Baby Talk Wednesday: Going Gaga

Remember when I told you about Bob awhile back?  Well, our friend Becky (who first posted about Bob) also posted about her diaper bag.  Again, knowing that Becky is very thorough in her research, I was immediately drawn to her diaper bag pick.

Which diaper bag does she have?  The Go Gaga slide tote.

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Things I liked about it initially:  It didn’t look very diaper bag-ish and after reading about it, I was in LOVE with the strap on this bag.  I hate messenger bags and anything with one strap because it always dig into my shoulder and makes my back sore.  I was also trying to avoid backpack diaper bags because I wanted to be able to access the contents easily without a lot of hassle.  I have a backpack I love, but it’s impossible to get anything out of it while it’s on my back.

The strap is an interesting, almost spandex/jersey-esque fabric and spreads out across your shoulder to evenly distribute the weight of the bag.  Between Becky’s review and what I found online, I was 100% sold.  The bag is pricey, coming in at $118 (I’ve definitely never spent close to that on any type of bag before), but I knew that having a diaper bag I wasn’t going to fight with constantly would be worth it.

Plus, look at it.  I could easily use it post baby as a gym bag (it’s complete with insulated bottle holders, a convertible organizer in side that can be reconfigured to fit a laptop, and it has stroller straps that can double as a yoga mat carrier).  All in all, a fantastic fit for me.

Then I went to order it……on the website, it said they stopped selling them in October.  Hm, no big deal I thought, they give a list of their retailers, I’ll just check their websites.  Approximately 30 websites later, no one has ANY left.  Still not discouraged, I started calling the various stores listed to see if anyone had them in stock.  I didn’t just limit my search to the one store in Nebraska that carried them, oh no, if I know you and you live in a different state from me, you can bet I called the baby stores in your area and would have been sending you on a mission had I been successful in finding one.

Alas, it was quite illusive.  Again, not one to give up once I make up my mind, I went back to the internet.  I mean, in all the craigslists, and ebays, and amazons, someone has to be selling this bag, right?

Wrong.  Nada.  I just found lots of posts of people wanting to buy them, no sellers though.

I sadly started to accept that maybe my dream strap was just not meant to be (ha, but let’s be serious, I talked about it incessantly nearly everyday).  As luck would have it, finally, 4 months (!) after I first started looking for it, one popped up on ebay.  I was a little bummed because it was red and I was hoping for one that would coordinate with Bob and it is also missing the changing pad.  I thought about it for a bit, Steve told me if I didn’t buy it I could never mention it again, so I decided to hit buy.  The seller had it set up to take best offers, so I offered her $50.00 and she took me up on it.  Score!

A few days later (thank you ebay seller lady for being the faster shipper ever) and it was on my door step.  I was a little worried after all this time that I might be let down, but nope.  Put it on and I’m pretty sure music started playing.  Baby is not even here yet and this is my go to bag.  My back has been bothering me lately and I’ve actually carried this to work on occasion because it’s more comfortable than my purse.  My new concern is what I’ll do when I wear this one out!  :-)

Excuse the mirror photos, my photographer is still at work.  Here I’m  demonstrating the strap fully extended.  There is a cellphone pocket which you can actually move up the strap if you don’t want to full “wrap” effect.

And the other side with the actual bag.  I love it so much I don’t even care that it clashes with Bob.  Gaga, Bob, and I are going to be quite happy together I have a feeling.

I also officially apologize for getting you very excited about an awesome bag that is impossible to find.  I wish you luck in your quest, should you choose to embark upon one of your own.

Anybody else sold themselves on something only to find out it was not available?  Jealous of my awesome photography skills?  Glad Wednesday is over?  Me too.

Nursery Decor

This weekend I decided to head to Dubuque, IA to visit my sister.  We did some awesome garage sale-ing/thrifting (more to come on that) and then decided to spend a bit of time working on some crafts!  My sister doesn’t really care much for crafts, so when she agreed, I was really surprised but definitely took her up on it!  What did we decide to do?  Head to Michael’s and Hobby Lobby!

I had pinned (over a year ago!) this image to my “arts & crafts” board.  So what was on my list?  Bubble wrap canvas art!

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After we grabbed our supplies, we got to work.  Kimberly recently got married, so she had PLENTY of bubble wrap laying around the house.  She had little and big bubbles…I opted for the little bubbles (but think one with big bubbles would be awesome!).  I cut smaller squares of the bubble wrap and was ready to go.

