DIY Brass Wall Sconces for $50 (2 of them!) and Nursery Update Pics

Projects around here have been slowing down as you can probably tell... I'm exhausted. There are exactly 28 days left to go until we meet out babygirl (assuming she's on time).

My days now look like this: sleep/pee/nap/work/pee/nap/work/pee/pee/pee/sleep. Very little room for doing anything else.

I had fallen in love with these brass sconces, and wanted to put two of them above our daybed in the nursery as two little cozy reading lamps. Aaand they cost $259 EACH. Not happening. My budget was more like 50 bucks. Thank god for ikea.......

Hudson Valley Brass Sconce - www.bellacor.com

so.... while trolling Ikea for bookshelves, I found this guy for $15.99 who I thought would be just perfect:

 

Arstid Nickel Wall Lamp - www.ikea.com

Only issue with him is that he needed to be flipped turned upside down and painted gold. I basically found the Fresh Prince of wall lamps. Har har har.

He also needed a new shade if I was going to flip him around, and luckily, Ikea had tons that would have worked. You can see the replacement shade below. Ekas Shade - $6.99. It looks similar but the round lamp  ring thing inside the shade is at the bottom, not the top. 

The original shade is on the left, and the new one is on the right. See how the Ekas' ring thinger is down low? That's what makes this one work - and what put the original one in the basura.

BAM. Flipped. The whole thing will cost you under $50. Spray paint included. 

After all that genius, I got my fresh princes prepped to spray paint by shoving the cords in poop bags and taping them off. A gold electrical wire running down your wall is not a good look.

Sprayed them down with the best gold spray paint ever. I did two coats. 

Popped them on the wall. Ikea made this part surprisingly easy. There's a wall plate that you attach directly to the wall, and then just slide your sconce on and screw it in.

Here he is all done up and ready to party

AND... added bonus... here are some nursery update pics. Finally got a mattress on that daybed. The prints above the lamps are from when my husband was a baby. I love how cozy everything feels now with the sconces. 

Lights off cozyness

Lights on and blurry. YOU try being 9 months preg and propping yourself up over the crib to snap a shot. 

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DIY Lampshade Piping with a marker

I got into a design rut in our living room. I think I was nervous that everything in there was going to be too much - too much pattern (old Clarence House covered chairs), too much color (blue leopard print rug?), and just overall that it would look too crazy.

So I used white. White curtains, white lampshades, white lamps, white tables. Ughs. Nothing tied the room together; it just fell flat.

Here's the problem: that is NOT me. I need color. When I walk into a room I want color and lots of it. I have a feeling that's why the room looked like this for so long (cue horror music): 

I just couldn't stand to be in there because I didn't like what I saw. You really need to surround yourself with things that you love, and not what you think should be there. Everything will eventually fall into place.

I decided lamp shades were a good place to start.

Really, I was bored and it was late. So I got to coloring:

Surprisingly, this actually worked. It didn't bleed through, I had enough marker juice to do both shades (which are from KMart - $15.99 each), and dare I say I think it looks kind of hot.

Seriously, how hot are my lampshades right now...

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DIY 22" velcro crib skirt from a twin sheet (so easy its not even funny)

My grandmother got us this amazing crib for our babygirl. And, as most cribs come, the length from the mattress to the floor is 22 inches.

 

Psychopath in me won't buy a crib skirt that doesn't reach the floor, but I'm also not spending $335 on one that does (literally the only 22 inch crib skirt I could find was on etsy and $335. Hells to the no)

SO. We're making our own today here on belladwella. And I did a little step by step tutorial, because you could really do this for a regular mattress as well.

Here's what you'll need:
1. a twin sheet (perfect for crib length)
2. measuring tape
3. velcro
4. pins
5. sewing machine
6. iron

For the crib skirt, I wanted a classic print that was sort of benign but also had a little bit of personality. Once I saw these vintage (but brand new) Paule Marrot sheets on eBay, I knew I had to have them. Much to my surprise  the seller was selling each piece separately  so I had the option to just buy the twin flat sheet which had that cute little pink piping where you normally fold it over on the bed. Soo... 15 bucks and 5 days later..

