Who said pumpkins needed to stay orange? There are so many ways to reinvent them and designer extraordinaire Genevieve Ghaleb did just that for the efashionista baking in high heels event which took place tonight. How fabulous do these pumpkins look. Talk about an amazing centerpiece or outdoor decor your neighbors will surely notice.

Don’t get overwhelmed with the term designer, because you too can create these pretty pumpkins yourself. All you need is the following & a little imagination.

• Pumpkins of various sizes
• Hot Glue Gun
• Glitter – Lots of glitter
• Paint
• Fake Flowers
• Beading of choice (this case pearls)
• Rhinestones

This color palette was a pretty classic one, but one I love. Whites, Golds, Bronze, Copper… you can’t go wrong with that. But the possibilities are endless. Maybe opt for a monochromatic scheme, or even an neon filled one. It really depends on how you feel at the moment. Have fun… that’s all that counts (and make your kids/friends participate too!)

Thank you Genevieve Ghaleb for sharing your awesome creation! Happy Fall / Halloween everyone!

When I was told I would be having a girl, the first thought that came to my mind was ruffles!!! (no joke!) and it’s no wonder that my first purchase for the nursery was a ruffled curtain. I decided I wanted to have a little more ruffle in the room and went ahead and make my own ruffle lamp shade. I thought I would share the easy step by step with you so you can go ahead and make your own!

Materials

• Fabric
• Scissors
• Thread and Needle
• Glue Gun
• Lampshade

Instructions

Let me start off by saying that I don’t sew. Do I own a sewing machine, yes! Do I know how to use a thread and needle? Yes, but very limited so trust me when I say that if I was able to make this work… so you can too.

1. Grab the fabric of your choice and cut in strips. I cut them about 1.5 inch (it’s hard to say how much you will need because it all depends on the lampshade you choose) but for mine I used a little under half a yard of fabric. Another suggestion, if you want a more condense ruffle (which means more fabric) you can use a flat bed sheet in the color of your choice. It’s a cheaper option for yards of fabric.

2. Using a thread and needle, hand stitch each strip of fabric in the center while gathering the fabric to create a ruffled look. Repeat until you have at least 10 stripes of ruffles (you may need to have more depending on your lamp shade)

3. Cover your lampshade with pale muslin. (In my case, I simply had to remove the current fabric)

4. Using your hot glue gun, dab some glue on the lamp shade, starting at the top and glue your stripes of ruffles. Repeat until your shade is covered in ruffles.Put the shade back on the base and admire your piece of art.

I absolutely adore how the lampshade came out… and it’s even prettier when it’s lit. Just the perfect dim lighting for baby girl. Hope you will attempt this little project. Happy ruffling!

First it was chevron, then Ikat, bunting, lattice and we’ve recently seen color blocking increase in popularity. I for one, predict that the next trend will be cross-stitch. Not in the literal craft kinda way, but the use of the look in decor, stationery, baking etc.

Here is a small round-up of what I think will be the next big trend :

I actually love the wall art and think it would look fabulous in an office space or even a nursery! Do you think this will be the next big trend? Have you seen other cross-stitch inspired decor or other ?

wall art  | invitation  | cookie art | votives

Nope, Sienna hasn’t decided to show us her face yet, but her nursery has been featured in the “Nurseries and Parties we love this week” on Project nursery. It’s actually a viewers vote to the best design and ours has fallen a little behind on the votes.

If you don’t mind taking a second, I would love it you can go to the gallery of Sienna’s Nursery and simply click on the “LIKE” button. (on top of the gallery) There are only a few hours left to vote and fingers crossed we win viewers choice. Thank you!!!

When I found out I was having a girl… you can only begin to imagine my excitement. I would have my boy and now my girl, how perfect! Then my mind started going in a million directions as to what I would do for the nursery. Would I go with a theme (nah, seeing nursery themes are too babyish for my liking) or just a great color combo. Then I remembered I had purchased a pair of Handmade Joyfolie shoes and that sparked great color combos and ideas. I have to admit I did go back and forth on the color combo, and even 1 month before we started working on the nursery I dropped my original color combo of Coral, Mint, Pink, Gray, Navy and went towards Coral, Mint, Blush Pink and Gold.

