Man up

As you all know I have been working for months to have my house ready for baby Clifford.  One of the last things I needed to do was evict his dad from his bathroom.  Not hard right?  Wrong.  

Zac is so stubborn (not that I am...or Cliff is)!  

Since our master bedroom is open to the bathroom, Zac always got ready in the guest bathroom.

I assured him he didn't have to, I was up anyway.  

He insisted.  Which drove me crazy, because that also meant he always left his toothbrush and his man products on the counter.  I always had to clean them up when anyone came over.  Plus, somehow the man has like 3 sets of trimmers/clippers and they all found their way under the vanity...or on the vanity. 

I warned Zac he would have to quit that.  The bathroom is small, and the little vanity has just 2 drawers and a little space behind 2 doors.  Due to my mega aversion to toilet paper holders...we were down to 1 drawer, which needed to belong to Cliff.  

I seriously moved Zac out, and back into our bathroom 4 times at a minimum.  

I think it may have actually been 5.  

After the last time I told him if he tried to move back in, I was going to get mean....I would start deleting movies from his hard drive.  For those of you that know Zac, this is a very serious offense.  He, so far, has stayed "moved out." 

Threats work people.  

Turns out, sometimes marriage is about frivolous threats.

I don't regret ransom-ing his movies.  Not one bit. 

Anyway, back to the reason for this post. 

Previously the guest bathroom had been a little girly.  Well, a lot girly.  

I had a shower curtain I found at the thrift store that was a floral pattern from the seventies, all hot pink and orange and green.  It was fab.  

Plus it went great with some super pink towels.  (Funny that it was "Zac's" bathroom, but he can't care about color schemes...)

I knew pink wouldn't do for Cliff.  We needed this bathroom to "man up."

I looked online through curtains and didnt' find any that really blew my skirt up, so I figured I would just make one.  I had fabric in mind.  

I don't know about you guys, but I am loving chevron fabric!

I used grey and white on the back of Cliff's crib quilt and knew it could make a great graphic curtain for him and work with lots of colors so I wouldn't get too sick of it.  

Now it was just time to chevron up!

This is his new bathroom.

For those of you that aren't big sewers, curtains are super simple.   Literally, fold and sew a straight line.  Before you know it, BAM curtain time.  

I decided to get a little crazy and sew button holes into my curtain for the rings.  Talk about a pain!  It is not that the process was hard...since my machine's button thing is fully automated.  It was my own incompetence.  I couldn't find my manual that said how to use the button hole maker.

Then I spent an entire hour misreading the directions from the manual I downloaded.

Then I couldn't measure because my pregnant brain can't do math at this point.  I literally had to ask Zac for help....and draw a diagram, to make sure I did it correctly.  It was lame...a lame word problem...

"if your curtain is 90 inches wide and there are 12 curtain rings, with the first and last rings starting 1 inch from the edge how far apart do your button holes need to be to make the rings evenly spaced?"

See...you would have drawn it out too.

(In math class, they now call word problems "critical thinking."  I don't think any school math problem qualifies as "critical" but the irony of being unable to perform critical thinking was not lost on me.)

The point is, I button-holed the heck out of that shower curtain and now it looks awesome. 

I got the rug right the first time, but not the towels.  

I had bought fab ones that I loved from Kohls...and then the lighting in the bathroom made them look a funny color.  I returned them, and bought 6 more towels.  I returned 4 of those...and bought 2 more.

I am a girl with opinions people!  I need options!

(Thank you Kohl's for your easy returns process.  It allows me to be completely fickle with zero consequence.  Turns out, I appreciate that. ) 

After 4 tries, orange and grey it is!

I am very happy with it. 

The bathroom is super manly.  And now, super ready for Cliff Stu! 

Clifford's Nursery!

I have finally, really, finished Clifford's room.  I am so glad!  The OCD planner in me wanted it done forever ago, but sometimes things just come together in bits and pieces.  Especially when you are buying things as you are able, and refinishing what you have.  In the end, I think it is so adorable.  

So get your cup of coffee ready, sit back, and enjoy the walk (well, slow rotation) through Clifford's nursery.

This is what you see when you enter from the hall.

On the right are the paintings I made for him and a storage ottoman.

I would like one more pillow...an orange one I think, but haven't brought myself to dig through my storage tubs in the shed to find one yet.  

Sometimes I find desire is trumped by laziness...at least when it comes to pillows. 

This is obviously his dresser/changing table.  My best friend gave it to me and I used it in my room for about a year but decided it would make an excellent piece for Ford.  Next to it is a little bookshelf that I bought at Third Sunday Market in Bloomington.  (Again, if you haven't gone, GO!  There are so many vendors you are sure to find amazing things and then you will end up with your Dad's barn full of furniture just waiting on you to live somewhere other than a trailer.  Well, maybe not that exactly, but you will find great things.)
The chair was a shower gift from my sneaky Aunt Jackie.  She and mom called from IKEA about it.  We hem-hawed over buying it.   They said they passed.  They lie like rugs. 