I took a paper plate, my paint (the nursery colors) and made a little design.

I forgot to take a picture of this step, but I promise it’s easy.  Take your bubble wrap square and mush it around in the paint until it’s all coated.  Then, put on your canvas and press down.

I reused my little plate and bubble wrap square several times.  I really liked the mixing of the colors.  I was careful to rotate my square every time, I didn’t want to have it line up as a whole little row of bubbles.  Then, I just kept going!

The finished product!  I really love how it turned out.  The mixture of colors was great and the little bubbles made it really fun.  I’m really happy with it and I am excited to hang it in the newly painted nursery.

Cost breakdown?  Super cheap.

16×20 canvases were on sale at Michael’s, a 2 pack for $5.00.  Kim and I split a 2 pack, so $2.50.  I grabbed 4 bottles of paint that were on sale for $.50 each and the bubble wrap was already on hand.  Top that off with a 15% off coupon, and we were at grand total — $3.83.  Fun nursery art?  Under $4.00?  SCORE!

Want to see what Kimberly made?

Recognize it?  She wanted to put her own twist on the easy canvas art Mel and I made last summer.  She went with shades of blue to go with her new quilt in their bedroom.  I think hers also turned out awesome!!  The monochromatic colors are awesome and definitely pop in the room.

All in all, the weekend was a success!

Anybody else making fun canvas art?  Painting something?  I love links!

The Magic of a Good Coat of Paint

No matter how many rooms I paint, I still can’t get over what a good coat of paint can really do for a room.  We tackled the nursery and it looks FANTASTIC.

Before:

Progress:

That’s right, no more giant N on the wall or jarring red paint assaulting your senses.  Just a lovely calm, soothing, gray.

Before:

Progress:

I’m so excited to start getting things put together in here now that we have it all painted up and ready to go!  As for what we used:
Trim color:  Valspar Frost
Paint color: Valspar Porch Gray  (color matched to Behr paint+premium eggshell)

To cover the offensive red, we used Kilz Premium.  It worked like a charm.

All around, we are SUPER happy with our decision and love how it’s coming together.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to pain the crib or not, but now that I see it in the room, it really pops with the color, so i think it’s staying its original finish.  Hope you all had an equally productive week!!  Can’t wait to share more (as we get it accomplished of course.. )!

The Aerodynamics of Airplanes

Our nursery is not very glamorous right now, in fact, it’s the least blogged about room in our entire house.  I know I’ve written at least 3 times the blog posts about bathrooms.  As a refresher, this is what we are working with:

Giant red N on the wall, gold/white ceiling fan and some poorly painted red paint.

We are planning to tackle the wall colors/trim situation very very soon (like, this weekend soon), this post however, is about the white and gold situation in the middle of the room.  We are ceiling fan people, I know fans are not “in”, but I’m all about function and in a 2 story house, we need a ceiling fan.  I looked around a bit and determined that any fan that I could remotely consider attractive is about $200.00.  I took to Pinterest for some alternatives and found a fabric fan makeover from Jennifer at Dimples & Tangles.

I happened to have the following things on hand: spray paint, fabric, mod podge, and an ugly (but perfectly functional) fan.  Steve also made the poor decision once upon a time of teaching me how to take down light fixtures and fans.  Muahahaha my plan was hatched.

I got a bit way layed as I stood in the nursery with my step stool and screwdriver trying to remember if I was definitely supposed to take the blades off first, or if I needed to take the light part off the bottom first.  We had a conversation that went a little something like this:

Me:  So, out of curiosity, if you are taking down a ceiling fan, would you take off the blades first or the light part?
Steve: Depends, usually the light part would come off first.  Which fan are you taking down?
Me:  Not necessarily any fans, it’s just a curiosity question.
Steve: Yeah right, are you taking down the nursery fan?
Me: maybe.
Steve: What are you going to do with it?
Me:  This really cool thing I saw online, I’m going to give the fan a makeover and it’s going to be awesome.
Steve:  something about the aerodynamics of balancing a fan, airplane wings were definitely mentioned, and something else about not bubbling the fabric.
Me:  Yeah, tons of people have wrote about it online and nobody said their fan wobbles, so I’m sure it’s fine.  I have a good idea of how it’ll work in my head.
Steve:  …….yeah………I better just take it down.

So once the fan was down, and Steve was fully convinced we’d be buying a new fan before the baby arrives, I took off to the dining room to get working on my plan.  As part of our “compromise” with me being able to paint the fan, he gave me stern warnings about the implications of paint in the fan motor, so I grabbed my painters tape and settled in for a little prep work.

