The BIG Girl Room

 

Although I am in total denial that my tiny, tiny little girl will  be THREE next week, Hubby and I still decided it was time for her to have her very own BIG GIRL ROOM!

 

She has been in a toddler bed, and does great staying in her own bed at night. Although she would fit in that bed for a long time still, we wanted her to have a room to make her feel super special.

 

You may have seen this little preview before Here.

 

I've finally gotten all of the pictures off of my camera to share how we put her room together.

 

In an effort to ward off my daughter ever liking the color pink, we painted her nursery navy blue, and accented it with lime green and white. It was girly, without a touch of pink.

 

Three years later, I've lost the war and her favorite color of everything is PINK. Yuck. So to compromise, we left the walls navy blue, and added lots of pink accents to make the room modern and fun for a three year old.

 

 

We bought the pink and white polka dot duvet cover from Pottery Barn Teen. The teen store had much brighter colors than the kids store, which was more suitable for baby girl.

 

I wanted to sew the accent pillows in all different patterns. I used fabrics from the "In the Navy" line by Jacqueline Savage McFee from Hawthorne Threads. There are some beautiful selections of pinks and navy in that line!

 

One of my favorite pillows is the Pebble Quilted pillow. I took a scrap piece of pink fabric, pebble quilted it, and made it into a pillow. The texture is fabulous and looks really cool on the bed!

My second favorite pillow has to be the chevron pom-pom pillow! The pom-poms add a really girly touch, and who doesn't love chevron??

(Okay, a lot of people are tired of chevron, but I'm not yet!)

The bedding is approved by Gray's friend Duffy.

 

The super-pink quilt I made her for Christmas fits perfectly on the end of the bed. As if the bed needed more pink.

 

My Grandma gave me a small sewing table a couple of years ago. I sewed all of my early projects on this table. The chair it came with had a cushion covered in red gingham. It was cute, but not at all for this room. We've moved the table into her room to be a play table, so the cushion had to be recovered! I love how it turned out.

The nursery had a memory board, but it was green. Some new fabric, and sparkly silver ribbons made it perfect for the big girl room. Sadly I had to update pictures too.

 

The door needed to say "GIRL'S ROOM", so I dug through my craft supplies and found some tulle, ribbon and a foam wreath. About 30 minutes later, the Tutu wreath was hanging on the door.

Hubby says it's weird, but I like it, and Gray does too.

 

On the nightstand we put a vase of flowers from her first birthday photo shoot. There is also a palmetto rose from our trip to Charleston last year. I made her monogram on my Silhouette with scrapbook paper, and made a printable for a small frame.

 

The room is very bright with natural light thanks to light pink curtains.

 

Of course, every proper southern girl needs a bow holder. This is one of several!

 

I managed to make it through the room redo without a total meltdown, but I'm still freaking out that 3 years has already gone by. She loves her new room, and so do we.

 

It's perfect for a pink-loving little (BIG) girl.

 

I'm still here

 

It's been a little quiet around here lately, but it's not because things have been quiet at my house! The computer doesn't get touched too much anymore. Between shuffling Goldilocks to Cheer Camp, Bible School, attempting to clean, and now chasing my CRAWLER....I've been a little busy.

 

There are a few good things going on around here though. I have LOTS of posts to write and share, from party planning, to cooking, sewing, and more. But haven't had time to write them out. It will come in time. In the meantime...here's a little preview compliments of Instagram of some of the things keeping me busy these days.

 

In honor of Goldilock's 3rd birthday coming up (Whaaaaaaaa!!!!!) we've made her bedroom into a big girl's room. There was lots of crafting and sewing involved. Don't worry...I took a lot of pictures and will share soon!

With the leftover fabric from her pillows for her room, I'm currently working on a quilt for her bed. I made her a pink quilt at Christmas that she loves, but I couldn't resist making another one to match her new bedding. I love the look of the triangles. The actual piecing and quilting...not so much. It will be worth it when it's done though.

 

 

 A trip to the Farmer's Market left me with bags of beautiful bi-color corn! My favorite! We love corn at our house, especially when we can throw it on the grill, so there is a freezer full of it ready for summer grilling. If you want to occupy a toddler for a few hours on a summer day...ask her to pull the random silks off of ears of corn. She loved it, and I didn't go blind trying to get my corn clean.

 

Bible School has started, and we are having a great time at the Everywhere Fun Fair. Goldilocks is still the youngest kid there (she was last year too), but you could never convince her of it. She doesn't miss a beat when it comes to the crafts, songs, dancing, and games.

 

A little bit of cleaning has happened around our house, although sometimes it's disguised as playing. While cleaning out the "Big Girl Room" Hubby decided to hide my tiniest human from me. I think he enjoyed playing Hide-and-Seek from Mommy.

 

Thanks for being patient as this summer flies by! With two tiny humans in the house, it can be hard to keep up with sharing, even when there's LOTS of things going on.

Vintage Sewing Goodness

*I wrote this post two weeks ago. Little did I know that I scheduled it to post just one day after my Granny would pass away. She went home to be with Papa yesterday. She will be greatly missed, but leaves a legacy of 4 grandchildren and 3 (so far) great-grandchildren who cherish all the love and knowledge she gave.*




My Granny has taught me most of the craftiness that I enjoy these days. This picture is from our Church Tea last year.

 

She taught me how to cross-stitch, then to crochet, and finally, how to use a sewing machine. We sat for hours with her trying to teach me how to make Gray's first dresses.

 

 Now that I'm doing LOTS of sewing, and she doesn't sew anymore, she decided to pass on her HUGE collection of sewing things. And I mean HUGE. It took me an embarrassingly long time to actually go through all of the boxes and bags and organize everything. But there are some really cool things that have been added to my sewing collection.

