Delillah Monette Designs

So I decided to finally launch my own design line.  It will include paper crafts, sewing projects, baby accessories, and custom crib bedding.  It is called Delillah Monette Designs, which is actually one of my daughters' unused first names, and the other's middle name.

To kick things off, I made this:

Here is a close-up of the flower:

I am calling it Paper Petals Embellished Picture Frame.  It features a handmade rolled paper flower with leaves, made of high-quality cardstock and mounted on a yellow painted wood frame.  It holds a 4x6 picture.  It is priced at $15.00.

Thanks for looking, and hope to have lots more items up soon, with the end goal of launching an Etsy site.  Wish me luck!

Well, gotta go.  Somebody's awake!

Girls' Room (Almost) Completed!

So it's been a very long time since my last post, but I have been super busy.  I spent three days recently painting the girls' room pink.  Yes, I said pink.  I took my fabric swatch to Home Depot and found a green, a yellow, and a pink that matched it, then let Janeia decide what color she wanted, and she picked pink.  Not my personal choice, but she loves it.  Anyway, what's the point of having two girls if you can't paint their room pink, right?  Just kidding.  I love having my two girls.

Since my last post, I have also made blankets for both the girls' twin beds (even though Leslie is still in a crib), as well as dust ruffles for the twin beds. 

To make the blanket fit on the crib, I just wrapped it around the crib mattress, because I wanted her bed to match her sister's.  The dust ruffles are actually just panels of fabric that I attached to the actual beds.  Because of the layout of their room, the twin beds will always be in the corners, the way the beds are now, so the head of the bed as well as one side won't be seen, so I didn't make panels for those sides. 

On Janeia's bed, I simply stapled the panels in place on the backside of the bed rail and footboard,kind of gathering it as I went.  On the crib, the panels are stapled to the crib mattress support.  Since I made them big enough for her twin bed, I didn't gather it, and they actually wrap all the way around her crib.

Next to Leslie's crib is her dresser, with the changing pad on top, and some photos above it.

Leslie kept trying to mess with the pictures, so I put some sticky tack on the backside of each corner, and it keeps her from moving them.

Then there is a bookshelf that holds lots of pictures, as well as all the diaper stuff, and a laundry hamper that holds all the girls shoes.  (Janeia likes picking out her own shoes, and since I also use their closet for storage, she's not allowed in there unsupervised.)

Then comes Janeia's dresser.  It has a small lamp with a shade that I recovered to match her fabrics.  I just used the shade that I had on it, which was given to me. 

I carefully cut the beaded trim off, then pulled the pink trim off (it was just hot glued on, and I wanted to reuse it on the shade).  I even more carefully cut the dragonfly fabric off, leaving the silk lining intact.  Then I traced the dragonfly fabric shape onto my floral fabric, leaving a little extra.  I hot glued it on, then put the pink trim back on to cover the unfinished edge.  I think it came out pretty cute, don't you?

When I painted their walls, I also painted the MDF that is over the window, like I told you I would.  I also made a curtain for the storage unit that I built with my mom, and painted the unit white.

Now it looks more like a piece of furniture.  This thing seriously holds a TON of stuff!  It reaches to the ceiling, is two feet deep, and 5 1/2 feet wide.  It has two plywood shelves spaced two feet apart behind the curtain.  The bottom has a 1x12 across the front, making it into a toybox for the girls' stuffed animals.  (I know, they have WAAAAY too many stuffed animals!)  Their costumes and dress-up clothes are just hung on the edge of the bottom shelf for now, but eventually I will install a closet rod down the middle across the width under the bottom shelf for them.  And Steven is going to paint a giraffe on the exposed plywood side, and I will add a growth chart next to the giraffe.  Oh, and he is going to paint a mural on the MDF over the window.

The entrance to their room is kinda like a hallway, because of the walk-in closet.  So for toy storage, I scored these four bookshelves on craigslist for $40 total.  They fit perfectly in the space, and hold all the little toys and books.  I also picked up the buckets at Target for $2.50 each.  They hold things like her magnetic dress-up dolls and toy cars.  You know, things that can be grouped together.

Above the bookshelves are four photo collages I made myself by tracing the opening from a collage frame I bought for my sister-in-law years ago onto matboard that I got for free from a friend who worked in a frame shop.  I have two more that are traced but need to be cut out, and I really need to get on that, because these four were done before Leslie was born, so she's not in any of them!

I still need to spray paint their chandelier yellow, as well as an ornate mirror that a friend of mine found on the curb and gave to me.  Also, I need to paint Janeia's bed white, and make a rug for their floor.  More on that after I make it.  Trust me, you're gonna love it!