Here is the gorgeous goldness that was the “before” picture.  It probably wouldn’t take me very long to tape, but we were watching 21 Jumpstreet while I was doing this, so it somehow managed to take the whole movie.  I would guess if I had not also been watching Channing Tatum…I mean, a high quality cinematic production, while I was doing this, it would have been 30 minutes tops.

Basically, there is a filter that protects the motor and it’s under all those little holes.  I taped all the little holes, the motor parts, and the electrical for the light.  I originally picked a bright blue, but made a last minute switch to navy after holding my fabric choice by the various blue choices.  I headed outside to my “studio” and once again made the neighbors question what on earth goes on in this house.

While the paint was drying, I came back in and got to work on the fan blades.

I had originally gotten 1 yard of the green giraffe print but I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to use it.  Once I decided on my fan plan, I was dying to dig into the giraffe print.  I laid out my 5 fan blades and had fabric left to spare.  If I had started with this plan originally, I probably would have only needed a half a yard or so, but I’m okay with the leftovers.  I got it on sale for $4.00 a yard.  I just laid out the blades so they were all going the same direction and traced.  If I had a lined pattern, I would have been really careful to line them up, but since it didn’t matter, I just stuck them on and went.

I cut them the exact size of the fan blade, you don’t want too much overhang because you won’t actually wrap it around the edges of the blade at all…this will mess up the aerodynamics and cause the fan to wobble.  (See, I did learn something from my mid-day lecture…)

Once I had my fabric cut, it was mod podge time.  I didn’t take any pictures of this because I was on a roll, but basically, apply mod podge to the fan blade, be VERY VERY generous and be sure to coat all the way to the very edge.  Then, I laid down my fabric, smoothed it so it fit, and applied a layer of mod podge to the top.  I took an old credit card and used it to completely smooth down the fabric.  From there, I applied a second thin layer of mod podge and let it dry.  Rinse and repeat for all blades.

After the blades were dry, I needed to recut the holes for the fan blade arms to attach.  I took a utility knife and carved out the holes very carefully.  I also went around the edge of the fan and cleaned up any excess that was bigger than the fan blade.  Again, gotta keep those aerodynamics in mind…

Then, after lots of thin coats of spray paint and anxiously waiting for my pretties to be done, it was time for the best part — the reinstallation.  Steve decided it would be in our best interest for him to do it…I guess accidentally electrocuting the baby would be a bad thing.  Pregnant women — don’t try this at home.

After some excited pacing around by me, it was up and I LOVE it.  I reused the same “globes” it came with after a failed trip to Lowes to see if there was something I liked more.  I am probably going to cover up the white parts of the fan pulls, but I wasn’t sure with what yet, so I left them be for now.  I did spray paint the pull chain blue.  Remove the red wall in your head with a nice soft gray one and it will look even better.  Want to see it closer?

The best part?  Not even a hint of a wobble and Steve was shocked to call this project a success.

So for $4.00 for fabric and $3.50 for a can of Navy Rustoleum, I have a brand spankin’ new fan!  This project took a little over a half can, so I can use it for some other nursery things that I have up my sleeve.

and that’s all folks, a nursery project done and in the books!  Now I have to stop staring at my work and go to bed…

(and for my mom who wonders if this will make you nauseous when it’s turned on, it looks like a green blur, so I think baby will have a nausea free experience in the nursery)

Anybody else tried to make over a ceiling fan?  Now that I know how easy it is, the other fans in this house don’t stand a chance…

Linked up to A Bowl Full of Lemons.

Baby Talk Wednesday: Nursery Fabric

We did it, we finally have a sort of nursery plan.  I had some rough ideas (check ‘em out here) of what I wanted the nursery to look like, but really, I wanted to find the fabric first before getting too committed to any idea.

A few weekends ago ago, I headed to Minneapolis for a girls trip with my BFF Melissa.  We happened upon an AWESOME sale at Kirklands, 40% off clearance!  At Kirklands, we found a lovely metal elephant.  After MUCH deliberation, I decided to bring Ellie home with me.  I really didn’t want a “theme” nursery, and I wasn’t sure how I would have a metal elephant without a theme.  Melissa convinced me it was possible.  Before I go on — exhibit A, the elephant in question.

With my new Ellie in mind, it was off to Joann’s, and thankfully, inspiration finally struck.  I had blues, greens, and some pops of orange in mind.  I came up with the scheme below.