My talented designer friend, Genevieve Ghaleb wanted to participate in making my dream baby girl nursery come true, and well with her great design flare combined with my DIY ideas, I don’t think we could of been a better “design” match. But then came the “crazy ideas” according to my husband. The first one… “We should paint the wood floors!”  This one was a tough one for him to swallow and he literally tried to make me change my mind a good 200 times, but when I told him it was what I wanted and there were no way I’d change my mind (blamed it on the pregnancy hormones)… he just followed along (and boy was I hoping it would look fabulous, otherwise I would have to live it down for the next 25 years!) The floors, as my friend Gen tried to explain to him, was the core to the nursery… I wanted to do something you didn’t really see in nurseries and painted floors was just that. I don’t think they could have been more perfect! The perfect shade of mint with some white and coral stripes…

Seeing the shoes were an important element to the room design, I wanted to make sure to highlight them and what better way then to frame them on the wall. I purchased some small frames at a thrift store, painted them gold and framed the fabric found in the crib and a quote I found to fit perfectly “Cinderella is proof that a pair of shoes can change your life”

The first thing I purchased (apart from the shoes) was the blush pink waterfall curtain. I absolutely loved the ruffles and wanted that to be in the nursery. At that moment I hadn’t decided on the color scheme, but we made it work (yay!) Seeing it was the only ruffle element I had in the room, I decided to make my own coral ruffle lamp shade. (I will post a tutorial shortly)

You can say that this nursery is all about colours and textures. Ruffles, Bows and Doilies. I had blogged 2 years ago about a great wall feature with cupcake liners. I liked the texture part of it and figured we could probably make something similar with paper doilies. The outcome was better than I could of imagined! I love the white on white and putting the importance on the shapes and textures! I also framed some doilies in a mint colour backed frame to tie in with the feature wall.

I wanted to make my own mobile for baby girl. I’m not a fan of the ones out there and I knew I wanted to add more bows in the room. I had seen on Pinterest great use of embroidery hoops for some table decor and thought it would work really well for a mobile as well! So I painted the hoops gold, added fabric bows and hung it from the ceiling. I think it’s one of my favorite pieces of all in the nursery. So simple, yet so perfect!

I decided to print out fake book jackets that matched the nursery colors to put in the night table beside the glider. Sure they are fake (I mean there’s no way A Very Hungry Catepillar would be 300 pages long) but I think it looks adorable and eventually I will swap them with the real books.

I wanted to have a piece that would grow well with Sienna and I think the mirror is perfect for just that! Even though I’m not a fan of animals in nurseries, the coral elephant bank was just the perfect addition to the vintage dresser we found at a thrift store…. but the best part of all, I was able to put a vintage teacup my stepmother gave me a few years ago (that belonged to her mother) in the room. I think once she sees it, it will make her happy. I love when there’s a little history attached to a room decor.

I think I can go on and on… but you get the point!
So, what do you think? What’s your favorite part of the room?

Thank you Genevieve Ghaleb for following me and my over the top ideas! Working with you is not even work. (hope we get to do it again) Thank you Anne-Emilie Sayegh for taking pictures of Sienna’s nursery!

+ + +

Room Details :

For those interested here is the cost break-down of the nursery decor, you should be able to find all the details below. I will be posting tutorials on some of the DIY projects I did for this room shortly.

Furniture & Lighting

• Vintage Crib : $50 // refurbished
• Vintage 5 drawer dresser : $20 // Thrift find Village des Valeur
• Vintage 6 drawer dresser (changing table ) : $75 // refurbished
• Night Table : already owned // Hemnes Ikea
• Upholstered Glider : already owned //  Dutalier
• Chandelier with pink crystals : $70 (got a new one onKijiji for a steal) // Pottery Barn
• Ruffled Table Lamp (DIY) :  already owned //  Base Bouclair,  Shade (Arstid) Ikea
• Pink Glass Knobs : $30 // Look In The Attic
  =======================
  Furniture & Lighting : $245
  

Bedding & Linens

• Crib Bumper (Punch Basics) :  $115 // Serena & Lily 
• Crib Mattress Cover : $36 // Serena & Lily
• Ruffled Crib Skirt : $84 // Carousel Designs
• Pink Waterfall Ruffled Curtain : $64  (had discount code) // Urban Outfitters
• Vintage Knob Curtain Tie Back : $12.50 (had discount code) // Urban Outfitters
• White Throw : $25 // HomeSense
• Coral Pillow : $20 // HomeSense
  =======================
  Bedding & Linens : $358.50

Paint colors :

• Wainscotting & Floors : CIL Cascading Water 30GY 75/105 W/B
• Walls / Ceilings / Stripe (floor) : Plain White
• Coral stripe (floor) : CIL Pink Chablis 30YR 68/127 W/B
  =======================
  Paint & Painting supplies : $325

Seeing we painted our wood floors, we needed to prep, sand, prime, paint and varnish, a big bulk of the nursery costs would have to be the paint. Sure bedding isn’t cheap either(especially for the little time we will be using it) but to compensate we made sure to choose furniture pieces (with the exception of the crib) that would grow well with Sienna. The total nursery cost $1061 a little over budget (I was aiming for $750) but considering everything we’ve done, I have no regrets!

