DIY Nursery, Part III

The last two decor pieces for the nursery were finished here recently. It might even be safe to say they are some of my favorite pieces! They were so last minute because I couldn't get my hands on them until I was about 27/28 weeks pregnant and then of course one of them was damaged.



My damaged article was the lamp. I had made it a couple of years ago and had it back home in my bedroom. It was originally a small, round, purple lamp from Goodwill that I paired with an old shade they had there as well. I spray painted the lamp a matte black and the shade white. I then cut dictionary pages into circles and attached them to the shade. Well, when my parents decided to renovate my bedroom it got shoved into the attic space in the closet. That wouldn't have been a big deal except dad decided to "deflower" my diy lampshade! What I mean by this is all the pretty little dictionary circles had been ripped off! It looked so very sad. After bringing it home I tried to resurrect the current shade but it was destroyed. After chucking it, I went on the search for a new used shade. I couldn't for the life of me find one. I ended up having to purchase a new, plain white shade for $7, which i'm pretty sure is more than I paid for the lamp to begin with. Ugh. Then I began the shade making process all over again.

I made myself a circle template from a cup/glass in our cabinet. I ripped out about 3 pages at a time from my trusty sacrificial dictionary, folded the sheets in half and traced the circle with pencil. I then cut all six layers at once to minimize the amount of time I sat on the couch cutting circles. Then I got really fancy by using my Propel bottle to hold the shade up off of the table so I could begin attaching the circles.

I started out using regular ole Elmer's glue. That was a huge bust. I then decided Tacky Glue might be a better idea, and I was quite right! I attached them one row at a time. I had to stop one or two times to cut some more circles, of course. Then I just let it dry!

I then attached it to its little lamp base, put in a bulb, plugged it in and tada!! I've been thinking about attaching the lamp to the slice of wood in an attempt to keep the cat from knocking it over. Of course the easy way would be to just Gorilla Glue them to each other, but I would hate to want to use the lamp again, but without the wood piece. So, i'm working on what to do here. I am open to suggestions if you have one, please!!! 

My second project that day was the finishing piece for the nursery. Remember the guestbook idea from my baby shower? The blue fish with the wishes for baby? Well this is where they come in! I searched around the little park in our neighborhood for the perfect stick. Believe me, I felt pretty weird but we don't have any trees in our yard. I picked up four of different sizes and brought them home. I then spent a few minutes holding them up to the blank spot on the wall trying to figure out which one fit best. After deciding, I took some white yarn and tied it to either end of the stick so it could easily be hung on the wall. Then I got really fancy and laid the big stick down on the floor in the living room and set out the fish how I wanted them to hang. I had purchased some string at Dollar Tree weeks prior, so I broke it out and started measuring and cutting! After each fish had a string, I hung my stick on a nail in the living room (don't worry, it was already there) and began attaching the fish string by string. I didn't tie them too tightly to the stick so that I could move them around as much as I wanted. 

No doubt I probably should have tied the fish on in the nursery though. When I moved it from its work place to its home, it got all tangled up. I was able to fix it, but it was pretty annoying. 

Please excuse the pretty terrible iPhone panoramic and the fact the nursery is still messy. 

Good news is that the next nursery post you see should be the full reveal!!!