Wordless{ish} Wednesday: The beginnings of a vintage bassinet makeover

{I've been rather absent from the online world lately and that's mostly due to the new project that I found for myself over the weekend--refurbishing a vintage bassinet that I discovered at a new-to-me thrift store.}  

{The bassinet was structurally sound but needed some help in the aesthetics department.  I stripped the bassinet down to its bare bones and fixed a minor split in the wood trim and then tried to figure out what to do next.}

{Looking at the dingy and somewhat tattered vinyl liner, I had my eureka moment--I could cut the liner along its seams and use those pieces to create a pattern for a custom fabric liner.  It seemed like a pretty straightforward idea so I figured what the heck and started cutting away.}

{Thankfully I had a helper kitty to offer me assistance in the deconstruction of the original liner.}

{Last week I had found some gorgeous teal and green printed fabric at a different thrift store and bought it figuring that I could easily find some use for it.  Turns out I had just enough of it to piece together a new liner for the bassinet!  And the icing on the cake is that I was able to find complementary polka dotted fabric at the Hobby Lobby, so I bought enough of that to try my hand at putting together a skirt for the bassinet, as well as some lovely teal batiste for making some fitted sheets for bassinet mattress.}

{I pinned the old pieces of the vinyl liner to my fabric and started cutting--I added an additional 3" to the height of each piece so that I would hopefully have enough lining to fold over the edge of the bassinet.   With some trepidation I started sewing everything together, beginning with sewing the side panels to the bottom panel, followed up by sewing up the sides.}

{I've never attempted anything like this before, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see that the new liner not only fits but it actually looks pretty darn good if I may say so myself.  I plan to add some bias trim to the edge of the liner and I still have some ways to go with the skirt, but so far this transformation has me tickled pink.}

Wordless{ish} Wednesday: Say no to lackluster lampshades

{I've been hard at work in the guest room/craft room these days getting everything set up just the way that I want it, like installing shelves and some wall-mounted lamps so I can see well enough to do some sewing at night.  The lamps are nice but the shades that came with them were pretty boring.  I thought about buying some fun and funky ones, but holy cow, lamp shades are expensive--I figured I was just going to have to learn to live with the blandness. Au contraire, mon frère. Thanks to this very easy-to-follow tutorial that I found at Design Sponge, I discovered that I could make my very own custom lampshades using fabric that I already owned.}



{I am so bad about taking photos while I'm in the process of doing/making something; I just want to plow on ahead and get it done, but luckily I remembered to pause a few times and take a few shots with my phone.  All in all, it took me about fifteen minutes to make the pattern and then cut and hem the fabric (which I purchased from Tonic Living about three and a half years ago when I was working on our home office in Virginia); I had to wait until the next day to do the actual gluing as I needed a ventilated space and didn't feel like attempting this outside in the dark.  As you can see, clothespins really came in handy during the gluing process, especially when you are working one handed because you're taking pictures with the other.}



{I let the lampshades sit for a bit to ensure that everything was properly affixed and then brought them upstairs to the guest/craft room and installed them on the fixtures.  I can tell that I've done a good job when even Captain Husband is impressed by my handiwork.}

Getting ready for guests

Our house is going to have a bit of a revolving door this spring--my BFF Aubree' is coming to visit from Atlanta this week, and then my father-in-law will be here at the end of the month.  My friend, Suzy, is coming for a few days at the beginning of May and she'll be followed by my brother, sister-in-law and nephew, who will be staying with us for a little over a week.  So I figured it was about time that I put my nose to the grindstone and get the guest room in order.


I came across this cute luggage stand at, you guessed it, the thrift store over the weekend.  It was missing one of its straps, but I knew that would be an easy enough fix and I could customize it to match the overall color scheme of the guest room.  After a quick trip to my local craft store for some grosgrain ribbon, I was ready to get to work.


