white noise

 

I realized I forgot to tell you all about the white noise we use! I posted about cora's sleep routine [here]...but I failed to mention that we have been using white noise of some sort since she was sleeping through the night. Coincidence? Possibly not.

We started off with a fan/ air purifier thing. We turned it on for every nap and nighttime. Then it started making a weird sound/smell and freaked us out. So we put in a portable speaker, ipod, and a brown noise "song" on continuous in her room. That worked well, except when the speaker's batteries died it would make a horrendously loud static noise, scared the shit out of us- so that happened every 3 days. We also love this white noise app on our phone- we use it at the grandparents, traveling, etc. We put our phones on airplane mode....and play away. But we don't want our iphones tied up in her room... how could we live without them in the middle of the night? 

THEN we got smart. We purchased a sound spa- white noise machine. So simple. So perfect. It was at bed bath and beyond, also you can find some affordable ones on amazon [white noise machines]. This one plays about 6 nature sounds- soothing, but we like the white noise best. I covered up the clock with black electrical tape. And the best thing is it plugs into the wall! No batteries, however if you want it to be portable it can be. And it just plays and plays until you turn it off. PERFECT... that only took us 10 months to figure out.

This is awesome for our smaller house, where we like to watch TV after she goes to bed, maybe load a dish or two in the dishwasher...you know living on the wild side. So this cancels our sounds we make. She sleeps quite soundly, we can still hear her peeps on the monitor through the white noise. I read that the white noise volume should be set to if you were standing in your bathroom listening to the shower and we turn it down a little from that (talked about here in this article, it's no where near scientific research... but it appeals to my motherly instincts/needs).

I think this will be important to have one for cora... one for us... and down the road one for the next babe. One big house-o-white noise.. So synthetically peaceful.

oh crafts.

Guess who is crafting?! It's me. Craaazy. I thought this day was a million years away. When would I have enough time to get back to being crafty?! Well, that day has come....and in the form of fitted crib sheets. Yes, I may be sewing in my bedroom on a collapsible table so that Cora can sleep peacefully across the house. And yes...I may be staring constantly at the little green light on the monitor. But it happened. And it was glorious.

Project: 2 flannel fitted crib sheets
Estimated time to complete: 2 nap times
Materials:
      2 yards flannel fabric per sheet
      3/4" wide elastic - 4' per sheet
Outcome: 2 adorably soft and more importantly completed fitted sheets

Yes, I have made DIY fitted sheets before with my mom when I was pregnant [back here]. I used an amy butler twin sheet to make two fitted crib sheets back then. They have held up really well too! Well now it's fall and cora needs a cozy little flannel fitted sheet to lay her head on. She sleeps through the night (hooray!!) and we are in the process of de-swaddling her. She flips over to her tummy each night, and nuzzles her little head into the sheet...so it's got to be cozy.

I used Dana Made It as a reference for my first fitted sheet project, and Prudent Baby as a reference for this project. I made my own dimensions that I thought would work well. Their explanations may make more sense...but I will try to explain my method.

[these are my two fabric choices to match her turquoise themed room]

I went to the quilt store and bought 2 yards each of super cute material. This wasn't cheap. But it was the colors I was looking for. I had my dimensions from the last time I did this project, but I wanted to do the elastic a little bit differently. I chose to sew the elastic onto the fabric, instead of making a casing for it. I thought it would take less time, maybe look less polished.... but I also hate, ok strongly dislike, threading elastic through casing. It frustrates me. So, I chose a new method.



My steps for a standard 52" x 28" x 5" crib mattress:

1. Cut out a 68" x44" rectangle from material. My material ended up being 43" wide... but it was just fine.

2. Then cut an 8" square from each corner.

3. Sew those two remaining edges of the square together inside out....at each corner. This makes the corners of the fitted sheet that will go down the side of the crib mattress and under.

4. Sew a hem around the whole edge of the sheet. Did I wash the fabric before sewing? No. Was mine perfect? No. Did I cut off the selvage? Um. No. Could I have spent more time with this making a more refined double hem? Yes. But did I mention I got this project done in 2 naps?! Amazing.

5. Anyways, cut four 12" lengths of 3/4" elastic.

6. Mark a half-way point on the elastic at 6".

 

7. Sew that half way mark at each of the corner's seams with a zig zag stitch.

 

 

8. Start sewing half of the elastic length starting at the center with stretching out the elastic as much as possible, zig zag stitch.

