White + Blush + Navy Baby Girl Nursery

We are expecting our third child any day now, so I figured it was a good time to finally share her nursery!

I turned our 4th bedroom (which served as a catch-all & home office for Nader) into the nursery.  Here are some before photos of the room:

The first thing I did was paint the room a soft white - Bit of Sugar by Behr.  Next I installed some peel & stick floral wallpaper:

Powder Room Mirror Makeover

Since our kitchen makeover, we haven't done much in terms of design or decor around the house.  However, we did finish repairing, painting, & hanging a new mirror that we bought @ Home Goods last year.  I found it in the clearance area since part of the frame was damaged:

I really liked the shape, size, & design of the mirror - so the fact that the mirror needed some minor repairs didn't bother me.

First thing we did was remove the cardboard back from the mirror:

Turns out that some of the missing frame pieces actually broke off inside of the mirror - so I reattached the loose pieces, using Gorilla Glue on the back:

We took a trip to the hardware store & bought some Bondo & sanding blocks (80 & 180 grit needed per Bondo instructions).  The Bondo comes in a fairly large can since it's normally used for larger jobs.
Lucky for me, you can mix it in small batches:

I followed the Bondo instructions & after I sanded it down smooth, I was left with this:

 Next up - paint!  I decided I wanted a white frame with metallic studs (taking inspiration from Jen's mirror over @ IHeart Organizing).  Before buying any spray paint, I checked our garage first & found a can of plastic-friendly Rustoleum:

I gave the frame about 3 thin coats:

Once the frame was completely dry, it was time to paint the studs.  Again, instead of going out & buying new paint, I checked our studio/art room to see what we had on hand.
I ended up going with Metallic Taupe:

It took about 3 coats to get enough coverage (this craft paint is not ideal for plastic).  It probably could have used a 4th coat, but it was such a tedious process that I was over it after the 3rd coat:

Next, we reattached the mirror using silicone caulk in the corners, smoothing it out with a wet finger:

While the caulk dried, we took the cardboard back & traced it onto some paper and then taped the paper outline onto the wall.  Once we had it where we liked it, we marked 2 areas for the hooks.  Then, before we reattached the cardboard to the mirror, we hung it up to be 100% sure we liked the placement:

Here it is all finished:

Before & After:

Here's a side by side of the original oval mirror:

I also recently updated the wall art in this bathroom...more on that soon!

Mel

:)

DIY: Studded Lacquer Tray

I have finally finished my studded lacquer tray!  It only took me a year  ;)

In January, I purchased a rectangular gold tray from Target that was in the Holiday clearance section for $7.48:

It sat in our garage for forever (shocker), until I finally decided to do something with it the other day.  First, I spray painted it white:

As I let the tray dry, I started thinking about what I would do to customize it.

While I was Pinterest browsing, I saw a lot of trays with thumbtacks or nail-head trim.

I'm a sucker for anything with nail-head detail, so I decided to go that route.

While I could have easily gone to Joann's & picked up some nail-head trim, it was even easier for me to go to Target & get some thumbtacks instead (I also figured it would be the cheaper route too).  For some reason I thought the thumbtacks could be easily pushed or nailed into the tray...

Fail.  The wood tray was just too tough for those little thumbtacks - they kept bending & scratching the paint.  I don't have a photo of my first attempt failure, but it's pretty self explanatory.  I also thought about cutting off the sharp tack portion & then just gluing the thumbtacks on - but then decided that was just way too much work.  Back to the drawing board...

I took a trip to Michael's & spent like 30 hours in their bead & jewelry aisles looking for a solution.  Finally, I found a box of plastic gems with all sorts of different shapes:

I actually preferred the gems multifaceted look over the more simple thumbtacks

& there were so many shapes to choose from.  First, I organized the gems by shape & transferred them all to plastic bags (because I'm OCD like that):

After playing around a bit, I narrowed it down to the small circular gem & the large square.  Since I still hadn't decided on a shape, I spray painted my two favorite shapes gold:

Once they were all dry, I played around with some different designs.  If you follow us on Instagram you might have seen the final two options:

I decided to go with the round studs in the pattern shown above.  Next, I got all my supplies ready - which included the tray, the gold studs, some Krazy glue, & a glue gun:

I did a dry run first to make sure all the spacing would work out evenly.  Luckily, the dimensions of the tray & the size of the studs worked out almost perfectly - so I didn't have to worry about any weird spacing issues.  I cut out a strip of note card & used that as my spacing guide between the studs:

Then I glued them on one by one.  I suppose you could use most any kind of glue to attach them.  However, I did find the hot glue to be a little more forgiving in that I could pry them off without the paint chipping off (in the event that I didn't place a stud correctly the first time).

After they were all glued on, I tested all the studs to make sure that they were all securely attached.  A couple of studs did pop off when I pushed on them - so I used the Krazy glue to reattach them.  Overall though, the hot glue seemed to work for most of the studs.

Next, I sealed the tray with some spray lacquer.  I ended up spraying it several times - around 8-10 coats.  I was going for a super shiny lacquered finish.  Rustoleum also suggests that you can sand the lacquer & re-coat for an even higher-gloss finish:

It's hard to see the finish in most of the photos, but you can see the difference the lacquer made in this side by side comparison:

While the tray cured, I went to my favorite place on earth (Home Goods).  I found some white & gold zebra print wrapping paper to line the tray with:

To size the paper, I took some newspaper & cut out a template.  Here it is after the new liner:

And here's the tray on our ottoman in the living room:

The magnifying glass & white faux antler were some of my finds from Home Goods.

I looove the magnifying glass (check out how I made the beveled mirror vase here):

Now that the tray is done, I'm working on another small project to store & organize business cards - inspired by a little DIY from IHeart Organizing.  Hopefully this one won't take me a year to finish...   ;)

xoxo,

Mel

DIY Beveled Mirror Vase

I had seen some pretty mirrored vases on Pinterest awhile back (like these) & decided to make my own using beveled mirror candle holders.  You can find the candle holders just about anywhere, but I decided to check out Hobby Lobby first.

Turns out they had several different sizes in the candle section, but I ended up buying five of the 5" 'Square Decorative Mirrored Plates' (as they are called)...

and they were 50% off (normally $2.99 for the 5" size):

I also found 4" mirrors in their craft area - they are $2.99 for a 2 pack.  I bought 2 packs of the beveled mirrors & 1 pack of non-beveled craft mirrors (which you can see on the bottom).

I figured I could use one of the regular mirrors for the base:

I decided to make my first vase using the smaller 4" mirrors.  It couldn't have been easier - I just hot glued the mirrors together one by one:

It's not pretty inside, but no one will see that - so who cares, right?  There are some tiny cracks where the sides didn't line up perfectly (but I'm thinking that is mostly due to me).  I'm sure if I would have taken my time a bit more I could have aligned the sides better.

You can put any container inside to hold flowers & water.  I just used an old yogurt container that I had cleaned out.  For now though, I'm just using some faux hydrangeas from Target.

If you follow us on Instagram you might have seen it on our office credenza:

It's currently sitting on a tray in the living room:

So that's it - super easy, right?  Personally, I think it looks pretty fancy & a lot more expensive than it actually was.  Happy DIY-ing!

Mel