To the left from there are his shelves and toys.  

Notice the monster that sits in his chair.  It is from my friend Darby.  She makes handmade goods (including bunnies and elephants and owls that are girlie versions of the monster) that are just perfection.  I mean really, could that monster  BE any more fab.  No.  Check her out online at Underground Vintage to see the whole array of things she creates and prepare to fall in love with stuffed animals...well beyond an appropriate age to do so.

 On his shelves he has a few other books and toys, including the construction pig piggy bank that his Great Grandma Betty got for him.  She put some pennies in already to get him started and so it would make much more interesting sounds when he shakes it.  

He also had to have pictures of his family.  

Can't forget where you come from....otherwise you might not understand why you are a little crazy :)

He got a big picture of the Ballard's and his grandparents and aunties on my side, as well as a picture from the night I told Zac I was pregnant.  As you may remember....he "congratulated" me. 

And, of course, no baby's room is complete without a crib.

(and a lovely wall mounted monitor that photographs oh so well)

Zac's sisters had these awesome letters printed for my shower.  The didn't end up using them so they handed them over.  I knew they would be perfect.  It was just a matter of finding 8 inexpensive frames....thank you Family Dollar!  With a little bit of spray paint, a level, and some patience, I hung his entire name CLIFFORD across the wall, only to discover that the frames, while all the same size, did not have the little hanger hooks mounted in the same spot on the back, so my level nails, made an unlevel name.  Obnoxious.  In the end, his full name looked too long on the short wall anyway.  

So for now, it will say Cliff.

We will see if he gets here and looks more like a Ford. 

 

There ya have it.  My little man's nursery is fully prepared to be slept in, drooled on, and probably peed all over.  Tomorrow I am 38 weeks along, so it shouldn't be too long now.  

I hope you enjoyed the tour of Cliff Stu's room.  

I love it.  

I think it's pretty perfect.

Now to find a magazine interested in coming to photograph a nursery inside of a mobile home for it's pages.  

I am thinking Traditional Home will be interested....

Paintings for Cliff Stu

I have been painting and painting lately, and waiting to get some time to paint my own pictures.  

I've had the canvas for Clifford's nursery prepped for weeks.  

Two days ago I got the first canvas done.  I hated it.  I promptly painted over it.  

I decided to go a different way and I'm so glad I did!

I picked out a fabric from his quilt and decided to paint him a room with many bugs and critters. 

They turned out great! 

I picked the snail

and the caterpillar.

I let Zac pick the third.  

He said lightening bugs and I think it was a great decision.

They made it up on to his wall a couple days ago.  

His walls are a kinda minty green color....like this shade I'd say...maybe a hair lighter. 

Not at all the color they look in this picture.  

For some reason the color is really off.  

I swear, they look crooked as heck, but they aren't.  

  After my shower next weekend, I hope to have his nursery all done and will post up pictures of his room.  It is really coming along!

Foiled again

It has been hot in central Illinois.  Not just regular, it's summer hot, but like, heat index of 110 severe drought close up shop early if you work outside hot.  I am not a fan.  I like a slow transition.  I kinda think we should be working our way through the eighties and nineties, getting ourselves acclimated before mother nature slaps our AC units into submission.

It has not been the case.  

My poor trailer is HOT.  The air conditioning can't keep up, not a bit.  Generally speaking, I don't mind hot.  Used to be that I liked 75, 76 in the house.  Pregnant Abbie, not so much.  I could live in a cellar, with a fan on, surrounded by images of snow capped mountains and be sad that I forgot my frosty cold beverage.  Welcome to my new normal!  It's for this reason Zac has learned to keep his mouth shut when he comes home to me in mesh shorts and a sports bra with my Cliff belly just kickin it in the wind.  He commented the first time.  I think it was, "so, uh, just letting it all hang out there huh?"  I think I may have told him to shove it.  Hard to say.  My point is, the man slept without a shirt on for the first time in nearly 5 years the other day, so he is melting too, and for good reason.  

By afternoon, our AC has been running nonstop for hours and the temp is usually 80+....right now, AC is set at 74...it's 86. 

On Monday I decided there had to be something else I could do.  In surveying the trailer park (not necessarily a wealth of information....well, reliable information)  I decided to go a little crazy and headed up to Family Dollar for a roll of heavy duty foil and some duct tape.  

It seemed like sound logic that if I covered my windows in the hottest part of the trailer, so the sun was reflected, the house would not be as hot.  So that's what I set to work doing.  

