Crab Nursery and Guestroom

From nurspiration here and revisited here to reality, I wanted to finally share the finished product of our crab-themed gender neutral combination nursery and guestroom (say that three times fast) that our little one now calls home. 

With the limited space we were working with, we combined the changing table with the dresser and added a DIY paper lantern mobile to give the baby something to look at while he or she was getting changed.

Henry now points at the lanterns and class them balloons

With little room for a crib and double bed, we got creative and turned the existing closet into a nook for the crib with bins on the shelf for extra storage.  I then prettied it up (sorry, son) with a DIY fabric banner.

The double bed was left in the room for when we had guests, with some new linens to match the updated color scheme.

Of course a little patriotism was inserted with a DIY Flag collage

And I included some shout outs to NC so any child of mine would know a little something about the place Mommy calls home.

An insert from Our State magazine turned into a canvas with some Modge Podge

Framed pictures of Chapel Hill from an old UNC Alumni Calendar 

Pretty close to the original inspiration right?

Crab Themed Nursery and Guest Room by tarheelcharm 

Sources:

Jenny Lind Crib //  Crib Linens  // Changing Pad Cover 

Dresser // Bed Linens - Home Goods

Coral Pillows - Target //  Crab Pillow

Paper Lantern Mobile, Flag Collage, Fabric Pennant Banner, NC Icons on Canvas: DIY

Linked up:

 It's Overflowing,  That DIY Party

Wrinkle Remover

I have many loves in my life, two of them being matches and Chapel Hill.  And I have a poster that brings them these two loves together, but it looks more like it's been in an abusive relationship.  But since we're in the trust tree here, I am going to share:

Ugh, right?

I loved this poster when I bought it, but I was also a poor college student at the time, and did not bother to spend precious going out money on a frame.  Once I finally did frame it, I used one that I inherited from an old roommate who was going to throw it away if I hadn't rescued it.  Maybe I shouldn't have gotten in the way of natural selection like that.

Yes, by that point, my beloved poster was a hot, wrinkled mess but I hoped framing it would rescue it.  Clearly it did not.

I could never bear to part with it, as it displays all of my old stomping grounds (some of them no longer with us:  I'm talking about you, Treehouse and Michael Jordan's 23), so it has been hiding in the guest room these days.  I've been wanting to display it more prominently, but clearly not in this state.

I still didn't want to spend a lot of money taking it somewhere to get restored, so just like how you don't want to go to the doctor if it's something that you can just diagnose on WebMD, I went to the interwebs for a solution.

I found this ehow article and figured I would try it here so you don't have to.


Will It Work?  Ironing a Wrinkled Poster


1.  Take poster out of POS frame
2.  Lay poster on ironing board and set iron to lowest heat setting (a burnt up poster won't do you any good, wrinkles or not)

3.  Lay fabric or bed sheet over poster

4.  Go to town

5.  Add to a new poster frame

A big improvement, right?

So what do I think of this method?  It definitely did not get rid of all the wrinkles, but it looks a lot better than it did before.  If I had more time, I probably would've tried laying it between a couple boards with weights on top for a few days, but this is a suitable quick solution.  A better frame made a big diff as well.

So will it work?  Yeah, pretty much.

And now I have a little NC love in the kitchen, plus something to draw the eye away from the kind of out of control collection of liquor bottles.

Eyes Up Here Please

Getting My Link On:

Have You Seen Friday,Classy Clutter

Meeting My Match(es)

I've already shared the story of how I came to amass a substantial matchbook collection here.  But I can sum up as well.  It's the same old story of girl meets fire, fire fascinates girl, girl collects matches.  And with all of those matches in my possession, I wanted a way to appropriately display them.

Enter inspiration:

Addicted 2 Decorating

I had the matches, and now the inspiration, but I needed a way from point A to B.  There are shockingly not a lot of matchbook art tutorials out there but I finally found this one on HGTV:

Not having or wanting to use scrap wood, I modified it a bit and here's what I came up with:

How to Make Matchbook Art


Materials
Matchbooks
Blank Stretched Canvas
Black Acrylic Paint
Scissors
Modgepodge
Paintbrush


Directions
1.  Paint canvas black with acrylic paint and allow to dry
2.  Cut matches from all matchbooks to prevent fire hazard (would hate for your newly made art to go up in a blaze of glory).
2.a. If you are anal like me, arrange matchbooks by location of origin.
3.  Use paintbrush to apply modgepodge to painted canvas in small sections.
4.  Press down a few matchbooks a time to modgepodged area.
5.  Repeat steps 3 and 4.  Continue to arrange matchbooks in a mosaic pattern until entire canvas is covered. Some overlap of matchbooks will be necessary.
4.  Brush another layer (or two) of modgepodge over the matchbooks to seal your work of art
5.  Hang and admire

Here is my final product:

As I said, I arranged my matchbooks by origin since I had large concentrations from places I've lived and I thought it would be cool to keep all of those together on the mural.

There's Raleigh in the middle:

Those No Longer With Us:  Rock-ola Cafe, Mr. Dunderbak's, Pat Patterson's Place, Darryl's, Pieworks, Grisanti's; And some old stand-by's: Winston's, Crowley's, 42nd Street Oyster Bar, Greenshield's, Griffin's

Chapel Hill:

Shout-outs to:  Top of the Hill, He's Not, Coffee Shop, Crook's Corner, 411 West, The Rat, Spanky's Yeats, Michael Jordan's 23, Bailey's, Spartacus

Hotlanta:

Emeril's, Vini Vidi Vici, Chops, Inman Park Patio, Food 101, Pool Hall, Roy's Atlanta, Halo, Genki, Taco Stand, Noche, One Midtown Kitchen, Taverna Plaka, Cafe Tu Tu Tango, Eclipse Di Luna, Pappadeaux, Nava

Hilton Head:

Marley's, The Lodge, Crazy Crab, Purple Onion, Juleps, Monkey Business, Harbourside Cafe, Fitzgerald's, Truffles, Aunt Chilada's, Cafe at Wexford, Salty Dog Cafe, Old Oyster Factory, Captain Woody's

And of course Baltimore:

Tio Pepe, RA, Phillips, James Joyce, Squires (like I said, that pesky smoking ban really slowed down my matchbook collecting)

I love this display because each matchbook brings back great memories of places I've been and the people I spent time with there and it gives me a way to see them all at once, which just wasn't happening with them all stacked up in a box or even in a glass vase.  Plus our wall was hurtin' for some art.  Mission accomplished, game, set, match(es).

Getting My Link On:

Tutorial Tuesday, Sassy Sites, DIY Showoff, My Repurposed Life, Strut Your Stuff Saturday, Overflowing With Creativity, Tuesday's Treasures, Addicts Not So Anonymous, Tip Junkie