First things first, measure your crib. Add about 2 inches onto the measurement so you have enough room to play with the length when you add the velcro strips to the top. You don't have to have everything cut perfectly this way, because you can make adjustments with the velcro. The drop length here was 22 inches, so I cut my sheet to be 24 inches top to bottom. Make sense?

 

Next, you want to figure out how long your sheet is across, and how wide your crib is. The twin sheet something around 70 inches, and the crib was 51 inches. So doing some math I figured out I could have about 5 box pleats, using about 3 inches of gathered fabric each time, and have them about 8 inches apart.
This would also leave enough room so that I could have some overhang on the one corner when you walk in the room (thank god I did that - you'll see what I mean below).

Another easy thing to keep in mind if you're doing pleats, work from the outsides in, and do an uneven amount of them (I did 5 - so I did 2 on the left, 2 on the right, and then found the center point for the 5th). This way, regardless of whether or not your pleats are evenly spaced once you get to that center, you'll at least know everything is symmetrical.

Here's the first pleat:

 

and here's what that finished pleat looks like from the front:

now it's time to sew. The beauty here is that you won't see this top part because it'll be covered by the mattress. So feel free to do this as free hand and messy as you want.

 

All you have to to is pop on the velcro (I cut mine in approx 3 inch strips), and sew the whole top part down the line.

YOU CANNOT SKIP THIS STEP: (I did the first time... big mistake. do yourself a favor and iron dem pleats girlfriend!)

almost done! Lift up your mattress, and line up the velcro. Smack it on the wooden board in your crib and smush your crib skirt onto it.

how it should look from the side: (and can you see why I was glad I had those few extra inches to go around the corner a bit? yeah).

Lay your mattress back down, and by george, you've done it.

Some closing thoughts:

• When you need to lower the crib for safety or to create baby-Alcatraz, all you'll need to do is re-measure the length and add more velcro. It's the crib skirt that keeps on giving.
• Second thing, you could also do this with pinch pleats, gathered pleats, whatever. 
• Finally, I didn't go around all 4 sides. But you could.

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entry way re-do

Thought I'd share this quick little re-do of our living room/entry way area. The living room is that one room in our house that consistently has about 20 in-progress-projects going on at once. The nester in me is forcing me to change that before the baby comes... in 6 weeks. Watch out.

My husband didn't like the picture that had been there, and I felt the white canvas curtains we hung earlier in the summer were just blahh. After moving some furniture around, re-doing the curtains, and hanging up the poppy print (below) I finally feel like the living room is almost a finished project. 

hot mess? Yes.

I have a lot of old prints and paintings that I buy from thrift stores stored up in our attic for things like this. If it's cheap enough, I'll buy it, even if I have no place to put it yet. We had a leftover frame from Ikea, so I decided to get a move on.

Here is the frame, and the print (that inspired the whole project):

...which I thought called for some gold spray paint... and gold spray paints are not all created equal. This is the best one I've found: (others can come off as weird/pinky/brassy/orangey)

I think it makes the space feel so cozy

the hot mess before... and coming together after:

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changing table styling

I had a little too much fun last night styling the changing table. No child needs interior design books of South African homes and Dorothy Draper's genius next to her butt paste. But whatever.

 

It all started with this dresser we found on craigslist for $50. It has these awesome bamboo details all over it, from the trim on the drawers to the brass handles. Sold.

The second thing we got our hands on was a changing tray. I can't stand stuff everywhere. I prefer my clutter in one place. I was thinking of making something to corral all the stuff you need to change a baby, but then I found this online at Bratt Decor: 

Bratt Decor Chelsea Changing Tray in Antique Silver

It comes with a lame-o changing pad, so I replaced it with the one on the left from Amazon.com. Which by the way is the exact same as the one on the right, which is from Serena & Lily. 

Amazon - $21.49 // Serena & Lily - $30.00

With all my ingredients lined up, I went to town. 

The changing tray is great, because it gives you about 2 inches in the back to put your baby goodies if you replace the changing pad. I got the Serena & Lily changing pad cover below, and two more off eBay, brand new in the package, for about $5 each.

I added a little height to the lamp to hide the iPhone speaker with books... which will have to get used to playing lullabies. It's been used to playing gangster rap for the past couple months (painting music).  

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