This is my west facing window at 7:30.  

The hall, at closer to 9am.  You can see, quite bright.  

My finished window. 

And the window in the kitchen.  

I did this on Monday.  The immediate results were surprising.  I effectively went from enjoying life among the living, to a cave so dark I thought I might go mole-blind.  (Random fact, moles are basically blind.)  

For a day, I basked in my highly reflective hovel.  I took a comatose nap in the middle of the afternoon and was scared awake by Zac, who entered the house looking like an angelic Viking, filling the doorway, surrounded by light so bright it almost hurt.  

The next day I got up around 7, and promptly walked back into 10pm in the living room.  I had to turn on lamps.  I hated it.  

Wednesday was more of the same, but Zac was home and he would live in a cave if I let him, so he was loving it.  Later that day I made the mistake of touching the foil and nearly seared off a finger.  In a fit of rage I ripped off a chunk of the foil and irritated Zac.  He argued that I "spent time and money to do that."  I told him that I was ok losing $4 and a hour of my time.  His little glowing vampire eyes stopped me from across the room before I unveiled the rest of the window.   

Thursday, I snapped.  I tore off the foil in the hall and the kitchen.  As a compromise, I left up the living room foil.  It is nice not to have a glare on the television, Zac is right about that.      

I am sad to report, the foil does not help at all.  It cuts out light, that is for sure, but as for heat it is hopeless.  I am praying that the heat wave breaks soon.  I am sick of it.  For now, however, I will continue to let my trailer look like I'm growing drugs in the living room.        

The itch...

Anyone that knows my mom, knows the woman cannot stop decorating.  I am afraid that she passed it on....it is frustrating.  It makes you do silly things.  Like believe that your living room must be rearrange RIGHT NOW!  Then you are thrilled that most of your furniture is fairly light weight, so you and your Cliff belly can push and pull it around without a helping hand. 

This was my living room before. 

Side one

The wall of electronics that I would not be touching...

And side two.

Ignore the pile of crap you see behind the leopard chair.  I like to make piles of stuff to work on...

So that is what my living room looked like.  I asked Mom to come help me rearrange...she insisted the place looked fine and needed no changing.  I disagreed.

I also have a bit of a problem.  The leather couch that I got 7 years ago, is cracking and tearing.  It pisses me off.  Just the thought of it.  I hate being at the point I am in life (27, married, baby on the way, etc) and owning furniture that has tape on it.  Just irritating.  Irritating that it the couch didn't hold up.  Irritating that the company won't honor the warranty.
Irritating that I need to rearrange my furniture so we start using the less damaged side more.
Irritating.

So that was my dilemma.  Let the redecorating begin!

I basically just flipped the room...Side two now

Side two

Untouched electronics...as promised.

Side one

And my kitchen....don't know why I included this picture.  Honestly, no idea, but I'm gonna let it ride.

Mom did come and help me move things around a bit.
She hated it.
Not just the helping, but the new layout.  "Not good" she says. "Much better the other way."  I can't care.  It HAD to be done, it is staying!
I like it.  It will grow on Mom.  If not, well, she can't see it from her house.



PS thanks for your help ma.  I appreciate you and your little arm. 

A tale of 2 dressers

I want you all to know, I decide with every piece of furniture I purchase, if the piece is he or a she.  It is largely appearance.  A big, dark leather chair is clearly a man.  

This is a man chair. 

A chair with curvy lines and white linen fabric is clearly a girl.  

This dresser.... a man. 

This one is a lady.

You see what I mean.  Surely you do. 

The two dressers above, are in my bedroom.  I have the lady, Zac has the man.  I had been looking to switch things up a bit and move out the big, long dresser in my room to Clifford's nursery because it could double as a changing table.  Cliffy had a very manly dresser in his room.  I knew I wanted the dressers to sit side by side, so I needed something to balance out man-dresser.     

I had been looking.  I knew when I found the right one, my heart would tell me.  Well folks, I found her.  And she is a pretty, dainty lady indeed.  

I had been saving up for 3rd Sunday Market.  I was honestly hoping to find a super inexpensive dresser, like her manly counterpart, but that was not the case.  She is a classy broad.  Oh I just love her! 

Check out that chippy old paint and crystal knobs. Like I said, classy!  She sits right next to her man.  

See, he is handsome.  He was also a 3rd Sunday find.  I love that he is dark and simple.  It is a study of opposites in my bedroom and I dig it.  

The look fab together.  It's like when what's-her-face married Antonio Banderas.  That same sort of chemistry...but with dressers.  (also... I wish I had closed my closet door in this picture..oh well)

The best part of giving inanimate objects a masculine or feminine connotation, is that you can make up ridiculous stories as well.   

