I Love The Flower Girl

And I knew
(I knew, I knew, I knew, I knew)
She could make me happy
(happy, happy)
Flowers in her hair
Flowers everywhere!

Thank you, Cowsills, for that inspiration.
I, Katey, have always been somewhat of a wild field, running barefoot through the flowers kind of girl and I imagine that if our little one is a girl, she will probably enjoy the same whimsy and adventure that I do.

Despite loving flowers, I have always been hesitant about decorating nurseries in them. You mention a flower nursery and my mind immediately goes to pastel pink, white and pink roses and daisies and a whole lot of soft, soft colors. Hey - if that's your style, great. It's just not mine. I love bold prints and bright colors and for several months now, I've sworn that the only flowers to hang out in the nursery would be an array of colorful wildflowers in a vase. That's it.

I did find crib bedding that was white with red poppies and although I LOVE poppies, something about the bedding seemed too busy and lacked the pop of color that I was looking for. So it was decided: if we have a little girl, she will not have a flowery nursery.

...Until I discovered a whole new world of flower power...

It seems that bold is making a comeback and perhaps super soft girlie nurseries are a thing of the past. Check out these impressive fabrics that would add a fun and funky flair to any little girl's nursery (and wardrobe!).


Laura Gunn Fabrics



Check out these adorable outfits by Etsy seller, 1crown3tiaras




I take it all back!
I WANT FLOWERS!!!

The turquoise and hot pink are so much fun together!
And of course, that fabric would look fabulous in our tan and turquoise nursery!!

23 days until we find out if the nursery will be flowered.

Nursery Inspiration

Just a few weeks from finding out if we are having a little lady or little man, our wheels are spinning with name ideas. There is so much responsibility in naming a human...and raising one. To allow ourselves an escape from the name-game, we thought it would be fun to share the boards that Katey put together for the nursery.

If we are team blue, this is the inspiration:

If we are team pink, this is the inspiration:

(our team pink inspiration board is having trouble...stay tuned for the image. Sorry!)

You can find in our other nursery posts that we have already started to put together the room for baby with tan walls, chocolate stained concrete, turquoise furniture and paper lanterns hanging over the crib. All we need now is to know who will be dwelling in the space so that we can finish decorating.

Sugared Plums

Hold the phones! Stop the presses! Put down that chocolate shake!

We have something that will make the sugared plums truly dance in your head!
We're talking about feathering your nest, Flora style!

Becky Flora is one of those mom's who seems to always have a creative idea up her sleeve. Her kids always look oh-so-fabulous (and she shops at thrift stores!) and as if wrangling two kiddos, remodeling her family home and volunteering her time with local youth activities doesn't keep her busy enough, this super mom has pulled another creative move and we are sooo excited to share it with you!

First, let's adore her family for a moment...

I'm sure that we can all agree that Becky's creativity was poured into her children. Have you ever seen a better looking family? Well done Becky and Josh!

Back to feathering your nursery or nest...

Becky attended a "no gifts" birthday party for a child and coming from a home filled with toys, she best understood the "please don't fill my house with plastic, noisy stuff" plea. But, ever the thoughtful gal that she is, Becky wanted to gift the little one's momma with something special. After all, it was labor day and just three years previous, that momma was working VERY hard to bring her baby into the world.

With Ellie Cate (5) and Ben (2), Becky TOTALLY understands the labor of love and she poured that same love into the special gift for her friend...a plaque with a picture and a quote.

But not just ANY picture, and not just ANY quote.
Becky picked things that were special to the family and before she could blink, she had orders coming in like crazy! A thoughtful gift for a friend is turning into a loving and very special gift of a lifetime for so many families. How neat is that?!


Here are examples of Becky's work...




Hey, it's us!


Inspiring, right? We think so too!
We are so excited to find the perfect spot in our home for our plaque!

Have you figured out a spot in your nest yet? How about in your nursery?
Becky takes custom orders and makes her plaques to your liking - colors, quotes, pictures and all! Not feeling very creative? Having a hard time deciding on the style you want? Don't worry! Becky will help you every step of the way. You can even order an already made plaque, with your own goods on it.

Your walls will be so happy!

Becky takes each project very personally...

"Many of my customers give me the 'back story' on their quote or picture so I feel personally connected to each one. As I am working on it, I am thinking about their love for the spouses, kids, fiances, etc."

...so you know that she pours her heart into every plaque, making it so very special and unique!

