Baby Bargains!

Finally, a rap song on the radio that I can relate to!  Despite the language (which is not "your granddad's" language), Thrift Shop by Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis is my new favorite song.  It's all about the thrill of finding a bargain at the thrift shop and refusing to spend $50 for a Gucci t-shirt.  I couldn't agree more, especially when it comes to baby clothes!

While I was pregnant with Corrie, I was a garage sale hunting machine!  I scoured Craigslist, my Garage Sale Rover app, and local classifieds for anyone selling baby items.  On Saturdays I'd wake up and be out the door by 7 to see what treasures I could score.

Seriously, y'all, the great thing about getting baby items secondhand is that babies grow so fast that they barely have time to ruin the clothes or do much damage to the gear.  That, and your baby is likely to only wear that outfit 3 or 4 times or use that swing for the next 3 months, so you shouldn't spend a small fortune amassing things that will become obsolete so soon.  Some of my favorite finds were a Bjorn Active baby carrier for $20, a Boppy pillow with a minky cover for $20 still in the packaging, a booster seat high chair for $10, a Cloud B Sleep Sheep for $5, and a portable baby swing for $25!  Had I bought all those items at their retail prices, I would have spent over $275, but instead I got them all for $80!

One Saturday morning I had a particularly lucrative hunt.  Shaun was out golfing, so I spent several hours at garage sales.  The loot?

22 onesies

6 sleep-n-plays

6 pants

5 dresses

4 shirts

3 shorts

3 skirts

1 jacket

1 beach cover-up

1 hat

1 pair of socks

1 musical crib mobile toy

4 books

1 swim floatie raft

15 bottles with lids

And my total price tag for all of my finds?

$18

Yup, I love garage sales!

Lamp Upgrade

When decorating Corrie's nursery, Pinterest became my inspiration for most every project I undertook.  The lamp I used in her room was no different.  I already had a lavender lamp, but thought it needed an upgrade.

I ran across this pin while I was pregnant and showed it to my mom, an avid scrapbooker.  Her reply?  "I have that 'Once Upon a Time' die-cut on my Cricut machine."  I immediately asked her, "Can you send me that die-cut on black cardstock?"  She graciously mailed me several different sizes, and off to Michael's I went for some spray adhesive!

The process was so simple.  Get the die-cut, spray the front of the die-cut with an even layer of spray adhesive (I used 3M brand), position it on the inside of the lampshade, press firmly, and voila!  You've got yourself a hidden message that becomes visible each time you flip on the lamp.

It's added a great little touch to Corrie's room, providing a soft fairy tale glow each time I put her to bed.  (Or, more commonly, come into her room for a middle-of-the-night feeding.)

Corrie's Mobile

Oh, Pinterest, you are the only reason I kept busy waiting for Corianne to be born.  I continued to find cute nursery touches that I wanted to make or do for her room, and Corrie kept giving me plenty of time to make them!

This mobile was one of those projects.  I found the tutorial on Pinterest here from a blog titled God Bless Our Nest, and fell in love with it!  It fit the style I had in mind for the nursery and seemed relatively cheap to make.  I ended up doing my version a little differently.  Rather than use fishing line for the crystals, I used white thread (So much easier to knot!) and I used a variety of crystal shapes instead of just one type.  

I was so pleased with the end result and Corianne has loved staring at it since she was a newborn and it first caught her attention.  :)

This is really just a teaser post about the nursery until I get a chance to go up in her room and snap pictures of the whole nursery.  It's been a lot harder to do that than I once thought, seeing as how my free time is now her nap time, but it'll happen soon... promise!