Design & Concept : Me! aka Blushink & Genevieve Ghaleb
Images courtesy of : Anne-Emilie Sayegh

Hey everyone! Hope you had a wonderful weekend and ate lots of chocolate for easter! Sorry it’s been pretty quiet around here, but we’ve been busy prepping the nursery for baby girl. (amongst other things) I’m so happy to say that we’ve finally started and progress is going rather well. Obviously with less than 6 weeks to go, we still have much to do, but I am not stressing seeing I think I’ll be done everything in about 3 weeks time. (let’s just hope she doesn’t come 3 weeks early. hehe)

I was debating whether I should blog about the process before the nursery was done, but I am so damn excited about our floors (and seeing I’ve been instagram-ing the hell out of them) I figured why not. We I decided to paint our wood floors (will a little convincing from my friend Gen) Everyone, including my husband thought I was nuts. Not that they don’t like the idea of painted floors, but just the thought of actually painting over pretty floors (because let’s admit, mine were in EXCELLENT condition) is heartbreaking.

I wanted baby girls nursery to be different then what we see everywhere. I wanted a “wow” factor and let me tell you I am more than happy with how my floors came out. I opted to go mint (even if we had originally thought pink) because I feel it’s a pretty neutral color that can fit with almost anything as she grows up.

I apologize in advance for the crappy photos, but they’ve been instagram-ed and I only have an iPhone camera. Either way, you will get the point and see the progress. Plus, when the nursery will be completely finished I will either ask my friend to come take pictures of I’ll borrow her camera.

Before : (this is how Mavrick’s nursery was originally painted)

Step 1 : Sanding and priming the floors  (thank you to my hubby and FIL)

Step 2 : After passing the vacuum, the floor is ready for it’s first coat of paint. Then the second coat was applied the next day.

Step 3 : Taping of the floors for our “floor piping” (I like to call it)

Step 4 : Painting of the white stripe (2 coats needed)

Step 5 : Remove the frog tape while second coat is still wet.

Step 6 : Time to re-calculate and tape the smaller pipping.

Step 7 : Time to paint, this time in coral (2 coats needed)

Step 8 : Remove the frog tape while second coat is still wet.

Step 9 : Varnish the floors (we have to do this this week) But here is an overview of our floors and wainscoting.

Sure I’m focusing on the floors, but we actually painted the walls as well. Everything except the wainscoting is a white (not 100% pure) but white nonetheless. I painted the wainscoting the same color as the floor (mint) so that it blends in. What I am most happy about is that my husband actually loves the floors. So much that he’s even talking about painting other spaces in my house. ha! (how cute of him!) Sure all the paint for the room wasn’t cheap. It came out to about 325$ (for floor, wall paint and varnish) but seeing that it’s the main focus to the room (and will last years) it was worth the investment in my opinion.

Would you paint wood floors?

When thinking about the nursery, I know I want to do something different, something to step away from the classics and when my fabulous designer friend Genevieve suggested we paint the wooden floors I admit I was both terrified and excited at the same time.

The look of painted wood floors is amazing… but yes, you have to be daring and yes you have to be willing to go all out. Usually people paint instead of replacing extremely ruined floors, but in our case the floors are actually in excellent condition so it makes it even harder to jump in. I’m not sure my husband is on board 100% just yet, but he usually loves what I do when decorating the house, but he doesn’t want to know the before or during… just wants to see the finished product. (men! )

I think seeing we aren’t planning on moving anytime soon… having painted floors in the nursery which will then grow with her along the years, might be neat. Different… and if we do decide to sell… the new owners will either love it (and do it for other spaces in the house) or opt to simply sand, dye & varnish it. Plus paint is the cheapest and easiest way to makeover a room.

I won’t go all graphic, heck I don’t want to give my husband a heart attack, but I think a colored floor or even a white one will add so much impact to a small space. Don’t you think?

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Maybe it’s because Tangerine is the Pantone Color of the year, but we are seeing many shades of orange;  salmons, corals, tangerine in nurseries. I’m not a fan of orange myself but coral that’s another story. Probably because theres a hint of pink in there… I mean who doesn’t like pink. That being said, yes I am having some coral in my nursery as well so when I saw this Coral and Aqua Nursery it put an instant smile on my face.

Clearly this is a HUGE room… I mean there’s a love seat in the nursery but I love all the elements that make this room the perfect balance of aqua and coral. I love the mixture of modern and vintage elements and the frame gallery is right up my alley. This little girl is lucky to be having sweet dreams in such a gorgeous space. There are even more pictures of this gorgeous nursery here.

I have some unique ideas for bebe girls nursery and can’t wait to share it with you, but before then I have lots of demolition, painting and decorating to do. Luckily I have my talented (and that’s not even the right word to express her awesomeness) designer friend helping me out. It will be fab!

[ Project Nursery ]