what's in a name...

I'm back, after a spell of the "feeling crummies", and the new semester starting, I finally got the time and energy to work on something. I actually started painting the paneling in the hallway, and I'll give you a sneak peek:

How awesome is that hallway looking now?! But more on that later; on to more important things...

Like I was saying, I finally got the energy to work on the nursery some more (even though I am STILL waiting on my combo unit from BRU, don't even get me started, grrrr.....) and I think it has turned out pretty marvelous so far! I finally told my wacky indecisive brain to just shut up and decided on the colors and patterns for the bug's Name Project and got the "MASON" done last night. Well, not done done, there is still a lot of embellishment work that needs to go on those letters, but then I got another idea, so I got sidetracked. Here's the Mason, and I'm sorry they are crooked, I haven't actually finished tying them yet, they're just sort of loosely hung up there (though they do look kind of cute all skewed like that, I mean, they are in a little boy's room) Don't mind the cute little animal decals either, those are getting moved over by the crib for reasons you will discover later:

And then I got to thinking, I really really wanted to do some kind of pennant, whether it be fabric or paper, but I couldn't really pin down anything that I was totally in love with. That's when it came to me. His middle name. See, at first, before I got the idea of making his Name Project, I was just going to buy a custom vinyl lettering and the company I was eyeballing included both the first name AND the middle name. But then after changing my mind (for the umpteenth time) I figured "Alexander" was too many letters to have each one on a 12x12 chipboard and fit it on the wall, and I nixed the "Alexander" thing. But anyways, back to when it hit me. If I had enough twine left over after hanging his first name, I could make an adorable little pennant garland and put his middle name on that! Fabulous idea! So once I pinned down how big they should be, I made a little stencil of sorts and cut some triangles out of some white paper I had laying around, just to play with first, before I started cutting into my cute scrapbook paper... and here's how it looks so far:

And yes, I realize that's not the world's best picture and you can't really see the pennants, I took that one at about 11 pm, I don't have the best lighting in that room right now, since it's still pretty much empty, and the little animal decals completely throw off the balance of his first name and middle name. But after I took this picture, I started working on the colors and patterns for the pennants and boy, do they look so cute! Especially after moving the decals and just having the pennants hanging against the white of the wall... it's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. I don't have the letters glued down to the pennants yet, so stay tuned for another update when I get those finished.

And next up on the nursery to do list? I need to start looking for curtains (or make them, who knows at this point) and I need to make a mobile. I was going to just buy the cute little turtle one that matches his bedding, but it's like 40 dollars and from what I hear (and can see from pictures of it) once the bug is in his crib, he will only be able to see the underside of the turtle. And if I'm going to have to take the time to deconstruct and reconstruct a mobile just to give the bug some visual stimulation, I might as well just make exactly what I want. And I'm also thinking of making a little something that will hang over his changing table to keep him sort of distracted... that's a good game plan, no? So here's my ideas so far, all courtesy of Pinterest:

This one is actually this etsy listing. How cute are those stars...

...and this cute little circle one...

...and oh my, how easy it would be to make one of these with little turtles instead on owls!

So needless to say, stay tuned... I've got a lot of little projects up my sleeve, and after realizing that I'm already at the beginning of my 8th month of pregnancy, I feel like I'm running out of time!