affordable drama... a wall of white plates

Two weekends ago, my daughter and I painted her dining room walls "Amazing Gray" by Sherwin Williams. To add some pizzazz to the long undecorated wall we hung plain white plates that we'd been collecting for a couple months. Most of them came from HG, my fave store of course, and were so inexpensive, like $3.99 on average. I picked up several sizes of plate hangers at JoAnn's, white so they wouldn't show up too much. It makes such a clean and dramatic display for such a low cost. We both love the way it turned out... we even left it a bit uneven so we could add more!

so simple and so chic!

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baby boy board and batten (say that 3 times fast!)

A nursery is such a fun room to decorate! With endless color and fabric possibilities... 

how do you decide on a palette? Well, my daughter decided on bright yellow, gray and navy blue for her baby boy's room. She also wanted the walls to be board and batten. This was our first time doing that wall treatment and I have to say, the result looks great! 

The first order was to choose a gray paint 

We marked around the room with my trusty laser level (great for this) 

and painted the top 1/3 of the walls Sabre Gray by Benjamin Moore, 

and the bottom Brilliant White semi-gloss by Behr.

We primed all the boards with 2 coats, and painted them with one coat before putting them up. We started by applying the top 3 1/2 inch trim board using a nail gun. Next we measured around the room and added the 2" battens every 13" or so, because that's what came out evenly on the walls. We leveled each board to make sure they were straight. The last step was adding the 2 1/2 " top trim piece. 

We caulked around the entire room and then painted all the boards one final time.

Then we got to "dress" the room and put the furniture in place. 

Here's the baby bedding I made... stripe dust ruffle, gray minky sheet 

and one bumper section (still finishing the bumpers)

This fabulous bookcase in the perfect shade of yellow was a shower gift from 

my Golf Gal Pals, don't they have great taste!

Changing table dresser and navy blue rocker/recliner with a handmade lumbar pillow. 

I couldn't decide so I made one side giraffe print and one side stripe. The yellow blanket was hand knit by Nathan's Great-Grammy.

And our last project of the weekend... cornice boxes for the two windows. I made the boxes out of 8" wide pine, having them come out 4" from the wall. I added batting around the entire thing and covered them in the gray graphic fabric that's on the outside of the bumpers. Simple and tailored for a boy!

So that's the baby boy board and batten bedroom! 
All ready and waiting for my grandson due in May.

sharing at Wow us Wednesdays at Savvy Southern Style

Sew busy

This heatwave has me held up inside in the AC, ugh... the hottest summer I can remember! When is Fall coming? The kids are back in school, shouldn't it be getting cooler?!
whine, whine, whine

So... I've been inside sewing. My next big project is making curtains for my daughter's condo, but in the meantime I'm having fun learning the in's and out's of machine embroidery. My new Brother and I are still getting acquainted. I ordered the PED-Basic for my machine to be able to download designs from embroidery websites. I've downloaded a few new fonts and designs. The fabrics I embellished the burp cloths with inspired a few downloads...

Besides the "Dalmatian" idea, ( I know it's not a Dalmatian, just a dog, but I hadn't bought the PED-Basic yet) this fabric was also saying "moo" to me. As far as cows go, this one is very detailed, 5 thread changes. My machine and I did this all by our little selves! Doesn't it make you want some milk and cookies?

Okay, back to the drawing board... what else can I come up with? I'm thinking "choo choo"....

summer sewing projects

It's been sooo very hot here in Hotlanta, except for playing golf in the early morning 2 days a week, I'm spending all my time indoors. So besides rehab-ing chairs, I've been doing a bit of sewing. I needed some baby gifts and decided to embellish a much used baby item... burp cloths! I also made a matching bag to use as wrapping for the burp cloth gift.

I started with colorful fabric:

and a package of cloth diapers:

I cut 5" wide strips of the fabric and sewed it to the diaper at both ends:

I sewed the corners and turned them right-side out enclosing the end of the diaper, turned under the long raw edge, and zigzag stitched the edge closed.

Voila! Two burp cloths in a coordinating gift bag...

... ready for the new baby!

So... of course I had to make some for my sweet grandson and...

... I decided to embellish them a bit using my Brother Embroidery machine.

Very Preppy, don't you think?!

For this sweet boy here...

who lights up my life {heart}

xoxox, love Hattie

closing Pandora's box...

or should I simply say... 10 days later...

The chair is finished! Hooray!

I added this little piece of cording

But before I celebrate too much, I do still have the matching chair to rehab. For all that will involve see the "before" here and here. I started in on the 2nd one today with hubby's help. He's taking the staples out and he's going to sand it for me. Thank you! Then I get to do the 4 coats of paint and the re-upholstery.

It was all worth it... because I took an unused, dirty, old chair and turned it into a "Cinderella" chair. All new again and ready for GradGirl's condo. I am quite pleased!

And... as an added bonus! I found this adorable chair while at the Flea Market the other day and reupholstered the seat cushion to match. It had already been white washed and I love that!
I love that I didn't have to paint it too! ;-)

everything old is new again!

found while googling...

I've decided I need a rocking chair at my house to rock my grandbaby. I had given our oldest daughter my antique rocker I used when they were babies when we downsized. We happen to have 2 fabulous comfortable upholstered rockers at our lake house... but nothing here. What! What am I to do to snuggle and rock with the baby?! So I started shopping online this morning and googling, and saw this ingenious design:

available for $10,500 at
Scott Morrison Montana Fine Woodworker

Not an option for my house (or budget at that price), but very cool don't you think?!
We actually have more than enough chairs at the moment, and I don't really want to buy another chair. So that got me thinking... what if I could add the glider/rocker base to one of my own chairs.
So... I googled and I found it!

Two options, one a glider base only, one a swivel gilder base. Now I just have to decide which one I want and order it. Oh boy, oh joy... another DIY project!

Is there anything you can't find by googling?!

adding your own touch

I'm a "tweaker"... I love to craft things and add my own customizing touch. Kelly had this plain white lampshade in the baby's nursery that was calling to us saying "dress me up"! So that meant a trip to Hobby Lobby for ribbon, in the nursery colors of course, and getting out the trusty ol' glue gun.

First the brown ribbon

and then the dots.
like little underwater bubbles
But I felt the bottom edge needed something too. Ribbon doesn't bend and lay flat around that flared edge, so...

what about pom poms!
But then seeing it in the room it just wasn't right, so back to tweaking again...I peeled off the top ribbon. It just wasn't doin' it for me, not enough contrast against the white. So instead I used this dotted ribbon in brown and blue.
I added ribbon to the bottom border too but pinched it, like a pie crust, and hot glued it on the pleats, so it would lay against the curve of the shade .
There... better!


What do you think?
This one on the left
or... this one on the right




Then on to tweaking the bumpers. Kelly was this way and that about using bumpers, it's a controversy for new mother's, if you didn't know that. But then we found these plain cream minky bumpers at BR'U, on sale, that match exactly to the other bedding.
See they even say "Carter's"

They were plain, blah, just cream colored.... so I added the stripe fabric as trim to the top edge. Just enough to make it match and look all custom and coordinated.
I machine sewed the first edge on like bias tape, and then folded it over and hand sewed the entire length. Something to do while watching the Olympics!

Two more items for Carter's cute nursery!

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Are you getting tired of this yet? Just wait until he's actually here, ha!