Well, gotta go, somebody's awake!

It's Curtains for You!

Seriously, lots of curtains. Well, four sets anyway. But that's all the windows I have, plus one!
Don't know if I mentioned it, but I'm currently in the middle of redecorating our ENTIRE apartment. And I'm trying to do it on a shoestring budget, because, afterall, it's an apartment. I don't want to spend a lot of money on something that we can't take with us, but I don't want to live in a plain white box, either.

We've been in the same apartment for seven years now, and I originally painted it about five years ago.  At the time, I was really into Asian design, and tried to bring some of that into our place. Since I didn't really know anything about design, that meant that I painted my living, dining, kitchen area burgundy, and our bedroom bamboo green. Our bathroom was the worst victim of this color scheme. It has the layout where the tub and toilet is separated from the vanity by a door.  I painted the vanity area burgundy, and the tub area green.  And what's worse, I ran out of burgundy paint and never cut in.  Seriously, I lived with this for five years!  I never even put the switchplates back on!  No wonder Steven was a little hesitant when I said I wanted to redecorate!

But don't feel too sorry for my poor little bathroom.  It was the first room I started to work on.  Partly because it is the smallest, but mostly because it was the worst looking.  It had your standard plate mirror with a horrible mirrored frame around it.  I took it down, and after priming and painting the walls a beautiful blue, I hung up a large mirror I already owned, with a chunky black frame.  I also bought a new light fixture to replace the terrible brass dressing room light.  I purchased a wall cabinet and matching over-toilet cabinet for more storage.  My dad helped me lay down laminate wood floors that my mom had leftover from her house--she even had enough for me to do the kitchen floor too!  Then, a few days ago, I finally made my new shower curtain! I absolutely love it! I had found the fabric months ago, and that swatch was the jumping off point for the entire apartment, and the bathroom was designed around it, even before I bought it.

It's not done yet, but I'm too happy about it to wait.  It's in two panels, and right now there's a white fabric shower curtain behind them.  That curtain will be dyed black, and the floral panels will be tied back with black decorative tiebacks attached to the edge of the panel, so that they can be opened by sliding the whole thing across the rod.

Sorry these pics are really dark. I need to take new ones, but if I leave the computer, Janeia will try to take it over and watch her movies.

I have also bought new black towels, and replaced those white ones. And my switchplates ARE back on.

On to the next set of curtains.  I made a set for the small window in my living room out of a fabric that is exactly like the shower curtain, only it is shades of green instead of blue.  I love blue, but I didn't want my entire house to be blue.  Green is a little calmer. This fabric will also be on my dining room chairs, but more on that later. I guess I forgot to take a picture, because I can't find one. So you'll have to just imagine them until then.

I made a simple curtain for our bedroom. We have a short (height), really wide window, and I haven't found a curtain rod that will span it.  So I made two panels from some old sheets I had, and stapled them above the window, pleating it as I went.  Then I added some decorative nailheads over the staples. Nothing special, but a definite improvement over just the blinds.

The last set of curtains I made is in the girls' room. They're my favorite.  They actually have a really big window that goes almost to the floor, but I have the majority of it blocked by a piece of MDF screwed to the wall.  It used to be our headboard, back when we were actually in the master bedroom.  (Before we realized that Janeia had WAY more stuff than us, and this was before  we were even pregnant with Leslie.)  So now their window  is wide and short.

The MDF will eventually be painted to match the walls, when I repaint them.  And there's something wrong with these pics, because it looks like the panels are different heights, but they're not. 

After re-covering the girls' table and chairs in this floral, I decided to use it in their entire room.  I also made a changing pad cover to match, using a tutorial from Prudent Baby.  I love how it turned out, and to protect it from diaper messes, I just put a cloth diaper down before I put the baby down.

Well that's all my curtains, so I guess the show's over.  Tune in next time to see the other fun stuff I've been working on.

Gotta go, somebody's awake!

Double Stroller Recovery Project

Okay, I know it's been a LOOOOONG time since I last posted, but that's only because I've been so busy. I haven't been able to get the girls to take their naps together lately, so I'm always dealing with one or the other.  I have been able to be creative, but haven't had the chance to blog about it. Well, no more! Leslie is down for the night, and Janeia is too, or at least till Daddy gets home.  Then she'll probably wake back up to spend some more time with him.  But for now, it's just me and you. So what have I been up to, you ask? A lot, actually.

