Morgan Casa

Our good friend John Clinton, of John Clinton Photography, took some maternity pictures for us a few weeks ago. We cannot wait to meet Reese! Thank you John for these amazing photos!

My sweet sister, Kristen, bought Reese and Will this matching little outfit from Etsy. I can't wait to see them wearing it! The only thing missing was a matching hair clip. (The flower did not come with the dress.) I made these little barefoot sandals from a yellow t-shirt a few weeks ago and still had the whole backside of the t-shirt left, so I decided to make a flower clip. It was so easy! It only took me about 15 minutes to make and I used this  tutorial.

Yesterday, I posted about all of the onesies I've decorated. I thought it would be cute if I made a pair of matching shoes and a bow tie for Will to go with this little onesie. I used this  tutorial for the bow tie. I used this  tutorial for the shoes. These definitely take a lot of patience since you are working with tiny little pieces. As you can see, there is a learning curve. The shoe on the left has a little pointed toe. I did much better on my second shoe (the one on the right). I think the onesie will look cute with a little denim skirt or maybe a hot pink cotton skirt like this one from Old Navy that I just got for less than $4!

Along with my burp cloth addiction, I have a onesie addiction as well. I made sure to leave at least one plain white onesie, but I'm thinking of digging through Will's old newborn clothes just to find more onesies to decorate. The possibilities are endless and it only takes a tiny scrap of fabric. This bird almost drove me crazy! This is try number two. The first time, I tried a new stitch and my sewing machine jammed up creating a huge hole in the onesie. It is hard to tell, but the tail of the bird isn't on the onesie very straight. On this onesie, I sewed part of the front to the back, so there is a nice set of small holes on the backside where I had to rip it out. This cupcake also didn't turn out straight. I had to rip out the cupcake liner (the pink striped fabric) once but at least I was able to cover up all of the holes that it left by shifting the fabric down a little bit. As you can tell, it was not an easy crafting day. I was so ...

So, I've gone a little overboard in making burp cloths. I just can't seem to get enough of them. It is challenging to find cute burp cloths in the stores, and why buy something that is just "ok" if you can choose your own fabric and make it really awesome?  I made some just like this for Will with terry cloth as the backing and they were my go-to burp cloths when he was little. They are nice and big (8 x 16 in.) and they soak up a lot of spit-up and milk. I just bought whatever was the cheapest towel at Target and cut it up. I did spend about $6 at Hobby Lobby buying some girly fabric but the rest are fabric scraps that I had left over from other projects.  Fabric from Hobby Lobby Fabric from stash Fabric left over from owl lamp and bird art This fabric is a little out of place with the brighter fabrics I chose. The fabric came from my mom's old stash of fabric and I really like how feminine it is AND it's free!  Yellow P...

I made my first piece of clothing for Reese: a pillowcase dress. I don't know anything about making clothes, so I thought I would start off with something really simple. Wouldn't this be cute with a little ruffled bloomer?

I updated our bassinet to make it more feminine. Here  is what it looked like in Will's nursery. I ordered some faux pink silk from Amazon and created a big sash and little pink birdies for the mobile. I'm being so picky, but I don't know if I like the birds. I might have to change them out for something better.

I think one of the cheapest ways to add some art to your home is to make your own. I purchased these canvases at Hobby Lobby for about $16/piece and used left over fabric from my lampshade makeover to create two pieces of bird art. All I did was google images of bird silhouettes online, choose a couple that I liked and sketched them onto the back of the fabric. If you aren't comfortable with your own sketching, you can always print them out and trace. I carefully cut out each bird and used Mod Podge to attach it to the canvas, then once it was dry, I used another layer of Mod Podge to seal it. I originally saw  this piece of bird art at Houzz.com and it is what inspired me to make my own. If you love decorating or need decorating ideas, I cannot recommend Houzz.com enough. Someone introduced me to it a few months ago and it is an amazing resource to get ideas.

One of the great things about having a little girl is all of the accessories! I am an organized freak. I hate clutter, so a drawer full of bows made me cringe. I wanted a bow organizer that was a little more modern, but all of the tutorials I read online involved ribbon or chicken wire (which I think you have to buy in bulk at Lowe's). I wanted something a little more simple, so I made up my own tutorial. I bought this frame at Hobby Lobby for about $20 and removed the backing and glass. Next I measured and decided how far apart I wanted my wire to be. I marked the holes and hand screwed eight "eye screws" which you can purchase at any home improvement store. (I drew a picture of what I wanted, since I didn't know the name, and sent Matthew to the store to hunt them down.) My fingers hurt so bad after screwing them in, but I didn't want to risk damaging the frame with a drill.    I used floral wire, since that is what I had on hand, but if I were ...

My great grandmother, Grammy Arnold, was one of my very favorite people in the whole world. She lived to be in her nineties, but up until the last couple of years, she still lived by herself, gardened, fished, and lived a very active life. She loved to collect ceramic owls, so every time I see one it reminds me of her. I saw this lamp on Target's website  and knew that it would be perfect for Reese's nursery, minus the black shade.  Before  After I knew that the black shade was not going to work with the other nursery decor, but I remembered seeing on pinterest that you could recover a lampshade with fabric. I used this tutorial. Since the lampshade was black and the fabric I selected (Michael Miller, I think) was mostly light colors, I cut an extra piece of left over curtain lining fabric to place in between so that the black wouldn't show through. To finish it off and make it extra girly, I hot glued a strand of extra large white pom...

I have been busy trying to get Reese's nursery transformed from a calm, cool baby boy nursery to a very feminine, bright baby girl nursery. Since Will came 3.5 weeks early, and being the crazy planner that I am, I am determined to get everything finished before she gets here. Over the next few days, I want to share some of the projects I have been working on. The first project I want to share is a simple cardboard letter update. I purchased these cardboard letters at JoAnn but I think you can get them at most craft stores. I got out my glue gun (which of course I burned myself with multiple times) and started wrapping the yarn and gluing every so often. I used two large skeins of yarn for the big letter "M" and 1.5 medium skeins for each of the small letters. Make sure that you cut small strands of yarn and glue them over the ends or other hard to wrap places before you began. I covered a few ends but got so anxious to get started that I didn't finish and it made ...