Grab a tissue, wipe away your tears of joy (FINALLY! A gift that everyone will like!) and point your clicker over to Becky's online store:


www.thesugaredplums.etsy.com


Impressed by Becky's ability to balance it all? Wondering how to keep your creative juices flowing without falling behind on life's happenings..you know, like laundry and diapers. Becky offers her advice:


"Don't ever stop creating. If being creative is something you like to do.... find time in your super busy, over scheduled, sometimes draining day to make it happen. Carve out a little part of your day to just sit and let your hands and mind work together to make something special"

And there you have it - great advice from a great gal!

Because her plaques are all about the fun and funky, touching and lovely quotes and moments, we asked Becky to share her favorite quote of the week and of course,
it comes from her little guy, Ben.



“Hey where did my cracker go? Oh yeah, I eat it in my mouth.”

Rocking Redo!

We are always looking for fun, inexpensive ways to update our nursery and nest and it thrills us to no end when we find projects on other blogs!

One of our favorite up-and-coming blogs is
http://thathouseonthecorner.blogspot.com/
where Caitlin tackles her home projects one DIY day at a time.

With birthday money from her grandma, Caitlin purchased an old rocking chair ($32) that was in need of some love and a couple layers of paint. After sanding, Caitlin used Valspar's spray paint to give the chair a rocking redo.

Check out the before and after:

Add a couple pillows and you've got yourself an affordable rocking chair for your nursery or nest!

To see Caitlin's full post about the chair, and to get the how-to, visit:

http://thathouseonthecorner.blogspot.com/2010/04/todays-before-and-after-rocking-chair.html

It's A Jungle In There!

Bryson James Sayre entered this world on January 5, 2010 with a stretch, a yawn and a roar, fitting the theme of his jungle nursery! Tiffany and Steven Sayre worked for months to prepare for their little guy and their hard work shows!

Photo Credit: Jackie Matthews

The inspiration for the nursery came from the one and only, Bryson James, himself.

Tiffany recalls, "When I started to feel flips and flops in my belly, I called him my 'little monkey' and we decided that if we were having a boy, the nursery would be a jungle!"

A jungle, indeed! Check out Bryson's nursery...

Tiffany and Steven are not only crafty, but they are also great bargain hunters! They purchased the crib and changing table/dresser on Craigslist for only $400! What a steal! The bedding is NoJo Jungle Babies, at Target.

Wondering how Tiffany turned white walls into a magical safari? Guess what...she's revealing her design secrets!

"We used acrylic paint on the walls. The trees were all done free-hand by my mother and I traced the animals onto clear plastic, used a projector and stenciled them onto the wall with a pencil, then filled it in with paint!"

The lettering, covered in animals, has got to be our favorite goody in the nursery and Tiffany was kind enough to let that design secret slip as well. She pointed us in the direction of craft stores, where you can find lettering just like what she used for Bryson's room. Snag a few wooden animals (or find something similar in the scrapbook section), paint and walla! Wonderful wall art with baby's name!

If you loved this nursery, then you will surely love, love, love the picture of sweet baby Bryson that is featured on our Oh, Snap! page.

Aaron's Art ...Roar!

The lovely and oh-so-creative Heather Wood completed her baby boy's nursery just in time! Two days past her due date, the first-time mom put her nerves at ease as she painted up a storm, or should we say jungle, for the nursery
where her son will soon be snoozing.

Keeping the nursery simple and classy was priority for Heather and her husband Chris but when all was said and done, the walls seemed a little bare. When Heather's mom called to inform the couple that there was blank canvass in Heather's old closet, the creative wheels began to turn and Heather was on a hunt for inspiration.

Searching the web didn't take long for Heather, as she found her inspiration pieces at the first site she visited: www.Rosenberryrooms.com

Heather printed the images off the site, started sketching, did a few practice pieces and in no time, she was painting masterpieces for her nursery! Here are some fun photos of Heather and Chris in their quest to add roaring art to Aaron Christopher's nursery...

Heather's art adds a fun flair to the nursery!

Love the crib and bedding? So do we! Heather was kind enough to spill the beans on where she found such adorable goods for her son.

Furniture is Bonavita, purchased from USA Baby and the bedding is by Lambs & Ivy purchased from JC Penny.

And now they wait... Aaron Christopher Wood is a couple days late for his big arrival, but rest assured, his nursery is ready! Great job Chris and Heather!

Anden's Tall Tale Nursery

Feeling nosy about nurseries?? Us too!
This time, we are peeking in on a FABULOUS nursery done by an
even more FABULOUS couple!

Patrick and Devonna Hendricks
Aren't they just the cutest first-time parents ever?!

