My Sunday was all about cutting in with paint and fabric trimmings, yup and unlikely duo. On Sunday I stoped in Joann's looking to get started on possibly adding rick rack to our white cotton shower curtain { read more about the idea here } Joann's has a great selection of rickrack. I loved looking at all the colors.

I put together a possible color combination of rick rack together, I liked various shades of blue . But I wasn't entirely sold of the blue color combination and couldn't find any grey rick rack! And grey is a MUST in our bathroom. The were a few other ladies in the rick rack section with me, most likely thinking I'm crazy for taking pictures! Oh well, got to remember the colors and of course share with all of you.

Next I looked in the trim section which sales the trim by the yard. I loved all the pom poms! However they wont be making an appeqrance in the bathroom, I know for a fact Mr. CLH would nix the idea { he loved the mini pom poms on the giraffes }

Right now I'm not sure if we'll go with rick rack for this project or I might just add trim. I like the idea of added nice thick trim to our basic waffle weave white shower curtain or adding wide grosgrain ribbon. Either way, I plan on making a thrifty decision since our bathroom update is a mere 100 bucks.

via here.

We finally choose the paint color for our little blah box of a bathroom. As I mentioned before, we were looking at Martha Stewart's paint color line, and narrowed the colors down to three. In the end we decided to go with the color Rainwater. The color is a combination of soft green with pretty light blue undertones. We had the paint color matched at Lowes using Olympic paint ( in home we use Olympic paint & Valspar). Instead of breaking out the rollers, opted to cut in first which makes the whole painting process much easier. Don't worry everyone the paint is Low VOC and I wore a mask :) Gotta protect my lungs and our baby. I loved how the color looked when first applied and loved it even more after it dried. I was a little hesitant first because its a dramatic change going from a beige box to living in color. Here's how the color looks so far in the bathroom, Mr CLH will be painting all the high areas and low, since my bumps in the way. In the pictures below the color looks more blue, buts on more of the green side.

The 'paint girl' did and amazing job of color matching the Martha Stewart color, the very top corner is the swatch I gave her. Of course I some how lost my large swatch of the color, so she gets extra props. On Saturday we found a nice thick bathroom mat of the bathroom. I'm in love with it! So this weeks agenda will be to finish painting the bathroom & Mirror and seeing how we like the bath mat. This is one of those slowing going projects since were also working on a few projects. Here's a more true representation of the color Rainwater.

What do you think of the bathroom color so far? Too dark for such a small space? Or do you like?

{ follow our bathroom progress & ideas part 1, part 2 }

Now that I shared with all of you that were expecting a little baby boy, I can share a little project I just completed for his nursery. After seeing some adorable giraffes on Esty, I thought it would be fun to attempt make one for my baby's nursery. I think handmade baby gifts add a bit of whimsy to nurseries. I did a simple Google search and came across a pattern on Womans Day. Oh how I love Google!!

I headed to Joann's a few Saturday's ago armed with 50% off coupon ( I swear buy coupons now) looking for the perfect 'giraffe' fabric. I came across not to floral print in the quilt section { Tabari was with me } and he agreed the print was cool and would make a cool giraffe. I'm glad I got the big brother to be approval. Originally I planned on making two matching giraffes, but thought the same print in a different color would look amazing! I went with blue and green. I like that the giraffes will be in a bright saturated color. Here's the fabric I choose. I decided to do the gusset { under belly } in a solid green fabric, I call this color artichoke/inside avocado its also a quilting fabric. I'm pretty much in love with this shade of green.

I thought the giraffe was darling the designer made, however I wanted to put my own stamp on it, so I made a few little tweaks. I added a mane using little white baby poms { which are the cutest thing ever } Instead of buying 'what I needed' for only a $ 1.99 I bought a role of pom poms for future projects, don't know for what yet. I also decided to add a flat fat tail and opted not to stitch eyes.

I followed the directions and enlarged the giraffe pattern 200% and cut the paper pieces out and then placed each pattern on top of the fabric and cut.

I've never sewn anything so small before and with so many curves { on a sewing machine } so this was a challenge for me. I would say the giraffe was machine sewn and hand sewn about 50 / 50. The upper was machine sewn { mane hand sewn } and the lower half was and hand sewn. Which made it easier for me, since I was attaching a middle piece 'gusset' so the giraffe would be able to stand. I also hand sewn the ears on, they were tricky!! But I like how they look they give them more character.

Here's the two giraffes I made standing side, or two by two. I love how the pom pom mane gives these little guys so much detail and looks darling. I made the blue one first and its far from perfect, its underbelly needed a little outside stitching, I underestimated the seam allowance, but tit stands it still looks cute. Thats whats important to me. The green one, is pretty much perfect.

I love that the artichoke belly & fabric pattern ties both of them together.

Here's a close up of the white pom pom mane. The pom poms add fun and charm to the giraffe, making it even cuter.

Here's how thier ears look close up and thier faces. I love that the fabric I choose gives face extra demension.

I so excited to place these two in the nursery, but for now they are kicking it in the living room, standing two by two.

I loved sewing these little giraffes and seeing how they turned out after being stuffed. I'm taking orders :) lol I also saw a cute How To for a stuffed puppy, also on Womans Day. I might end up making that one too. Of course I have a few other sewing projects for the nursery I'm working on, so stay tuned.

What do you think? What stuffed animal would you love to sew/ have sewn for you?