Using one of the original straps as a measurement guide, I cut out three strips of grosgrain ribbon and used the original staple holes as my guide.  I folded the ends of the ribbons under and stapled through them, which will keep the edges from fraying and looking unfinished.  Took me a total of five minutes to finish and now I have a functional and stylish luggage stand for the guest room.


There was still one missing piece to take care of--a nightstand.  I'd been using a small chair next to the bed as a place for my guests to rest their glasses and such while they slept, but I knew it wasn't really doing the trick.  I came across the solution while browsing the clearance section at Target and was soon hard at working building a new nightstand.  It's been awhile since I've put together anything like this and amazingly I managed to get it put together correctly the first time around.

I changed out the original knob for a faceted glass one that I found at Lowe's just to tweak the nightstand's look a bit. I hope my guests like the new additions to the guest room as much as Sandy Cat does!

Shoot and Edit: Holiday traditions (after)

So here's my edited version of my photo from Tuesday--let's be honest here, the original photo needed a lot of work.  Here's what I did in picnik:

1. Converted the photo to black and white using the Tri-X 400 setting under the curves tab;
2. Increased the exposure by 80%;
3. Brightened Sammy's eyes using the eye bright setting at 80% fade;
4. Cropped the image and called it a day.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the before and after: it's definitely an improvement in my opinion (black and white conversions tend to forgive a lot of photography sins).  What do you think?

And don't forget--if you'd like to learn how to make your photos go from good to wow, be sure to check out what's going on over at Jill and Ashley's blogs:

Shoot and Edit: Holiday traditions (SOOC)

There are only five days to go before Christmas and I still haven't decorated our tree; at this rate, I think I'll finally get around to tackling it some time next year. At first I was beating myself up a bit for not being more holly jolly about everything for Sammy's sake, but I have finally come to the realization that it's more important that Captain Husband, Sammy and I enjoy our very first Christmas together as a family without staying up all night decorating the house and stressing over whether everything "looks" right.  After all, as far as Sammy's concerned, the lights on the tree are the best thing since sliced bread--why fix something if it's not broken?  Now, hopefully our undecorated tree won't become a holiday tradition, but with any luck, this Christmas will be the first of many happy holiday memories that we make together as a family and that's a tradition that I'll embrace wholeheartedly. 


Oh--one more thing: our Christmas card made it to the top thirty in the Paper Mama's Holiday Photo Challenge!  You can vote once a day until Wednesday this week so I'd really appreciate it if you could click here and give us a vote--we're #28 (just look for the little Christmas cowpoke below).  Thanks!

Shoot and Edit: Bokeh lights (after)

So here's my edited version of my photo from Tuesday; I didn't want to do anything too drastic to it, other than fix the slight green color cast and crop out the bottle that held the tree topper upright for the photo.  Here's what I did in picnik:

1. Manually adjusted the white balance to compensate for the green tones in the SOOC shot; I skewed a little warm with this, just because I liked the overall tones that doing so created.
2. Cropped the photo.
3. Manually adjusted the contrast to make the tree topper pop a bit more.
4. Manually darkened the shadows just a touch.
5. For fun, I added one of picnik's featured Christmas textures at multiply and 90% fade to add the appearance of some flares amongst the bokeh lights in the background.
6. Applied rounded corners and called it a night.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the before and after: what do you think?

And don't forget--if you'd like to learn how to make your photos go from good to wow, be sure to check out what's going on over at Jill and Ashley's blogs:

Shoot and Edit: Bokeh lights

For this week's before and after photo challenge, I decided to shoot one of my latest vintage holiday finds--a pink and turquoise glass tree topper that I found while visiting my family over Thanksgiving.  Little thought or preparation went into other than grabbing a bottle to balance the tree topper on and placing them on an end table in front of the tree.  My first shot wasn't too bad, but I didn't like how dark the turquoise-colored recesses of the tree topper appeared, so I took a lamp off of a nearby table, rested it on my shoulder and aimed it towards my subject, and tried again:

I really like how this little change in lighting made the tree topper appear as though it was lit from within.  Also, if you look really closely, you'll notice that my tree still has not been decorated--anyone else out there waiting until the last minute to finish up their holiday decorating?

