7 most usefull DIY baby stuff

I went a little bit crazy when pregnant with all that DIY baby stuff. Some was really helpful some stuff didn't work out.

The most useful was:

Sheep skin for our Armadillo pushchair

Finally I got a time to finish the second sheep skin. First one went into the "cloud rug" for nursery. This nicer one went into the liner for our Armadillo. It is lamb sheep skin and it is very soft. Just perfect for a pushchair!

 

Happy Christmas!

I have not written for a while now as I had a little accident and puled my pelvis muscles & ligaments. Don't ask how. It was all my stupidity and I paid for it for 3 weeks! I could literary not walk for a week and then I was walking like a 90 years old. My pregnancy is not really helping as I could not take any medication.
Now after 2 physio and 3 weeks I am feeling so much better. I didn't put anything on my blog as I was totally wiped out and also I didn't do anything!
3 weeks of rest.

I have managed last weekend finish the Czech Christmas baking.
See! It is much less of it then last year but I think that with damaged pelvis and 7 months pregnancy is a good reason! :-)))

I did about 8 different kinds of Czech sweet. You will not find anything diet about this baking!

DIY/ Homemade baby bib

I have made a start on baby bibs this Sunday. I have used nice soft flannel fabric for it. It is actually second hand king size bedding set ( only washed not used ). Cost me £7.50 for metres and metres of it! On one side is white + dark blue stars and other dark blue + white stars.

 

Where with coat hangers?

Our house is overflown with coat hangers. I will banish some to the attic and there suddenly is a sea of them again. I think that they are actually breeding here. Our wardrobes are overfull, washing basket has always some and I am not even talking about the underneath of wardrobes! They are hidden everywhere! To resolve our problem with them I have sew a little bag (meaning big one) for them and designated it to our utility room (meaning utility cupboard/ that little space in front of condensator) as we are here in England calling room even a 1m x 1m area of corridor.
So what do you think?

DIY grey & yellow chevron nursery finished!

This weekend I have been doing a last little bits for our nursery. It finally looks like one!
I am quite pleased with it. On low budged & sewing machine it is possible!
What do you think?

Let it hang

That is exactly what I did! This is just a little DIY. :-)))

When we were thinking about "logistics" of having baby there was the question of laundry. We will try to use a cloth nappies so we bought nice nappy bucket, but for a rest of the clothes we didn't need to think long. I still had this Primark fabric laundry bag from before my husband. (I know I keep everything). I am glad that I kept it as it will be perfect for lots of tiny little baby clothes + muslins.
It just needed to go somewhere.
In the end I have just sew to it little tags and with a help of wall hooks put it on the side of our baby changing dresser. Perfect. When we will be changing baby the laundry bag will be right there.

 

Personalised towel on budged

After finishing our nursery chair I was left with a bit of offcuts of fabric. I had a idea how to recognise our baby's towel! I just put a piece of offcuts on the each end of the towel and voila! Personalised towel without any cost.

Nursing chair - revamp

I have finally finished our nursing chair! It took me quite a long time as stupid me didn't buy enough of the fabric!
Also I have been very, very careful with the pattern (the back is just on one side - the pattern is correct).
The old (dirty one) and the shiny grey chevron one.

Nursing chair before

Updated nursing chair

Nursery continues

Slowly but surely we are doing up our nursery.
This is our progress. (sorry about dark photos - blame it on energy saving bulbs)

It doesn't match!

Yep, that was when I was proudly showing our new nursery furniture!
Chair is a light wood, cot is white and our new/ second hand chest of drawers is a dark oak. Put it together with our solid Oak furniture in the rest of the house and it is not colour coordinated!

Chest of drawers & cot & bumper done!

This weekend we have picked up our new (second hand) chest of drawers for nursery. I have immediately started with sanding it down. I didn't want to have the very "orange" pine varnish on. Of course all done by hand. My husband helped me to take the handles off.

Also done this yellow chevron cot bumper.

Have it as on Pinterest or on budget?

That is always my dilemma. I start with "it will do" and I will use what we have (that 15 black frames in the attic could be redone in white for nursery) and then I see something on Pinterest or others blogs and instantly I want it all. Then slowly realised that that will blow any budget and I come back to re-do what I have.

Baby cot update

I have almost forgot to put here update for our new (second hand) cot! I have bought the most ECO & baby friendly paint what I could find. It is from The Little Greene Company and it is just water based one with very low VOC. Bought it from Cane & Adam and it set us back about £23 per liter. :-(

 

Our second baby furniture - Glider chair

I have won it, I have won it! Yep, the chair on the e-bay! I started to look for some very comfy chair but they are really expensive! Even on e-bay the Glider or rocking chairs in good condition go for about £80! Used ones! So when I have found one very near us (3 miles) and bids were staying on £5.50 I took my chance. I stayed on e-bay until the last possible time and then bid the maximum what I would be comfortable paying for it. I bid £30 and I have won it for £23! It wasn't in the best shape.
Advertised as with stains and with pen mark :( I wanted anyway to make a cover for it as these chairs come with really ugly slip covers. So no harm.
I have borrowed our company van to transport it and when we brought it home it looked like this:

Dirty (found number of shreddies there + stains everywhere)

Our first baby furniture - cot

We have our first baby furniture! It was given to us by Rob colleague. It is just a simple wooden one and have been used before, but it is in good condition. We were so excited that we have put it together in the evening.  Also to check if everything is OK and working. The cot is from Ikea and it was quite simple to put up.

Visit of my workoholic family

What happens when you get a visit from your workaholic family? DIY and some more! Yep, that is what happened on the first day of my parents & both my brothers holiday in my house.
I was showing them around and last was the attic (here in England very important room) as it is the only storage what we have. My dad and my middle brother (I am the youngest one) had one look at its unfinished stage and started straight away on it! Asking me where is our jigsaw cutter (It needed some translating as I didn't know how it is called in English) and then sending me to Screw fix to buy one!
In all chaos I took some pictures. Please be warned they were working and not posing. :-)))

My dad doing the finishing of the loft hatch.

New loft hatch

We are slowly progressing with your new loft hatch. I have found a few minutes to paint new cover. It is just a simple piece of wood. This loft is not going to be used very often. Just for a boiler flue check up. Also the loft got a coat of paint and i have fixed peeling paint on top of filler (where light used to be). It is hot here in Surrey( I know unusual) so paint is drying very quickly!

Lights are fixed and so, so bright!

 

Loft hatch as 2 coats of paint.

What a girl do when husband isn't at home? DIY!

Yes, Rob went to London for a stag do and I have all house for myself! Oh, just Rob's dad is fixing the down light in the utility room. Poor man isn't electrician so he has a fun with them. I have cleaned the house as usually, which is done on Saturday, did the weekly shopping, went to library, spent some time doing garden and also finally finished that "dodgy wall in the living room.

When we moved in our house all windows were single glazed and rotten! We are still finding a damage from it!

 This is our new radiator in living room. Pretty isn't it?

Our new boiler

Our new boiler is installed and working! Such a luxury to have a hot water on the tap. :-) It takes about 3 second to get it. With our old one we had to wait about 10 minutes!
We are still not done with all the work. We do a little by little in every free time what we have. It is hard with both of us having 2 jobs. Also this weekend is full of birthdays and BBQ and visiting friends. I have attacked our garden and also managed to wash all windows. My husband was busy painting, sealing & ironing. :-)

We got boiler from