Devonna is 27 weeks along with baby boy Anden Jace.
(Anden means led by God and Jace means healer)

Devonna is due on September 20, 2010 so it is no surprise that this artsy mom has been hard at work, making sure to have her son's nursery ready for his arrival. We are warning you now...put away your credit cards! This nursery is going to inspire you to run to the store for a whole new decor for your little one's room!

Ready, Set...Peek In!

Don't say we didn't warn you. By now, you have probably checked your bank account, wondering if you've got enough to splurge on paint and surely, you have Googled "how to: nursery murals" but don't fret - Devonna has the affordable know-how...

"If you're going to write something on the wall, use a projector, trace the writing first, then paint in with a small brush. It makes it a million times easier than trying to copy it by hand. Also, if you are doing a mural, always sketch it out first instead of going right for the paint. You can always easily paint over the messy sketch marks. If you are going to do accents of paint colors, always get the sample size, it's way cheaper, you can get it in any color, and it will go a pretty long way.
All the circles I did are done with a sample size of paint (except for the orange circle, which required about 1 1/2 samples)"

Thanks for the tips Devonna!

Wondering what inspired such a fabulous space? Devonna found images of a nursery with a similar mural and the same bedding online and now you, dear readers, can do just the same! We are confident that many of you will pull inspiration from Anden's room so to help you in your journey to nursery bliss, Devonna has provided paint colors! How cool is she?!

Paint from Lowes: Brown- Swiss Chocolate, Green- Heath Green, Blue-Vintage Blue, Yellow- Daffodil, and Orange- October Bronze.

The crib and dresser were purchased at BabiesRus, the bedding is Carter's Tall Tales at JcPenny and the chair was a hand-me-down from Devonna's mom. The chair was once pink but with a quick trip to Target, Devonna was able to get it slipcovered to match her little guy's nursery.

And there you have it - a tall tale of a nursery!

It's A....

Gender Reveal Party!!!

Here's the deal - with all of the ups and downs that we've experienced thus far in our journey to build our family, I have ALWAYS looked forward to the day when we find out who is inside of me, using my bladder as a trampoline. I think that because we have had so many rough days when we didn't know if our little one would make it, the big gender sonogram is extra special and exciting because it makes everything so real. (As if the morning sickness for twelve weeks wasn't real enough)

Finding out the gender is going to be EXTRA SPECIAL because we will find out on Jason's 25th birthday!!! And to think, we were thrilled about J turning 25 for cheaper car insurance but now we have two reasons to jump for joy!

I will use any reason to have a party. Finished a good book?? Let's throw a party! End of a season? Party! Painted your nails a fun color? Oh girlfriend, we are so gonna part-ay! Needless to say, a 25th birthday is worthy of a big bash and why not reveal the gender of our baby at the same time?? PARTY!

You might think I'm nuts, but gender reveal parties are actually all the rave these days...well, at least among the celebrities and whose to say that our kid won't be famous? See, it all makes sense. Time to party! While I scour the net for ideas and inspiration about combining a birthday with revealing the gender, I thought you might enjoy these pictures...







Have you attended a gender reveal party? Have ideas on combining a birthday with the whole baby thing? Let us know what you think! We would love to hear your ideas and experiences.

Easy Peasy Concrete Floors

We spend our childhood trying to avoid getting stains on our clothes, fearing that mom will scold us for turning our white summer dress green. Then we spend our adult years working stains out of everything! Here at Making Baby, we have found a stain to celebrate! Concrete stains!

We have seen some amazing concrete floors and have been falling in love with the idea of having zero carpet in our home for a while now. What better place to start than Baby's room? If you are considering doing away with your carpet and staining your concrete floors, this post is for you! Follow our easy peasy step-by-step tutorial and in 24 hours, you will be able to enjoy a new floor!

Here are the steps to a new, fabulous floor for well under $100. Beats new carpet, hardwood, or paying someone to do it for you!

1. Get that carpet outta there! This step is the one that will vary the most from house to house, as not all carpet was created equal. In our case, our home was built in 1986 so the carpet and padding were worn down enough that we are able to pull it up with ease. Something that really helped me was using a hammer. I would pull up a small section and then use the hammer to beat the underside of the carpet, freeing it from the concrete while I pulled. If you're a little lady, this trick will help you out!