Shoot and edit: Holiday/Christmas after

I was actually pretty happy with how my SOOC image turned out for the most part, so I didn't have to do anything too wild and crazy to it.  I tightened up the composition with a slight crop and then went into the curves tab in picnik and applied the Reala 400 setting at 0% color override and 80% fade; this step darkened the shadows just a bit and made the colors just ever so slightly more vibrant.  I then added the Kim Klassen texture, poetic, in the multiply setting at 75% fade and then rounded off the corners to give the photo a bit of a vintage look.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the SOOC shot and my edited version:

Overall, it's a rather subtle edit and I like how it turned out--I think he might look pretty good on this year's Christmas album if I ever manage to get my laptop back from the Geek Squad (all of my Christmas music is on there).  Keep your fingers crossed--I have the feeling that it's going to take a Christmas miracle for that to happen any time soon!


And don't forget--if you'd like to learn how to make your photos go from good to wow, be sure to check out what's going on over at Jill and Ashley's blogs:

Shoot and edit: Holiday/Christmas SOOC

Thanks to a very fun playdate with a few of Sammy's pals yesterday morning, Sammy took an incredibly long nap in the afternoon, which allowed me to work on the rest of the decorations in the living room.  As you all know by now, I love old stuff and that most definitely extends to Christmas decorations and other ephemera.  Fortunately for me, no one in my family ever throws anything away, so I was able to return to Texas with a few vintage goodies that had belonged to my late grandmother and my late great aunt, like this fantastic ceramic tree that she made in the early 80s (she was also responsible for the awesome ceramic jack-o-lantern that was on display in my living room until last week).

The Elf on the Shelf has been all of the rage these past two years or so, but since I'm incredibly cheap I decided to forgo the $30 price tag and go with one of my grandma's vintage 1950s elves--I figure I'll make up my own story to scare Sammy into behaving well when he's a little bit older (and knowing me, it will likely involve zombies).  And maybe I'm a bit biased, but I think my little old elf just has a bit more character than this latest imitation.

Captain Husband thinks he's totally creepy, and to be perfectly honest, as a child, I was kind of scared of him, too.  But when I think back to all of the Christmas Eves I spent at my grandmother's, one of the memories that stands out the most vividly is that of the creepy elves that she had scattered in different corners of the house and when she passed away this spring, the elf was one of the few things of hers that I asked for.  And when Sammy gets a little older and questions why we have that creepy elf out every Christmas, I will tell him that it belonged to his great-grandmother and then tell him stories of the many Christmases that I enjoyed with her as a child and hopefully then he'll understand the real reason why there's an elf on the shelf.

Want to learn how to edit your photos so that they go from good to wow? Click below:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Another holiday, another excuse to dress Sammy in something completely ridiculous yet incredibly awesome.  This holiday humiliation was provided by my sister-in-law, Sarah, who knitted Sammy a hat shaped like the business end of a turkey.  (She also made one for Henry, so with any luck, we hope to get an official cousins portrait with them in their matching hats.)

And before I totally forget, here's my before and after photos of my cutie-pie nephew:

I didn't do anything too drastic, although I did flip the image--I find that I often compose the subject matter in my photos to the right so I though it would be fun to change things up a bit (does anyone else find themselves favoring one side or another?).  I then did a clean edit to adjust the exposure and compensate for the green tone in the original, cropped things a little bit tighter and cloned out the design on his onesie because I found it visually distracting.  And just for fun, I then converted the edited shot to a black and white image:

What do you think?  Do you have a preference for one version over the other?  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving today!

And don't forget--if you'd like to learn how to make your photos go from good to wow, be sure to check out what's going on over at Jill and Ashley's blogs: