

But the wonderful thing is, the new place has a 2nd bedroom, which we painted last night (yes, I will show photos).  Today we move in our furniture and tonight we get to spend the night there.  I am so exhausted already.  Nolan, bless his heart, has moved 70% of our place already.  He is amazing! 

Below are photos of the new place.

 The building

 Our unit is the Garden Apartment

This is the beach behind the building!  So excited for summer!

The man is Nolan's dad, not a guy named Beach.

proud new owner of LOTS

Nolan and I are putting our life into order now that we're facing parenthood.  BABY sure has taken precedence over our mindset, wallet and daily conversation.

We are now the proud new owners of life insurance, stroller, baby clothes, baby bump, and soon BABY!

We continually talk about how our life has changed and looking around our 500 sq ft apartment seems to reiterate that point as the baby stuff has overflowed from a box in the closet to every available corner!

We were at a loss for direction when we found out baby was on the way but through friends, family and the good ol' internet we researched some needs that we've invested in like life insurance which by the way, made me feel very grown up!

Making our House a HOME - an update

So a while ago I had talked about how we've spruced up our place, creating little areas to work, relax and eat.  We got some fabric turned table cloth (thanks Kerrie) at IKEA, finally hung our plates to create a fun wall, and made our place fit us. 

If you remember my plate wall inspiration here, below you can see our end result that was official quite some time ago! 

Before you see our plate wall, you get to see what could have been - plants on the wall.  It started with sconces with clear jars that I planted succulents in. 

 

DOH!

 Then there was only ONE plant - I still haven't taken the other empty sconce down in hopes that I will fill it one day!?

Teamwork and some creative compromise proved to work in making our plate wall.

 We used masking tape to create a shape on the wall, then started to hang plates within our shape.

 Our end result 

We've even added a few plates since this photo - a lighthouse plate we got from my Great Aunt Pat when we visited Denver.


The wall that faces the plates was feeling a little bare so we put up our Chicago watercolor (a wedding gift from Nolan's parents) below our Didgeridoo (a wedding gift from Nolan's cousin).  Both reflect our home's fall color scheme!  Side note: I was pretty surprised that Nolan and my style meshed so well; when we started combining our stuff most of it turned out to be primarily brown, red, yellow, and orange! A sign?  I like to think so! 

What a weekend!

Now that it's nearly next weekend, I'll tell you of our adventurous last weekend!

Nolan and I stayed extremely busy this past weekend.

Friday was fairly relaxed, finishing up some minor things to complete Adam and Alicia's wedding invites!  Yep, that's right, I was crazy enough to construct more invites by hand - I must have forgotten how much work it was for our wedding invites.  After a few hour long episodes of Life (Earth's sequel, featuring Oprah's voice as apposed to Sigourney Weaver's), a couple beers, we created some fantastic wax seals to complete their invitation suite!

Saturday I completed the last week of my first quarter back in school with my Color Theory final.  I feel comfortable and back in the swing of juggling school and work just in time for 3 weeks off of school!  Once I finished my final I used the school's resources to edit Adam and Alicia's photo of their Burning Man Art Car!   Burning Man's theme this year is Metropolis and they'll be driving their art car named, Roving Red Light District - a swanky dive bar on wheels!  I was excited to help bring their vision to life.  After some fun Photoshop love I made a pit stop to Kinko's to print some baby announcements I designed for my good friend, Rachel who had a son March 29th.  They were sent with Monday's mail and I am excited for her friends and family to post them up on their fridges!  When I returned home it was barely noon and the sun was shinning and it was so wonderful outside!  We dehydrated fruit!  Yes, like that guy who used to sell the spray on hair - Ron Something!  After filling trays of apples, bananas, grapes, mangoes, and apricots we left the house to enjoy the sun.

After slicing and dicing, we walked to the park and played croquet!  It was so much fun!  I can't wait for it to stop raining here so we can go again!  After 2 games we were back at the house packing our picnic to travel on the Metra Train up to Ravinia Park to see Buddy Guy, a well-known Chicago Blues artist!  He was awesome and so was the entire experience.  JJ Grey and Mofro opened for him and they were unbelievable too, we even got their vinyl record!

Picnics at Ravinia were nothing short of amazing!  I was utterly impressed with the spreads people brought, they were gourmet!  Check out some of them!

 This table had full on wine glasses and china!

Putting their most important item on display!

All crowding around the table - but look at that stroller for the cooler!

 Of course I spot the one think Nevada there!  :)

 You could even rent a fancy table and TABLE CLOTH!  

Buddy Guy rocking out!

 JJ Grey and Mofro!  Awesome!

The weekend didn't stop there, Sunday we spent in Evanston (where I work) at their Custer Street Fair enjoying fresh lemonade, strolling the streets, looking at art, meeting interesting people and mostly just soaking up the great weekend.  We made it home and finally had CHINESE food at one of those places I talked about in my last post who are closed on MONDAYS!  :)

Friday, tomorrow, we're heading to Denver to visit my bestest friend!  Rach - I can't wait to see you!

Fabric embellishments for our home

 

Before I show you my completed projects I'd like to say there have been 6 comments on my last blog post – thank you to everyone who shared their great veggie inspired puns. The cards are currently being designed and remember the 10th person who comments will be getting a set of cards when they're printed! SO - GO COMMENT!

I’ve completed a few projects while Nolan’s been on the boat these last 2 weeks.

Below are a few photos so you can see the improvement the fun fabrics have made in our home.

Curtains to hide the storage wall

Before

After

The fabrics close up

TV Stand Dust Cover - just an "after"

We chose to cover the TV Stand to hide the ridiculous amount of dust it accumulates. This is an Ikea piece and its finish like much of their other furniture attracts dust. It is something to keep in mind when purchasing an Ikea product. We love it even more now with the Ikea fabric on it!

I have one more piece of fabric lying on the table waiting to be used. It will eventually be a tablecloth. Since I have a puzzle on the table, I have put this project on the back burner.

I have collected 5 more plates for our plate wall - that will be my next update if you're curious to see how it turned out! 

FYI – all of these items above have "no sew" hems – meaning I love fabric glue secured with iron heat!