Wow, this nursing chair has taken a while to complete. I was given it in late 2012, and spent much time the week before I gave birth in February 2013 on my friend’s sewing machine, reupholstering it with grey fabric – you can follow its progress here, and see it with the matching footstool here. Continue reading
Tag: nursery
I got sunshine
…on a cloudy day.
That’s what I think when I look at the sunflowers in our flower bed, anyway. Scarlett was sent home with a tiny green shoot in a flowerpot for Mothers’ Day, back in March. And yes, I did cry. A couple of my friends (you know who you are) think it’s hilarious that I cry whenever nursery give me anything Scarlett’s made, painted or planted, but it makes me so happy! I digress.
So, we left it in its little pot and set it on the kitchen table near the window, where it started to grow. I’ve never been very good with plants, but I tried my very best with this one. You know, because my then 12 month old daughter planted it with her own fair hands (with help, granted) and such. Continue reading
Nursery
Not our nursery this time, but the nursery where we shall be depositing our child until I finish work. We’ve had a few settling in sessions now, and Scarlett seems to be taking them better than me.
The first one was just for half an hour and I called after 20 minutes to see if she was ok. The second one, Barry found me crying and washing up (unrelated) when I’d dropped her off for a two-hour stint. Scarlett didn’t cry, she’s made of sterner stuff. Obviously gets that from her father.
The third session didn’t go quite as well, but I’m hoping it was a blip.
I can’t believe I’m back at work in two weeks, this time has flown by; it doesn’t feel like I’ve been “off” since last Christmas. I’m saying “off” in quotation marks because it’s been the hardest, but most rewarding work I’ve ever done. Non-stop, tiring, draining, emotional, hilarious, special, unforgettable work that’s made me question everything (what did they do before Google?) and been a huge learning curve.
And even though I’m a wimp myself, I’m so proud that Scarlett didn’t cry at nursery the first couple of times she went. Little soldier. Sob.
Birdies
We’ve finally got the polka dot birdie hooks up on the nursery wall, which means we can hang Scarlett’s hearts on there. The birds were really cheap from eBay, but I think they look effective and go with the theme of the room and the wall stickers that are on the other side.
About time too, everything was just gathering dust on her windowsill. We’ve got even more frames that we need to put photos in, but think I’ll wait a bit because we’ve just had quite a few printed.
My shameful secret
I may get lambasted for this by the pro-craft crowd, but I’m a bit embarrassed to admit… my name’s Michelle and I like to cross-stitch. Lambasted for the embarrassment, not for the sewing itself. I’m not getting any time to do it at the moment, but I started a baby sampler for Scarlett’s room before she was born and I am going to try my best to finish it soon. Before she’s five. Definitely before she’s ten. Would it be a nice graduation present?
I love doing little bits as gifts for people, I’ve only ever had them gratefully received as I think you can see the time, work and care that goes into them. I’ve sewn cards, bookmarks, and framed pictures, small and large. I’ve made quite a few birth samplers, including one that I started when I was about fourteen or fifteen and took me years to complete. It was around A3 sized and a lot of it was a deep blue – I remember clearly taking care over every stitch. Couldn’t wait to start another colour.
Nursery wall
I’ve finally got rid of my heinous work of art, and I’ve put up a photo frame that my lovely brother- and sister-in-law got Scarlett when she was born. It’s got 12 photos of her, so I’ll replace them when she’s a year old so that there’s one from each month. It’s a lovely idea!
It’s a bit smaller than the car crash “artwork”, so we’re going to put some little hooks around or under it and hang some hearts on them to use the space a little better.
I found these polka dot bird hooks on eBay and fell in love with them (I’m finding I have more success buying than selling on eBay at the minute), I thought they look very sweet!
I’ve had this hand and footprint done since Scarlett was five weeks old, and it’s just been sat on her windowsill since then – I can’t wait to put it up on the wall!
Stool
Well, the baby hasn’t arrived yet (only a week and a half to go to due date!). In the meantime, I’ve been finishing off the upholstery side of the rocking stool that came with our nursing chair from my lovely friend Helen. All it needed was a staple gun!
The edges aren’t the most professional, mostly because I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, but definitely fit for our purposes.
All we need to do now is wait for the weather to brighten up a bit (more snow due this week, folks!), and then set about painting the wood white – I think it really would make it.
Nursery accessories
Had a quick shop for a couple of bits for the nursery – we’ve bought this lovely little pendant birdcage light from Argos, and I ummed and ahhed about getting the matching table lamp but we’ve decided not to for now.
Also, as I’ve been doing the nursing chair up, I thought it may be nice to get a couple of coordinating cushions to go on the chair which will henceforth be grey. I nipped into Primark on the offchance that they had some pretty pink ones, and they had these little treasures. The buttons are (hopefully) too big for a child to eat and they’ll look lovely on the new chair. And what a bargain – only £3 each.
Fixing up the chair
Following on from my post about the nursing chair, we collected the 5m of lovely velvety grey fabric that I bought from eBay (finally, a purchase that’s gone right!), and it came in a huge roll that seems a bit overwhelming!
The books from the library were useless. Well, that’s a bit unfair – they were useless for my purposes. Lots of talk about hammers and ripping stuff up. I’m just re-covering cushions, so I’ve returned the books and I’m just muddling through.
I’ve decided not to repaint the chair’s frame right now, because the weather is appalling and we’d never get it done outside at the moment. Nor do I particularly want to be breathing in noxious fumes inside! We can always do that later if the mood strikes us – it would definitely look brilliant in white.
The chair has a seat, back, two arm cushions and a stool that need re-covering, so I thought I’d start with the most simple of them all, the seat.
I started by cutting a piece of fabric bigger than the size of the cushion I was covering, big enough to go up the sides as well. Using Charlie’s sewing machine, I stitched it inside out on three sides, stabbing myself repeatedly with pins. Quite literally, there’s been my blood, sweat and tears over these cushions.
I then cut away the excess fabric around where I’d sewn and turned the cover the right way around.
This made me happy, because it was actually starting to look like a cushion.
Because the sewing machine isn’t an upholstery one, try as I might, I could not for the life of me get it to stitch the fourth side because the cushion was too thick for it to get anywhere near the needle. I ended up stitching velcro to each side of the join (having taken the cushion out again, harder than it sounds), and velcroing it shut.
I then made two tabs for the back, to attach it to the chair frame, again with velcro on, and again, much harder than I just made that sound (it took about five attempts to get it right). Et voilà!
Nursery done!
The nursery’s now been painted, hurrah! In the end we went for Sorbet (Dulux) on two walls, which is a pale pink, and then B&Q’s Grey Hints for the rest of the room. When the decorator was painting the grey, I was worried it wasn’t quite grey enough and it would just look dirty white, but it seems to have dried really nicely and they’re good contrasting colours.
We’d quite like to put a shelf or two up (especially as we have nothing to put the baby monitor and temperature egg thing on), so we’re on the look out for reasonable shelving, although I could always paint a pine one white I suppose.
It’s really satisfying to have the room painted – the furniture is all finally where we want it now, so we’re just waiting for the arrival to really complete the room!
I’m expecting a few fabric samples from eBay for the nursing chair and stool and then I’ll have a go at reupholstering that – my lovely friend Charlie is going to lend me her sewing machine (thank you!). And if it turns out like a dog’s dinner, I’ll put a throw on it. Nobody need ever know…