 

Have you ever in your life seen so much embroidery floss? She had every color that has ever been made (I'm sure), organized in their own little bags by number. If you've ever done a cross-stitch pattern you know how important those numbers can be!

 

I also found these mini cross-stitch ornaments. The first one I ever did was a little teddy bear. Granny sat and helped me finish it. One day, I'll teach Gray how to cross-stitch with these. They're perfect for learning.

 

The boxes were full of notions galore! I've never covered buttons, but I'm going to try with these! I now have a collection of special dress making items.

 

 

Trims, Trims, and more Trims!! There was ribbons and vintage lace. I'll probably hoard all of it until I can think of the perfect project. (Which is probably what she was doing with it)

 

Bias tapes, zippers, threads, and elastics in all different colors.

 

Do you see the price on this bias tape?? That's right...15 cents. Vintage.

In the bottom of the boxes were some very special items. I found some paper wedding bells...and a stack of these...

 

Napkins from my parents wedding almost 30 years ago. They have a beautiful, strong marriage and have created a beautiful family through it. It was wonderful to find these in the box. And they look surprisingly new after 30 years!

 

There's something special about passing items through the family, especially items you can use to make other beautiful things. Now I just have to wait for the right project to enjoy using some of the vintage-y goodness.

The Wearable Quilt

In a tribute to my finished T-shirt quilt, I started digging through my old pictures seeing when I actually WORE all of those shirts. It was a great trip down memory lane.

 

Most of my pictures were sorority pictures, even though half of the quilt is "Winthrop University" shirts. I guess I didn't do as many fun things in those. Oh well...here's a few of the shirts before they became my latest craft project...

 

 

Relay for life was always my favorite event for us in the spring. It's a great cause, but lots of fun too!

Hubby always came up to join our team in walking and celebrating cancer survivors.

 

I look like the oddball this year...but it's only because I was our team captain. We got the super-cool navy shirts.

We always had a great crowd come out...especially this year! This was my senior year at Winthrop with all of my sisters.

Oh how I love these girls. My roommate, my MOH, and my birthday twin. Event though we all live far apart (one lives in Nepal!!) we are still close and keep in touch with each other. That's what sisters are for.

The local Chick-Fil-A was our Monday hang out spot. If you give out free food with a church bulletin...you know the Christian women's sorority WILL show up. We were after all, hungry college students.

Basketball games and homecoming were always a blast. I miss cheering for our teams!

We welcomed everyone back to campus each year with a convocation picnic. We melted every. single. year.  If you've never been to South Carolina in August...you don't know heat!

 

Sisterhood retreats were always filled with fun and surprises. The Great Flour Fight of 2006 was one to remember. Grab some knee high socks, fill them with flour, and chase each other with your weapons. It's fun and a great stress-reliever. Give it a try.

 

So we don't look so happy in this picture. I'm sure we were just tired.

 

 

That's better. Shenanigans could always be expected with this group.

 

 

All of the events were so unique, which led to some really unique shirts. This made the quilt extra special!

 

Maybe I didn't wear ALL of the shirts. The snowman was a little chilly.

It snowed a lot on my 21st birthday. Best birthday present of all...cancelled classes! There were lots of these little guys around campus that year.

 

As hard as it was to cut up my shirts that had seen me through so many good times, I know that the memories I have IN the shirts is what's important. I laugh and smile when I look at the quilt and remember where I wore each shirt, who I was with, and what mischief we got into.

 

It is a very cherished sewing project indeed.

The T-Shirt Quilt: A labor of love

It. Is. Done!! The t-shirt quilt is finished and being loved, by me, a LOT. I had a lot of anxiety over this quilt. Mostly about cutting up the "memories" the shirts held, but I got over those fears and got started. You can read about the beginning here.

 

The quilt measures a whopping 55"x 90", so it covers the top of my queen sized bed, if you need a size reference! It's huge, but there's just more of it to love.

The blocks sewed together better than I expected because I interfaced each one of them. It kept the material from stretching, but it also gave me a major headache. I now hate interfacing after ironing all of it down to these huge shirts.

 I love how big and colorful it is....

Perfect for a superhero cape!

 

It makes me soooo happy. And it's hands-down the warmest blanket in my house. ALL of those shirts, and it's backed with super-soft fleece, so it's two layers of comfort.

 

 

I debated how to quilt this thing for a long time. I didn't want to use my traditional straight line quilting like these quilts: A Christmas Quilt, A baby quilt, and A Nautical Quilt.

 

So I bought a free motion foot for my machine, and started practicing. Practicing on small projects like potholders was lots of fun....but once I got this beast of a quilt under my tiny little machine, the fun went away quickly.

 

It is painfully difficult to quilt a blanket this large with a small machine, but it can be done. With lots of patience, and a few screaming sessions, it got finished. I just meandered all over each block, trying to avoid going over or through really important things on the shirts.

 

The quilting shows up better on the back, and actually looks like a fun puzzle.

Once the quilting was done, I knew I didn't have the energy for a traditional binding, so I wrapped the backing fabric around to the front, rolled the raw edge under, and stitched it down. I like the way it turned out. Any other binding would have been too rough on such a soft quilt.

I love staring at the finished product, remembering all of the good times these shirts went through.

 

I was going to put it up in my "college box", but after all this work, I would rather enjoy it. It has already accompanied me on a few naps.

Now that this one is out of the way, it's time for some more, much smaller, projects.

Up next.... A BIG girl room for a little girl who will be turning 3 all too soon...