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I have so many nursery projects to share with you readers! My inner Martha Stewart has really come out for this event and even if you aren’t the most crafty person in the world, I think you could do a few of these projects without too much trouble. Making the nursery personal and yet inexpensive is one of my top goals for the room (besides making it totally awesome and modern and bright….those are good goals, too, right?). So I knew we’d do a lot of DIY projects and I’d hunt for gently used pieces of furniture that just beg to be refinished. So far, so good.

My loving fellow-crafty lady mother come up to The Great North to visit her only daughter a few weeks ago. Our sole mission was to pump out as many projects as humanly possible in 2 full days. So we first went fabric shopping and found a literal JACKPOT at a local quilting store. Narrowing it down to just three prints was painstaking but I’m really happy with what we chose:

My mom got to work on the sewing machine (since I still haven’t sucked it up and learned how to sew) and made two sets of orange curtains with green tie backs, a green window seat cushion, and two yellow cushions for the rocking chair. The window seat is definitely one of my favorite spots in the room so far.

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After moving to Nicaragua, I realized that fashionable lamps were in short supply. The best option was to DIY a lamp, as hardware stores and terra cotta pots are plentiful and cheap. The entire project cost us under $10 for two lamps.

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One of the nice things about having a house is the fact that we have the space and are able to have friends and family come and stay with us.  But as of late, and especially after the wedding,  our guest bedroom had really become a no-man’s land full of things that didn’t really have a home.  It certainly didn’t reflect a welcoming feeling.  With 3 sets of visitors coming to visit and stay with us this fall, I decided that it was high time to do something about it.

But here’s the thing:  with budget being a huge issue, I needed to re-use and re-purpose what I already had and make it work.

Armed with 2 gallons of paint (that I got on sale over Labor Day!), I got to work.

Here’s an embarrassing view of what it looked like before:

It wasn’t pretty!

I decided on a wall color, thanks in part to Mrs. Limestone and her own guest bedroom, and also decided to paint all the furniture an antique/off white so that it would look less mis-matched.

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This was the response I got a couple of weeks ago while shopping in New Orleans with one of my friends.  We had stumbled into a vintage furniture store, and they had a pair of  Brno chairs by Mies van der Rohe.  I, having studied him and them in some of my college design classes, was excited.  It’s always so cool to see things like this in “real life”.  My friend, however, was taken aback by the price tag - over $2500 for the pair!  To me that wasn’t a surprise, knowing what true liscensed furniture like this is worth.  And so a dialogue was started.

Most people who buy pieces like this consider them like functional art.  They are beautiful in form, and are timeless in design.  These pieces will never go out of style.  Not to mention that the true licensed pieces are so well built that they will last you a lifetime.

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Blogging on a ‘Living’ website makes me want to dig deep for some inspirational decor/craft posts. I know I have it in me somewhere if only I can cut through my randomness. In March 2008, after we moved into our duplex, I was losing my mind over decorating a clean slate of sorts. Truly in my own personal heaven I found my inner Martha and whipped out a few projects and I believe I will share them with you.

My largest craft to date? Our upholstered headboard that my Mom and I made one weekend while she visited us in Our Great Northern Habitat. This project is super easy [I swear!] and inexpensive, while making a regular old bed seem much more regal and dare I say it….more like a grown-up bed? There’s just something about a headboard to make the bed seem….grounded and official. Someday when we own a home with more bedrooms than we can possibly handle [which is when I'll lay around in my pjs all day long while sipping coffee, eating bon bons, and watching Oprah] I can imagine making a different headboard for each guest room. Ah yes, that imaginary mansion of ours. Someday, my friends.

My inspiration from JC Penney:

I wasn’t too happy with the online instructions floating around out there so I’m going to make this post as detailed as possible, to encourage YOU to make a headboard, too. It really wasn’t too hard at all but I decided to skip the decorative ridges in the board and made mine thinner, too. I’ll explain why later.

Total time spent: 3.5 hours
Total cost: $106 [because of some fabulous 40% off coupons at Joann Fabric]

Supplies needed [specific measurements for a queen bed]:
~plywood [cut to 4X5 feet]
~4 2X4s: 2 that are 66″ and 2 that are 53″
~fabric of your choice [ours was 2.5 yards]
~liner of your choice [cheapy 'muslin' is what we used]
~batting [2.5 yards]
~foam [we chose the 1" kind after we discovered the 3" to be VERY expensive. Needs to total 4X5 feet to cover the plywood without anything hanging over the edges]
~buttons to be covered by your fabric [you can buy a kit for this]
~kite thread
~darning needle
~staple gun [or if yours totally sucks like ours, you'll need upholstery tacks instead]
~spray adhesive
~drill and nails

So here was the before:

And the after:

Care to read on? Here we go:

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Sarah at Thrifty Decor Chic is always sharing creative ways to spruce up a home without spending too much cash.  She recently posted a neat tutorial about how to make a sofa table for less than $20.  Check it out!

P.S. Don’t you love how her cats like to get in the pictures?  So cute!

I might as well just repost everything from CraftyNest.  Her projects are THAT COOL.

Go check out the before on her blog!

via Craftynest

Can you believe these were DIY versions of the pricier West Elm versions?

Had an immediate “Ooh! I want to make!” reaction to this Ikea hack over at Craftynest (via Craftzine). The instructions are incredibly detailed and well put together.  She’s selling some of her old projects, including the modular storage I loved so much!  You can purchase on Craigslist.