Hot Air Balloon Mobile

This post has been shared on That DIY Party on the DIY Showoff Blog

Happy Saturday!  How is that for a teaser photo for you.  I am so excited about today's post because this next project for the nursery is one of my favorite nursery projects so far.  Since the nursery has a little bit of a vintage travel thing going on I wanted the mobile feature above the crib to involve hot air balloons.  After perusing Pinterest for ideas I came up with the great idea to use paper lanterns to make the hot air balloons.

Paper Lantern Hot Air Balloon Supplies

Paper lanterns in various sizes (I believe the sizes that I used were 4" and 6" lanterns which I found at www.paperlanternstore.com)
Baker's twine
Wilton Party Cups-standard and mini sizes
A yarn needle
Gold craft paint
Measuring tape
Scissors
Hot glue gun and glue
Burlap fabric
Washi tape
Quilter's batting
Paper clips
Thumb tacks

I started out by adding stripes and polka dots with gold paint to the white lanterns.

Next I cut two pieces of baker's twine about 4 feet long per piece for each lantern.  I tied a knot in the center of the two twine pieces and then pushed the metal hook on the lantern through the knot.

I then knotted two pieces of twine together so that the twine went down 4 sides of the lantern.

Next I pulled one string from each group and tied it to another string from an adjacent group.

I continued to repeat the last step until I had formed a sort of net of twine over the lantern.

Next I threaded the yarn needle with the two pieces of twine.

I then poked the needle through the paper party cup. I repeated that step with the other three groups of twine and then made sure that the basket was balanced and tied a knot in each twine group to keep them from coming out of the party cup.

My next step was to make the little strings of flags that I tied around the lanterns.  I used another piece of baker's twine and washi tape to create the flags.

I started by wrapping pieces of washi tape at equal intervals over the twine.

Next I trimmed off the ends to make sure they were all the same length and then I cut into the flags to remove a little triangle piece from the bottom of each flag.

Finally, I tied the flag piece around the lantern at a little bit of an angle and cut off the excess twine.

I forgot to take pictures of the next step but to complete the baskets I cut strips of burlap and hot glued them onto the party cups.  I then decided to add a piece of washi tape that matched the flags around the top of each basket.

I attached the completed hot air balloons to the ceiling with more pieces of baker's twine and clear thumb tacks.  I thought about using fishing wire for a more invisible look but I kind of liked the look of the visible strings.

I could of just stopped there because the hot air balloons were so cute on their own but I decided that I wanted to make it even cuter by adding clouds.  I made the clouds with quilter's batting.  I pulled the batting out to make it wispy and then I hot glued it until I got the desired cloud shape.  I hung them by pushing a paper clip through the batting and tying a piece of baker's twine to the paper clip.

So without further ado here are the pictures of my completed mobile.

I am seriously in love with this mobile!  I think it is the perfect addition to our little one's nursery.  I hope to have at least one more post before April is done as I have many nursery projects in the works (as well as some sewing projects for baby). I am also working on some fun gifts that I will write posts on sometime in May or early June so there is a lot more to look forward to.  Keep checking back for more updates on my little home blog!

A Porch Update + Nursery Art

Today's post is a combination of two small projects.  First, I have a little update to the porch window seating.  This is what it looked liked before:

Not too shabby right.  The only thing that I didn't like was the open cubbies on the Ikea Expedit shelves.  Ikea makes door inserts for their Kallax shelving units (formally Expedit).  They are $15 a piece so it wasn't the cheapest of updates but I think it was totally worth it.

The lighting wasn't nearly as good as it was in my before photo and don't mind those little gnomes hanging out in the window.  That is where they live in the winter!  The inserts were very easy to install with the exception of a few cubbies that had screws blocking the way because that was where the mdf was screwed into the Expedit shelf.  I just had to cut some pieces out of the backs of the inserts to get them to slide into those cubbies.

I like how much more built-in the benches look with the doors installed.  I also like that things stored in the the cubbies can now be hidden which will make the space more functional and less cluttered. I think that the door inserts also add even more stability to the benches.  They don't creak at all when I sit on them now (even at 6 months pregnant)

Next up is another nursery project.  This was one of those projects where I thought I took more pictures but when I was uploading them from my camera I discovered that that was not the case, sorry! One of the things that I have become obsessed with while designing this nursery is hot air balloons.  I think that they are the perfect vintage travel vehicle and are so whimsical (just wait until I write a post on the decoration that I made for above the crib!)  A long time ago when I found this print for the porch, I also found some awesome hot air balloon prints.

The prints come from an Etsy shop called PRRINT that prints on vintage dictionary pages.  I knew that I didn't want to cut the dictionary pages down to a standard size so I found 4 similar frames with mats at TJ Maxx.  I wanted to add a little pizzazz to the frames so I started by painting the inner portion of the mats gold.  Here is the one process pic I took for this project where I had taped off the mat with painters tape:

The frames were all black which wasn't quite what I wanted so I decided to spray paint them all navy. Unfortunately the glass was glued into the frames so I spent a lot of prep time covering the glass. Also it is sometimes challenging to find a good day to spray paint in North Dakota because even when it is warm enough outside it is often ridiculously windy.  Last Saturday I found a window of about 3 hours where the temp was warm enough and the wind hadn't picked up yet.  Today I am hoping to spray paint something else so I am hoping the wind will cooperate today.  I used Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch in navy blue.  This is the first time that I have used the Painter's Touch paint and I have to say that it is awesome.  It took one coat folks and it turned out smooth and glossy.  I am not the best spray painter in the world so I appreciated that this looked so nice even with my lack of spray painting skills.

Now in some of these pictures it is hard to discern that the frames are in fact navy but that is just the nature of navy blue.  

Here is a picture that shows you what a mess the rest of the nursery actually is right now.  Those trim pieces in the corner are quarter round for our bedroom which has been a project on our list for over a year now. Better get on that soon!

By the way, I picked that adorable fox lamp up at World Market.  I spray painted it gold when I was spray painting the curtain rod a few weeks ago.  The bookshelf is from Target.

Well that is about it.  I hope to be back soon with a fairly detailed post on the decoration that I made to go above the crib in place of a mobile.  It is seriously one of my favorite projects so far so I can't wait to share!

Blackout Curtain Panels for the Nursery

Hello!  One of the advantages of working in a private Christian school is having a nice long Easter break.  I spent the first two days of my break working on curtains for the nursery.  This won't be a tutorial because I assembled these curtains in pretty much the same way as all the other curtains in my home.  I will put some links at the bottom of this post to other curtain posts I have done.

With the other curtains in my home I used cheap twin flat sheets as lining fabric but for these panels I used blackout fabric which will be important in the baby's room.  I don't like spending all the extra money but I know I will appreciate it when I am trying to put baby R to sleep when there is still daylight.  I also used multiple fabrics on the front side of the panel.  That just involved sewing some straight (ish) lines and pressing some seams, no big deal.

Here are the links to the fabrics I used:

Premier Prints Suzani in white/coral

Medium weight white linen

Hanes Drapery Lining Blackout Eclipse Ivory

I added grommets with a brass finish to the tops.  For the curtain rod I was inspired by these rods from Restoration Hardware:

I found a similar looking rod with crystal finials at Target and spray painted it with gold paint.  

I love these sweet curtains so much.  I was originally going to go with navy and white for the curtains but I am so glad I went for the bright color pop with the coral!

Click on the pictures below to read about my other diy curtains.