You got it, a mild “jungle” theme.  The prints are fun and graphic though, not pastel baby animals, so I decided I was okay with it.  I like the little bit of orange, it’s not going to be too overwhelming just some accents interspersed.  I needed a little more blue, so I headed to Mills End Textiles in Sioux Falls and found the missing piece.

Blue Zebra!  Woot!

I’ll explain my plan for all the different fabrics and how it’s going to come together as I get some projects done, but I’m SUPER excited about them all!  If you are looking for the links:  green stripe fabric, polka dot fabric, and animals print.

I’ve been working on several things with my fabric finds and I’m so excited to share them with you!  In fact, I may be standing in the nursery staring at my favorite project as I type this post…details coming soon.

Okay, want a hint?

Anyone else redoing any rooms that you are pumped about??  Spent almost 2 hours deliberating in a fabric store and texting photos to your mom and friends??  Do tell!

Settling In

There have been a lot of surprising things that have taken place in the 6 months that I’ve been pregnant so far.  I anticipated (some) of the physical changes my body would be going under, but what I wasn’t ready for was the emotional changes that we were about to undergo.

It’s no secret, last January/February, we were pretty restless.  We’d lived in Omaha for over a year and things just didn’t feel like they were working out how they should (or rather…how I thought they should).  I had expected it to be a rough transition leaving St. Louis, but we both underestimated the roots we had put down in the Lou.  We had fantastic friends, jobs and looking back a year we definitely were struggling to remember what we moved here for anyway.

Something about the upcoming one year anniversary in this house (March 2012) has us in full “flight” mode.  We were trying to figure out what we should do, if we should just pack it up and move back or what we were doing here anyway.  Around this time, something crazy happened…you guess it, good ol’ preggers test came back positive.

It took a few months before we realized that we’d stopped being discontent.  We stopped talking about how much better life was before we moved, and we started embracing our life that we had here.  We became grateful to be so close to our families (the primary reason we moved here in the first place) and lifelong friends (no joke, my best friend of 14 years lives here, 14!  that’s crazy), grateful to have a roof over our heads that could easily accommodate our impending bundle, and grateful to have good paying jobs with excellent health benefits.  Omaha is a fantastic place to raise a family, we have one of the best zoos in the country, tons of family festivals and events, great school districts, and safe neighborhoods.  Now that having a family is more of a reality, it’s hard to not feel lucky at the position we’re in.

St. Louis will always have a special place in our hearts (it’s where we met after all!) and Baby P is going to be very familiar with the drive as we continue to get back and visit some of our favorite people, but he’ll also know that his hometown is pretty awesome too.  All around it feels weird to feel “settled” for the first time since I was 18, but I definitely think it’s something I could get used to!

My new motto:

                                                      Source

Anybody else had a weird self-realization lately?  Your own story of settling in you want to share?  It’s deep over here for a Sunday evening…

Baby Talk Wednesday: 27 weeks!

Holy buckets, 27 weeks already??  Where on earth did the time go?  It seems like just yesterday we found out and now we’re almost 2/3 done!  I thought it would be fun to do a little Q&A!

Due Date:  This is a tricky one, the ultrasound has me due on 10/27, the good ol’ fashioned counting method has me due on 11/3.  So safe to say…end of October/first week of November.

Baby movements:  He is starting to recognize Steve’s voice and has a little dance party with himself when Steve talks.  My belly has started moving around on it’s own, and it’s definitely a strange thing to see.

Cravings:  Everyone’s favorite question to ask pregnant ladies…nothing crazy (no midnight pickle milkshake runs for Steve).  I do seem to want to eat Sausage McMuffins nearly everyday of the week for breakfast (don’t worry, I am on a strict one per week regiment)

Nursery:  Finally making some progress, I am even working on a little “mood board” for you all to see the evolution of the nursery.  Nesting is in full force, that’s for sure.

Belly Button:  I don’t know if I’m going to “pop”…mostly ol’ belly button seems to be stretching out, I almost wish it would pop because it hurts as is.

“How are you feeling?”:  It’s been pretty good lately, a few problems here and there as baby grows and makes room for himself…I have no enjoyed my new found back pain, but otherwise, T2 has been pretty smooth sailing.  I could live without record breaking heat.

Baby’s 20 week ultrasound pic:

My 27 week belly:

So there you have it, a quick baby update!  We are full speed ahead on a laundry list of house projects we want to finish up before Baby P’s arrival, so stay tuned!