2. This step is not for the faint of heart. If you are a clean freak and can't handle a bit of dust on your book shelf, then this step is not for you. Find a man, a teen...anybody...and get outta dodge! When you pull up the carpet and padding, you will find the most filthy floor beneath it all. Not only will you discover years of dust and pieces of padding that crumbled (probably because of mold), but you will also find that there are little creatures who live beneath your carpet. Yes, bugs. The part that was most upsetting to me was finding cigarette butts and trash that was left behind from construction workers...24 years ago!!! I learned something very important: Just because you keep your home clean, DO NOT assume that beneath the layers, it is just as safe and sanitary. But don't worry - you're fixing the problem now. Grab a broom and get to work. You are going to do a lot of sweeping and cleaning before the stain hits the floor!



3. Your floor is swept. Feel better? Your next step is to remove the tack board that held your stinky old carpet in place. This can get a little tricky as tack board is put down to stay down. We found that the best way to remove it was to slide a small flat-head screwdriver under the boards and pop it up. Do yourself a favor...put on some music and invest in a good pair of knee pads. You're going to spend some time on the floor. (Sorry, no picture for this step)

4. While you are down there on your knees, you will find that although the boards are up, they left behind big concrete nails that are spaced about every three inches apart. Don't try to nail them into the concrete. It doesn't work, trust us. You have two options here...leave the nails around the border of the room or pull them up at the risk that you will pull up large chunks of cement, creating holes around the border of the room. Either way, you won't be too thrilled about this. We made the very unwise decision to leave the nails in the floor (I know, in a nursery. What on earth were we thinking???) You will see in later pictures that once we stained the floor, we decided to ditch the nails and live with the holes, which is a much better way to go. (No picture for this step)

5. Everything is removed from the floor. Yay! Go over your concrete with a broom again (if you pulled up nails, it surely made a mess!) and once the floor is swept clean, you can start to mop. VERY IMPORTANT: Only use soap and water to clean the floors. The chemicals in your usual floor cleaning products will cause your stain to act funny and surely, you don't want that to happen after all the work you've done thus far. Once your floors are clean and bone dry, it is time to have some fun!

6. Time to stain! Our first stain was Tuscon Gold concrete stain, translucent, from Home Depot (about $30). We have yellow walls in our dinning room and after the stain dried, we decided that it wasn't a good fit for our home (as we plan to stain all of the concrete in our home the same color). Make sure that you pick out a color that compliments your space. You don't want to spend the extra money and time on a different color stain. If you don't do like us, and you stick with one stain, you won't spend more than $60 bucks on your one gallon of stain and supplies. Not too shabby! So with your stain, start in the corners and trim your way around the room. Follow that by rolling or brushing the stain into the floor, making sure to do the area by the door last so that you aren't trapped inside. If you roll the stain, make big W's with your roller and if you brush the stain, make T's. This will prevent lines from forming and drying on your floor. Let your stain dry for at least 12 hours. This gives you plenty of time to work on another project or get a good night of sleep.





As mentioned in step 4, we didn't pull out the nails from the tack board until AFTER we stained the concrete yellow. This is what happens when you try to take short cuts folks... pulling out nails AFTER the concrete has been stained.



Regarding the holes left from the nails - you can patch the holes with concrete or, if you are going with a dark stain, you can leave the holes as they are, which is what we did. We lucked out and didn't have any holes that were big enough to notice and once the brown stain hit the floor, we were in business! It was like using a magic eraser...no more visible holes! Now, if you come for a visit, you are not allowed to move furniture to check out the holes.

7. Rise and shine! It's time to take a gander at your floor. If you love the way it looks, congratulations! If you hate it, welcome to the club. You can either apply a second layer to intensify the color, or you can follow our lead and make a mad dash to the store for a different stain. A WORD OF CAUTION: If you stained your floor a light color, like yellow, and you want to cover it with something dark, you will need to go with a solid stain this time around. If you are set on translucent, keep the yellow and buy a nice dark area rug. I'm telling you - mix two translucent stains and you will have a floor that looks like a muddy mess. Here is our second go at staining the floor. We love it this time and are looking forward to tackling all of the floors in our home! The color is 'Jeopardize' (about $35) and makes the room feel very rich!



8. Base boards. We decided to keep the baseboards so that the walls look finished instead of having a hard wall meet hard floor and a paint line between that is not so perfect. Our baseboards sit about 1/2 inch off the floor, which was perfect space for carpet but looks a little funny now. The plan is to caulk the small space between the floor and baseboard, and then we plan to paint the baseboards white. If you don't want baseboards, then pull 'em off and adjust accordingly. (Pictures of completed baseboards will available when we post a tour of the nursery)

And there you have it! Stained floors in 24-48 hours. It might seem like a lot of work but if you turn up your tunes, take breaks for food/water, keep a fan on you and take time to enjoy the process, it will be an easy peasy task and you will probably want to tackle all of the floors in your home!


