Pillowcases... final touches for the nursery

Hi there, so nice to meet you here on my blog!
As you know I have been busy the past few weeks to catch you up on all my Makes for the nursery for our little baby boy.

The final bits were some pillowcases to finish off the look. I found a great pilow cover tutorial on the lovely blog of MiekK, which you can find here (in Dutch).
Even for me, with only a bit of sewing experience, it was very easy and it turned out very well, if you don't mind me saying so ~smile~

I made two pillow covers, one measuring 50 x 50 cm and the other slightly bigger at 60 x 60 cm. 
Following the instructions step by step, I measured, cut and sewed both pillowcases, using a navy canvas and some left over fabric I used to reupholster the roman blind (blogpost can be found here) for the 50 x 50 pillow.
The second one I made from the same navy canvas and another left over piece of the postal bag fabric I used to make the memo board (blogged about that one here) and I only finished that one last Friday. Therefore you get to see the results now and not last week as I had planned ;-)

As you can see, the white Ikea chair got a completely new look and feel. By adding the postal bag fabric, it really lifted the color scheme of the room with the little bits of red and the sandy color of the pillowcase.

So here's a little peek into the nursery. Since the nursery is on the Northeastern side of our house, light is a challenge when taking pictures. So hope you can see how it all combines so well.

See you next time!

Love,
Maartje

Reupholstering a roman blind

Hello again,

Has spring sprung where you are? Here, 15 days after Joppe was born, it is still very chilly. With a fierce wind blowing from the East, I have not taken our little boy outside yet. Hoping it will get better next week... 

On the upside, it gives me some time to catch up on blogging. I still promised you a post on the reupholstering of the roman blind, so here goes...

So, before Joppe was born, I wanted to make sure the nursery was suitable for the arrival of a little boy. Therefore I wanted to redo the roman blind, which was in the room. It was fuchsia pink and at first I decided to dye it a lovely navy blue, but unfortunately, as it was 100% polyester, the dye did not take at all.

So I had to think of something else to do. As the lampshade in the nursery was a navy and white-checkered fabric, I went to my favorite fabric shop and bought a few meters of matching fabric. Using fabric glue and my sewing machine, I reupholstered the roman blind.

The curtain has four stiffeners at the back of the curtain, so folding over the fabric where the tunneling is and using the fabric glue, was not an option. I cut into the fabric and sewed the seams.

Then I folded the fabric around the original curtain and using glue, I attached the seams to the back of the blind. That way I could secure the fabric before stitching it with my sewing machine. Using my crochet hook, I stuffed the fabric into the tunnels.

Then I turned curtain with the back facing forward and using the original stitching, I sewed the curtain so the horizontal panels were visible. If I did not do that, the fabric would look very weird when I would hang it back up in front of the window. It was a tricky job, because I was sewing with the back of the curtain facing up and it was 120 cm of straight sewing, it was quite hard to keep it straight. In the end, I am very happy with the result, even though the stitches are not perfectly straight.

And when hanging them, the nursery immediately turned into a boy’s room!

Have you ever done anything like this? Would love to hear from you!

Thanx for stopping by today!

Xoxo,

Maartje

Birth Announcement Card

Hi there!

Hope you are doing very well. Is it Spring already where you are? Or are you moving on to Fall if you are somewhere in the Southern hemisphere?

In The Netherlands the weather has been up and down, spring-like and with some snow showers as well. So Spring, get here already! I want to take our son outside for a walk!

In The Netherlands it’s custom to send cards with a birth announcement. There are so many cards, styles and prices to choose from, that it can be quite the challenge to find something suitable.

First up, I checked our supplier that made our daughter’s card two years ago, because we wanted the same card, in blue. Unfortunately they did not stock that specific card anymore, so I needed to think of an alternative.

We really wanted a card, which had navy blue in it, so with everything being open again, we could pursue that idea. Most cards for baby boys here are in baby blue, beige or maybe even light yellow or green. Only a few cards I could find, had navy in them, but I did not like them all.

I also wanted a card that had elephants on it, just the silhouette, but I could not find anything suitable. I made a secret board on Pinterest to collect ideas and I took those ideas to the printer’s. I drew the outline of the card on a piece of paper and the girl at the printer’s took my idea and worked out two different lay outs. My husband and I were unanimous that the one with four elephants on it, was nicest. I wanted them to be a bit smaller than the girl had suggested, and so she adapted the design for me.

I choose the ink colour that would be used to print them and we decided to make the elephants all in a different blue, making sure they we all the same colour, but the saturation would vary. One would be 100%, the second 75%, the third 50% and the fourth 25%. When the cards were printed and the husband picked them up, we were both very happy with the result!

And since the card has arrived overseas within one week, I can now post this on my blog ~smile~

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Xoxo,

Maartje