Guest Blogging over at My Insanity

About a month ago I did a guest post over at My Insanity. I thought it was time to repost it here.

...Now on to the baby stuff! In my house we're just getting past the baby stage (in fact, we just gave our crib away and got my 3 year old a "big boy bed") but I have a TON of new babies and pregnant friends in my life right now. So I've got babies on the brain right along with everyone else (though I have to say I'm liking not having to experience the nausea and sleepless nights along with them). So today I thought I'd focus on cutesy-ing up the nursery. I have a few decor ideas for you, along with a quick How To. (sorry the photos are a little dark. It's a rainy week and I didn't want Kendra to have to wait for me to find some decent sunlight)

One of the things I love most about what was once my nursery is the bead board wainscot and the little shelf above it that runs around 2 entire walls in the room. This is the one thing I really wanted when I was pregnant with my first - enough to talk my brother-in-law into installing it and my mom into painting the room since my husband was deployed at the time. The shelf was mostly intended to be decorative but it also came in handy to hold the lotion and diaper cream above the changing table, or to put small things out of reach when I found them in a tiny baby hand. Since we moved my daughter out and my son in, I haven't done much with the shelf so today is the day I change that.
I have all these fabric scraps left over from making the quilt for the bed and decided I would try modge podging them onto something. I love photos and never have enough ways to display them so I came up with the idea of making a pseudo bulletin board out of a blank canvas I've had sitting around (it's been there since the painting class I took in college - 10 years ago! I'm such a craft pack rat). I say "pseudo" because I don't think it would be a good idea to be making pin holes in the canvas.Supplies:
-canvas (mine was 16x20)
-fabric strips
-modge podge
-embellishments of any kind

I kept the canvas white because I liked the contrast, but you can, of course, paint it first if you don't want the white. Then I put down a layer of modge podge where I wanted the first strip to go and smoothed the fabric over it.

Repeat with the other strips and let dry completely. *I'm told this step is crucial with modge podge in order to avoid bubbles.

Oh! And put your supplies up high if you walk away while it's drying. I went to make my son's bed (so it would be photo ready haha) and came back to find he'd been "helping!" Luckily it was just modge podge and no real harm was done. Just a word to the wise there... :)

When it's all dry apply another layer - or two or three - of modge podge over the top of everything to seal it down. I folded then ends of the fabric strips around to the back of the canvas and stapled them down onto the frame. I figured that would keep them on better in case the modge podge didn't quite hold (modge podge and I have a love-hate relationship. I have never quite mastered it and thus don't trust it!) or if the kids got their hands on it. Plus, I ran out of modge podge :) Then I added a little rickrack embellishment and a couple photos (using double stick tape and glue dots).

See? Easy! And inexpensive. And quick. My 3 favorite things.

And here are some other ideas I thought I'd share from my kids' rooms.
We all love the vinyl lettering right? A friend of mine sells it and gave me this quote when my daughter was born. I knew I wanted to be able to move it around so I put it on a frame and backed it all with scrapbook paper.

I found these shadow boxes at the local craft store - a set of four for $5! They were unfinished so I painted them. Then I altered a wooden letter for each of the kids. This one is my son's.

For my daughter's room I added more scrapbook paper to the back. And when she came home with this cute hand print from Kindergarten (Christmas present for us) I decided the shadow box would be a good place to showcase it. Wouldn't this idea be so cute with baby feet?

Well I hope you've picked up an idea or two from me today. If you use them, I'd love to see photos.
Thank you, Kendra, for letting me take over the blog for a bit. Can't wait to see the new baby and the baby's room! ;)