*Have you stained your concrete floors? Want to share? Please send us your pictures, along with a brief story about your experience...the good, bad and ugly...and you might be featured on our blog!*

Sneak Peek

What a weekend! Where do we start?

It was about 4pm on Friday afternoon when I called my sweet hubby at work to say, "Hey, I have energy! Let's pull the carpet out of the nursery, stain the concrete floors, paint the walls and baseboards, paint the furniture, do some shopping and by Monday, we will have a nearly completed nursery!"

What husband doesn't love a phone call like that? After taking the drive home to work up a few good reasons why we shouldn't do it all at once, my husband gave in when he saw how excited I was to nest. By 5pm, we were in our yucky clothes, on our knees, pulling up carpet.

Carpet was out by 6pm, we ran to Home Depot for concrete stain, hurried home and by 10pm, our floors were a transparent golden stain. Saturday morning, I woke to realize that I hated the yellow on the floors so we were off to buy dark brown for our floors and after working hard all day Saturday, we were very pleased with the results. Several people have expressed interest in doing the same to their floors so in the next week, we will be putting together and easy peasy step-by-step guide to what we were able to accomplish in one weekend and for less than $100. Not too shabby.

Saturday evening, we took a break to swim and BBQ with friends, then we were back to the midnight grind. Sunday was rather busy. Church, followed by another BBQ, a quick trip to town to return and buy paint products and then a Father's Day meal with Jason's parents...clearly, not a lot of time to work on the nursery but we did manage to move in furniture so that we could play with the layout of the room. We also put the crib back together and hung paper lanterns above it. The paper lantern project, along with all other nursery projects, will soon be available on our blog with step-by-step instructions and budgets. Yay!

In the meantime, enjoy this sneak peak. We anticipate finishing the room this week...well, aside from art, which we are saving for a different weekend/week.

The beginning of the end. Carpet coming out! (We will provide instructions for this task later, including paint colors!)



Here is the new floor in the nursery. We will provide pictures of our "oops" yellow floor in the tutorial.



Paper lantern mobile above the crib. This was a lot of fun to hang! We have a few adjustments to make, but it will do for now. The white lanterns are battery powered and emit a dim light that is perfect for late night feedings! Not too bright, not too dim. We put a couple of the lanterns above my wing-back chair in the nursery, including a white lantern to provide a little reading light.



Not mentioned above, here is a peak at one of our furniture pieces. Turquoise is a great color for fun, funky and bright nurseries and it really does work for either gender. For now, the room is set up for a little guy but with a couple hot pink picture frames, pillows and a few other girly touches (but not too girly) we will easily be able to provide a space for a princess. The bonus here is that ALL of our furniture (except our $99 crib that we love) is all from our stock pile of hand-me-downs in our garage. With a little paint, they were given new life and our wallets were given a break. Of course, we will include our budget and total cost of the nursery when we are done but for now, here's a peak at one of the dressers.

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage...

Then comes a baby in the baby carriage!!

Hi friends! We are so glad that you have found our 'Making Baby' blog. Those who read our life blog (www.jasonandkatey.com) have sent numerous emails, asking for MORE! You want more information on Baby Rallis, more updates, more inside scoops, more baby momma drama, more pictures of our progress...

Geesh! Don't you people have better things to do than sit around and read blogs all day??? ME NEITHER! So to appease our avid readers, we have taken the time to create a baby blog. The reasons on our end are simple.

1. Our life blog is, well, about life...not JUST baby. As said, it seems that some of you are more interested in baby news than our little life updates. So here we are.

2. Our baby story is unique. We aren't the only ones to struggle with conception but we wanted to provide a place to openly chat and share about infertility and all the junk that comes along with it. If you are new here, don't worry...we will catch you up on all the juicy info.

3. When two funky friends fall in love with each other and fall perhaps even harder for 'Do It Yourself' projects, it can only mean one thing...Baby is going to be one DIY diva! And of course, you want to read all about that, right? At the top of our blog, it reads, "Making Baby...homemade baby, homegrown love" and that's exactly what this blog is all about. We are budget-minded (okay, cheap) folks who have worked very hard to make our baby and we are so excited to continue making baby (as in, doing up the nursery, making random stuff for the kid, etc) and we invite you to join us in the adventure. Oh yeah, step-by-step instructions to our projects will be available for your own DIY days. BONUS!

So there you go. Three simple reasons why this blog exists. Now, if you will excuse us, we have a concrete floor to stain and furniture to paint for the nursery.

*Want your super stylish nursery to be featured on our blog? Want your super stylish baby to be featured on our blog? Let us know!*