I have been needing desperately wanting a double stroller practically since I had Leslie, but they can be pretty pricey, so Janeia has been riding in the storage basket of our other strollers.  She's tiny, and she liked it, so I made it work.  But then I found this one on Craigslist for $30!

Kinda Really ugly, I know, but I had big plans for it. The frame is navy blue, and is in good shape.  The structural fabric is fine, too.  But the prints on the rest of it had to go! Plus, it was missing the second seat liner. Now, I have two girls, but I didn't want it to be too girly, since all my baby stuff gets passed on to our kids' godparents who are hoping for boys (who would then become my sons-in-law, if Tiffiny has her way), and plus, I didn't want to have to disassemble it and repaint the frame.  So I went to JoAnn's, and found this beautiful fabric:

and I recovered the whole thing.  This meant that my seam ripper became my worst enemy best friend, because I had to use the existing pieces as my pattern to make the new pieces.  I also took lots of step-by-step pictures and took notes to remind myself of any complicated steps.  I was really glad I did, because this was probably the most complicated thing I have ever attempted.  But I am SUPER happy with the end results!

And I'll have you know, I had to reattach the lap belts BY HAND without access to the underside of the fabric! That was by far the suckiest part of the whole thing. And I wasn't going to add the ruffle on the seat liners, but I didn't have enough fabric to make two backs (in fact the one I did make it actually pieced together from three pieces), so I had to use the original solid blue back for one of them.  The ribbon hides this from all but the most snooping of eyes. 

Janeia LOVES it!  She actually will climb in the back seat (Leslie's) and take a nap after I get her a pillow, blanket, Frankie (her fave stuffed animal), and put another blanket over the top to make it dark. And the best part? All in all it only cost me $38! And it's totally custom, which I love!

Ok, well I've done a lot more stuff, but this post is getting kinda long, so it'll have to wait.  But the pics are loaded onto the computer now, so at least that step is done. We'll see how tomorrow goes for getting another post up.

Gotta go, somebody's awake!

Elephant Tea Party

So it's been a while since my last post, but I was pretty busy, what with Christmas and babysitting. But I'm back, so don't despair--more creativity is on the way!

I wrote last time that Steven gave me a gift card for JoAnn's Fabrics for Christmas. Well, I had hoped to stretch it into at least two trips, but to no avail. Used it up in one fell swoop! But I got some super cute prints.

Found this one that I've been wanting, that was used in the book One Yard Wonders.  I'm planning on changing the color scheme in the girls' room from blue, green, and purple to pink, green, and white, and this fabric was perfect! So I used it, along with some clear vinyl from the remnant bin, to recover their little table and chair set that I found by the dumpster in our apartments. It was originally navy blue with a Disney Cars theme, but I painted it white, and now with its new fabric, it's ultra cute!

 And the vinyl means it's easy to clean up, and won't tear as easily as the tablecloth I had covered them with before.

The girls are already enjoying it. In fact, Janeia insisted that Leslie sit at it with her and have a cracker.

As you can tell, I need to touch up the paint.

I also snagged this great elephant home decor weight fabric, which I knew would be perfect for the Folklore Bag in the book.  So I made the bag, along with a diaper caddy and changing pad of my own design, and a cover for my planner that even snaps shut.

I took the picture before I made the planner cover, so I'll have to post pics of it later.

While babysitting my cousins, I found out they got ZhuZhu pets for Christmas.  Well, Janeia loved them, which caused some problems, since the younger one is still iffy on sharing.  So I went to Walmart and bought her one of her own, and then made a little house/bag for it and its baby. But then, when we were over there, somehow their bulldog puppy got ahold of it and chewed off the buttons and elastic cording that hold it shut. So I guess I'll be making her a new one.  It's okay, since I just made it from leftover fabric I had on hand.  Plus, instead of using plastic canvas for the sides, like the pattern called for, I just used pieces of rubberized shelf liner I had in my stash, so it wasn't as stiff as it's supposed to be.  So I'm actually looking forward to remaking it.  I think this time I'll also make little beds for them, as well as adding a pocket on the inside, since the baby came with tiny accessories that I see ending up in my vacuum cleaner if they're not corralled.

Also picked up three yards of this really cute floral fabric that I am going to use to make myself and the girls dresses.  Yes, I am THAT mother that dresses not only her kids to match, but herself as well.  But we have a wedding we're going to later this month, and the girls are going with us, so I figured, why not?  I need a new dress for it anyway, and, even though they both have TONS of clothes, what little girl can't use another dress?  Pics later, once I make them.

Well, gotta go, somebody's awake!