Clock for Baby Boston's Room

I took this cheap clock from IKEA.

And these three products (plus a few other items).

And created this!

What I did.

1. I primed the clock.

2. Painted it blue.

3. Added a layer of Mod Podge to add shine.

4. Took a piece of scrapbook paper and lined the back of the clock. It was the same paper I used here. 

5. Used my cricut and vinyl to cut out brown numbers. 

6. Painted the hands of the clock brown.

7. Put it all back together.

Still trying to work at this random wall... the rectangles are bulletin boards. Anyone have any suggestions to make this random wall look better? Maybe more pictures and only one board?

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A little side note from what I learned from the clock makeover...

I tired using fabric at first to line the back of the clock. The same fabric that is his bedding. 

But because I had to wrap the fabric around a piece of cardboard to give it stability (see picture below), it made the insert too thick that the clock hands would not rotate properly. I even tried cutting out the majority of the cardboard but that didn't make a difference.

But it the end, it was a good choice to go with the paper. The clock will last a lot longer in the room past when this bedding is no longer in use.

Baby Room Bookcase

I lined the back of Boston's bookcase with coordinating fabric that matches his bedding and accent pillow here. I love how it turned out. I didn't want to do anything to bold considering we will be moving in a year and who knows where the bookcase will end up. The fabric is a very small print and hard to capture on a camera especially when I don't know how to take good pictures yet... so sorry for the bad after picture.

Before

After (still need to do a little more accessorizing)

Close up on the fabric

To line the back of the bookcase, I took the back off the IKEA Billy bookcase (see below for another idea). With the help of my husband, I would use spray adhesive and spray a section of the board and then smoothed the fabric along the board. Once completed, I flipped the board around and using duct tape, stretched and taped the fabric to the back of the board. Since it was midnight when all of this was happening, I waited for morning before I nailed the board back into place.

On The Nate Show one day, Nate cut out a piece of cardboard for each section of the bookcase. He then covered the cardboard with fabric and just inserted the cardboard into the bookcase fitting tightly in the back. This method would be perfect for any built-in bookcases.

Instead of fabric, you could also use wrapping paper or wallpaper. My our old place, this bookcase was in our spare room before we had a baby. I lined it with wrapping paper. This was the only picture I could find of my hard work. The room was a mess... I can tell from the picture that we were getting ready for the baby because that big box in the right of the picture is the crib.

More of Boston's room coming later this week.

Baby Room Art

I was watching Sarah 101 and was inspired to do an art wall in Boston's room. The art she used for that episode I already had and was planning on using the same art, but once I started looking around I decided I already had too much art in his room. Just before Christmas we did a photo-shoot of Boston and I decided those pictures would be perfect. 

I used frames I already had, they were purchased at Ikea many years ago at a really good price. This was the art work that the frames came with.

I originally purchased them to displayed graphic paper in the den/scrapbook room of my old condo.

        

I played with the layout and the paper selection. Since the walls in our apartment are light, I decided I wanted to mat the pictures onto scrapbook paper. I even re-used some of the paper that I originally used in the frames.

Next I hung the pictures!

A little secret... I applied masking tape to the back of the frames that didn't hang right. The frames are cheap and well... the hanger on the back wasn't always in the right spot. Check out this post by Becky Higgins for an easy way to hang a grid of frames. I personally didn't have the extra money to use those Picture Hanging Strips but it would have been way easier.

Boston's Frames

Finally hung pictures in Boston's room

See more about it in this post.

CSN Stores

We moved to our new apartment in September and for months I looked for a chair for my sons room. I wanted a cute pattern that would go with the colors in his bedding. Since we are living in a small town I was having a hard time finding anything. In the end I made the decision to just find a brown chair that can go with any future baby bedding (I do plan to have more babies and especially a little girl). You think finding a brown chair would be simple... well it wasn't for my price range. Finally I came across an online store that ships to Canada. For all my fellow Canadian's we all know that not all stores ship to Canada, in fact, a lot don't. 

If you don't already know about CSN Stores... check them out! Not everything ships to Canada, but most does.

Here is the chair I bought for the babies room. 

I love it. Simple and very comfortable. To cut down the cost of shipping, the chair had to be put together and it was even more complicated than something from IKEA. BUT I did it all by myself with a baby crawling all over me. In the end, worth it!

**It says Free Shipping on items like furniture, but for my dear Canadian's... this is not the case. Just a heads up, you will be charged shipping but it was only about $30.