Pepper Design Blog

Project Nursery: A Newly Updated Mobile

Sharing a quick update in our nursery today. I finally had some time to restring the butterflies from Liv’s felt mobile and to invest in a proper wooden hanger! My previous version worked for a while… and then decided it didn’t want to support the weight of the little floating felt butterflies any longer.

If you’re ever interested in creating your own unique mobile, I highly recommend purchasing a basic wooden frame/hanger from Seven Acre Toys as your base. I searched for quite a while to find something that would fit the look and design that I had in mind and was so happy I eventually came across their site on Etsy. They didn’t sell just the hangers at the time but after reaching out to them with my project they set up a custom listing and built the hanger to my 14″ specs with rounded edges, a wax finish and with drilling holes for hanging, all for just $10 + shipping.

I love the way it looks! And how the butterflies sway and spin casually as breezes enter the room.

I used a small wooden ball bead from a craft store to hide the knot of the four adjoining embroidery thread supports that connect from each arm together. One of these supports continues on up to the ceiling where the entire mobile is supported by a threaded eye screw. Here’s that visual again so you can see what I mean:

This underside image shows that each arm has three drill holes – one at the farthest end for a butterfly, two halfway between the center of the X and the end for the embroidery thread support that reaches up to that wooden bead and for a second butterfly. There’s also two holes in the very center for the butterfly that hangs down the middle, though one would have been fine. Here’s my exact listing if that’s helpful!

And from Olivia’s angle:

The butterflies are two pieces of felt from the Etsy company Three Sheep Studio (they don’t sell quite the color range I was looking for at Joann’s or Michael’s, and this felted wool is just beautiful) connected together by complimentary embroidery thread that wraps around the entire outer edge in a simple stitch. Read more about creating each of those guys here.

The made over glider has been moved to next to the crib for now while we build out Liv’s little reading nook.

Very excited to cross ‘updating Liv’s mobile’ off of my list! And wanted to be sure to share my resources with you all since they were so great to work with.

More Project Nursery posts found here: a new reading nook part 1, finished after photos, no sew fabric pennant, baby clothing art, handmade felt butterfly mobile, DIY crib skirt, basket liners part 1, part 2, the, glider makeover, recovering an ottoman, sewing lined curtains part 1, part 2, part 3, curtain fabric selection, nursery fabric board, rocking horse find, new pendant light, new sconce lighting, vintage wall art addition, changing table makeover, nursery wall striping tutorial , painted animal project, the initial inspiration board breakdown, the before pictures

Project Nursery: A Reading Nook

I’m working on carving out a little space in Liv’s nursery for a reading nook.

When her Aunt asked me what she could get Liv for Christmas and her birthday (which is just three weeks later) I mentioned a table and chairs for playdough, drawing and reading. We settled on this adorable set and I love how it looks in the nursery!

Chairs by Room & Board, table by Whitney Bros. I searched and searched for a few weeks before finding a set that had both good reviews (ie wasn’t going to break immediately) and at a reasonable price (and maybe had a little design appeal…). It was probably because fo the holidays but everything was sold out. Found the table initially on Amazon but for $50 less at the Today’s Classroom website. PS West Elm currently has the same chairs in white and a natural wood on sale.

I hope to create little book racks out of painted wall plate holders or spice racks, and maybe an area for a big roll of paper. The pictures above are a new addition too, though I’m still trying to decide what photo will go in that top frame before I mat it. The bottom is an adorable card that Liv received when she was brand new – fits perfectly with the nursery and talk about inexpensive art!

The rocker was formerly in that above corner and I’ve been playing around with its new placement.

Here’s the official start of turning Liv’s space slowly into a big girl room. Oh man, it’s too soon.

Project Nursery: Personalized Growth Chart + a Petite Lemon *Giveaway*

Tis’ the season for giving and I have a really great giveaway for everyone today.  Petite Lemon recently asked if they could partner with me to share their line of kid’s personalized growth charts, alphabet posters and photo posters.

Today they’re offering a $50 gift certificate towards any of these, and they were kind enough to send one personalized product my way to check out:

I love their contemporary style and I was immediately smitten with several of their personalized alphabet prints:

But because we have an adorable vintage-esq alphabet poster (which actually served as the inspiration for our nursery), I checked out their growth charts as well.

So cute! This Color Me chart below was my favorite and I thought it would fit right into the colors of the nursery:

It’s as adorable in person as it is online!

While I had ‘Spenla Family’ printed at the top, what I really mean is ‘Spenla Kids’ (since Kevin and I long ago passed up that 60″ mark – wait, does it say 60″? Actually I might still be able to put myself just above that mark on this chart at 5′ 3″…) anyhow, we wanted one chart that would serve the purpose of all Spenla Kids rather than just Liv (so we don’t one day have 2, 3 or even 4 charts up) but I chose Spenla Family because, well, if we are blessed with just Liv then that’s okay too :0).

The canvas growth chart is great on its own, but I wanted to really fill in this corner (between the door to the new bathroom and her dresser) and so I mounted the chart on a handmade fabric lined frame:

And hung the chart with a mustard yellow ribbon from the two top grommets.

I made the fabric frame from molding I had lying around the garage (leftover pieces that I didn’t use in this project), pretty primary colored fabric I found marked down to $4.99/yard, a couple of nails and a staple gun.

The process was fairly easy – similar to stretching a canvas for art. First, cut molding to the desired rectangle sizes (I wanted about a foot on top and bottom of the chart plus 8 or so inches on each side) and secure the pieces of wood together with a nail and hammer (you could do a fancy version of this with a pilot hole but I was going basic here and just tapped the nail right through one end of the molding and into the other).

Next, cut fabric to the same size + 5″ or so on each edge for folding over the back. Lay the frame upside down on your fabric and ‘stretch the fabric up and over each edge, securing the fabric to the frame on the back side with a staple gun (I went a little crazy with the staples for this example but you get the idea ).

 The chart and fabric tie in really well with the rest of the primary colors in the nursery:

In fact, it almost pulls all of the colors together!

Back to that giveaway… Petite Lemon is giving away a $50 credit to their entire store! Find fun and contemporary ideas for a kids or teen room. Makes a great gift.

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Giveaway: A $50 credit to Petite Lemon towards a personalized growth chart, alphabet poster or photo poster

To Enter: Leave a comment here with your plans for giving this season! (Could be a gift, time, resources, charity…)

For Additional Entries: Become a Facebook fan of Petite Lemon and/or Pepper Design Blog. Be sure to leave a separate comment for each additional entry.

Giveaway ends Friday, December 23 at midnight PST, winner will be chosen randomly and announced the following Monday. Good luck!

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In other news, I’m honored that Goo Gone has made me the Gooru of the week! Come check it out over here. Goo Gone is one of those must-haves for messy projects and I’m a huge fan.