For example, I like to believe that man dresser has a real tough man name....like, oh, I don't know, Cliff Stu, but not Cliff Stu cause that's my baby's name.  Anyway, picture him with a real tough name, and he grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.  He is a little scarred-up, a little dinged and scratched, and he is now completely taken with the prom queen.....a blonde-haired, blue-eyed debutant.  But she digs him back and what do ya know, it works and they live happily ever after. 

  That would be the story of my dressers.  See?  It's fun.  

Now, take what I have taught you and apply it to your own objects.  You will find love stories, and back-stabbings and family feuds a plenty.  It'll be a regular soap opera in your living room.  Exercise your adult imagination.  Be stupid in a good way.  I know I am. 

P.S.  Now that you know that I do this, just see if you don't start too.  Betcha will.  If you ever move furniture with me, I won't say, lets move the orange cabinet here, I'll say, "She'd look good here" and now you'll find yourself thinking, "Ooohh what a handsome man chair."  Lucky you.

Clifford's Crib Quilt

I have been itching to get Clifford's bedding done.  Probably the most important part was his crib quilt.  It's kinda like the rug from "The Dude's" apartment..."it really ties the room together."  

(if you don't know the Dude, or the rug, you gotta get on watching The Big Lebowski.  it's one of my all time faves. so ridiculous)

The first step was cutting my squares.  I love all my fabrics.   

Most people do organized quilts, with fancy patterns.  That's not my style.  I lay it out on the floor or a table and then arrange and re-arrange the quilt top until I feel like it is balanced.  This was the pattern that made me the happiest.   It took me a few hours because I would stand and stare and move 3 squares....then walk away and do something else, then repeat.  It is the most important part because when you are as OCD as me, once you find a flaw in your top blocks, you obsess about it.  When the quilt is already sewn and you are irritated about 2 light oranges where clearly it should have been 1 light and 1 dark,  well, in the words of Dad, you're shit outta luck.

After I have my pattern, I stack up my rows to make it easy to grab and sew...and, of course, because this was in the middle of my living room. 

I sit, and I sew each strip.  Usually I sew all my strips then sew them together.  This time I sewed the strips and sewed them together as I went so I got to gradually see it looking more and more like a quilt. I liked that instant gratification.  

Here is a sewn, ironed flat strip. 

Here is a random fact for ya.  I pin nothing.  I hate them.  I ALWAYS get poked regardless of how careful I am.  My solution, curl clips.  I saw them on a trip to the supply house with Maggie and I was scoping them out big time.  A box of 80 was like $4.  That's a lot of awesome if you ask me.  So now, I have little smooth clips that hold things in place wonderfully, slide right off, and never snag fingers or fabric.  I'm one clever girl.  

This is application of said curl clips.  Much faster than pinning if you ask me.  You can see my sewn strip, on my block,  I kinda line up seams starting from the center square then running out to the ends, then sew and iron.

This is my top block all done and looking handsome.  I ironed him up and then laid it out and decided he would look extra polished with a boarder.

I had plenty of extra dark grey fabric from the crib quilt and dust ruffle I made, so ol' quilty got some fancy grey trim.  Plus, this is an excellent way to straighten up any wonky edges...not that I ever make mistakes when cutting, sewing, or lining up my squares.

After his boarder, he got laid out on my batting and backing and then safety pinned together like crazy. 

The I went about the task of quilting him.  I always start in the center and quilt outward.  I learned the hard way that fabric can move around on ya a bit and I didn't want to end up with a great top block, without enough backing to fully cover it.  Again, seam ripping is a good way to piss me off.

I decided just to do vertical quilting on this guy because of how graphic his backing was.  I like to quilt in a contrasting fabric too because I want to see the work.  I love it!

I decided to do store bought satin binding for this quilt for 3 reasons.

#1.  Sheer laziness.

#2.  Just look at that beautiful blue color.

#3.  Satin is super soft and babies like soft things.

After my bindings are machine stitched on, I was simply left to hand stitch the back.   Again, curl clips hold things in place without poking fingers and snagging the satin.  Win win ladies.  I wouldn't steer you wrong.  Especially about something so inconsequential for most of you.

This is the finished product!

Front

Back...watch out, it'll make your eyes dance!

And on his bed.  Initially I was really irritated with myself becaue the quilt was just a hair too big and I was cussing the boarder I just swore I needed to have.  Then I washed and dried it, it wrinkled up a bit (which is a better look) and now it fits perfectly.  

That's it folks,  Cliff Stu's crib quilt is done.  Finite.  It looks so darn cute that I'm starting to second guess bumpers.  That....or I'm starting to second guess more work.  Hard to say exactly what's what here.  Don't blame me, I still have to sew a quilt to cover his carrier/ act as a play mat.