Kids' Bathroom Part 2

I mentioned in the previous post that I bought some coordinating hand towels. Well, as I was hanging up the shower curtain I'd just made, I noticed that the bath towels I let the girls pick out 6 months ago actually matched perfectly. But it wasn't good enough. I had an idea how to make them BETTER! HA HA HA... I yanked the towels off the towel bars, began twisting that invisible mustache again and ran to get my scissors and sewing machine! This was gonna be good....
I started with a plain white towel and sewed ribbon I had bought onto the bottom hem.


I attached the wide ribbon first using a straight stitch.


Then I sewed on the rickrack with a straight stitch too.



I cut up the towel with the owls standing on end and I had 4 cute owls, two pinkish and two bluish.


Next, I pinned the owl in place, off center, and sewed it onto the towel using the longest stitch for a zig zag and the closest stitch setting.



This is how it looked when I was done:


Here are the towels I sewed with the hand towel I bought. I am very pleased with how all 4 towels came out looking!


Here's the best part:
4 bath towels = $12
hand towel = $1.20
ribbon= $4
TOTAL = $17.20
That's 4 beautiful towels for less than one at Pottery Barn Kids! God, I love making stuff!!!

IKEA Hacking (make something old into something new)

I've mentioned on my family blog how I love turning old clothes into new clothes so why not do that with furniture? While packing up the house, I was staring at H's bed and decided I didn't like it anymore. We bought the IKEA Malm bed off craigslist when we lived in GA because we were desperate to own a bed and the space we had was really tiny. Jeremy said No so reluctantly, I took the bed apart dreading to rebuild it in the new house.

That was until I got the newest edition of Pottery Barn Kids and came across the prettiest bed. In case you didn't know, I'm a sucker for nail head trim and crystal chandeliers. This bed was perfect for my vision and then I got to brainstorming...


I had J run to the hardware store for me after I spent the night with a glass of wine, a box top, pen and my conversion calculator. I had a queen sized bed so I needed some plywood 66.5" long and 18" high. I also need lots of screw, staples for my gun and some L-brackets. Meanwhile, I ran to the fabric store and bought 4.75 yards of fabric a 5 yards of 2" batting and some silver nail head trim.

Here's what I did:
1) I attached 4 L-brackets to the plywood


2) Then I screwed the plywood to the headboard


3)I carefully laid the headboard down being attentive to the brackets making sure not to bend them. I took some left over plywood and placed it on the front of the headboard to secure it a little better.



4)Once that was screwed in place, I cut the 2" batting to fit the headboard and secured it with a few staples so it didn't move while I measured the rest of the batting to fit


5)I attached a second row of batting, making sure to cut out a space for the side rails to attach later



6)Next, I took my fabric a stapled it to the bottom of the headboard where it would be covered by the mattress. I proceeded to staple the fabric as I pulled it tightly to get a nice even look



7)I carefully folded up the corners like a present and stapled them


8)Then I nailed the trim in place



9) I did the same thing with the foot board


10)I also covered the side rails but did not use batting. Instead, I had to be careful getting under the slight ledge on the side.

PRESTO!!! My $2000 pottery barn bed 4 hours and a blister later for $100!


Stay tuned to see the bed in the room with bedding once paint dries in the room here in a few days!