9. Sew the other half starting from the center line again and going out holding the elastic stretched out....zig zag it up.

10. When you let go you have a scrunched up corner! Yay!...Now keep going for each corner. Not bad, right?!

[our new house with a new spud room... lacking a little luster... so I need to pinterest some decor ideas and craft some more I suppose]

[she, however, does not lack luster.... not ever]

 

oh, toes.

 

11. Test it out... perfect!

Verdict on elastic techniques: It took close to as long sewing a casing and threading through the elastic as it did to pull the elastic taut and sew down. It does look a little worse than the casing- in case you cared what the bottom of the mattress looks like (I don't). Is the sheet as taut with just the corners having elastic as elastic the full length of the sheet?! Not really. If you tuck under the edges, it looks/acts the same. I think depending on my mood with elastic I could go either route- I think both are comparable.

spud box!! (a DIY co-sleeper)

[my dad and matt installing the spud box... in coordinating clothing and beards. nice job guys!]

My dad made Cora a fantastic and beautiful co-sleeper for our bedroom. It's made of pine that he ripped, sanded, and constructed into a "spud box." I got the co-sleeper idea from [here] a while back. I asked my dad what he thought about this project and jumped right to it! When my parents drove out to visit us they brought his creation. It's beautiful and will be incredibly useful.

As you can tell from the pictures, our bedroom is tiny. We have an older 1900-something house that we love for now...but the downside is... small rooms. We want to have Cora sleep in our room to be able to bond with her, provide for easier middle of the night feedings and have the benefits of co-sleeping for SIDS, etc. Pack 'n plays are too big, and why have something plastic when you can have a wood beauty? Plus we are two big people in a queen sized bed, cora needs her own space free of blankets and pillows to rest comfortably.

Spud box dimensions:
36" long x 16" wide with 12" sides

The two long slats slide under the mattress, and it has the two legs for support on the opposite side of the box. My dad says this project took him about 40 hours... but he is a perfectionist and chose to mill his own wood for the project. Hard to say how long it would take someone else.

My dad chose to make the 2 legs of the spud box with the ability to change the height. This will be great for when we move and *hopefully* upgrade to a bigger room with a king sized bed. This may be only a dream, but at least the spud box will fit regardless for our next babe too.

Foam:

I bought 3" high density foam at Jo Ann's. This normally would be about $40 for this chunk of foam, but with those 50% off coupon is was $20...which I think is still pricey. So make the cuts wisely! The foam was cut down to 36" x 16" with just a regular sharp kitchen knife. Super easy.

Spud-box sheet:
I mentioned in the previous post how my mom and I sewed the fitted sheets. Really quick to make. I also cut down a vinyl fitted sheet that usually is for cribs to prevent spill-absorption. This layer goes under the fitted sheet so that it protects our foam from nighttime accidents/spill outs. One fitted sheet came down to about $5 to make and about $7 for the vinyl sheet at Target.

We can use this co-sleeper up to 6 months we think and for our next in-the-future baby...tater tot.

Next step:
Thoroughly clean bedroom and wash all new fresh bedding for Cora's arrival....oh yeah, and kick the dogs out of the bedroom. Something we have been dreading, we love sleeping in the same room with them. Which brings us to the next project- similar to the DIY dutch door....a DIY swing dog-gate for our bedroom!

DIY fitted crib sheets

As I mentioned my parents came into town to see the pregnant belly and help with some fun spud projects. My mom and I decided to make fitted crib sheets and fitted spud box sheets. It took us about a day to DIY our 4 fitted sheets. I made a few measuremental errors...so perhaps it could have gone smoother had I been 100% paying attention. But it was fun to make this together and turned out just as I had in my head for her room.

There are tons of great tutorials out there to make fitted sheets, and it's rather simple. (I like this one on danamadeit). I couldn't find sheets that I loved for the spud room...so I decided we could make our own. I bought a twin size amy butler sheet set at Bed Bath and Beyond. It's normally $70 for the set, but we bought it on sale and with a 20% off coupon for $20! They are quirky, amy butler (my favorite) and turquoise! It was perfect because sheets already come super soft and high thread count- where fabric may or may not be....and even though its cute, it's expensive. So this route was the best for me.

A twin sized flat sheet can make 2 crib size fitted sheets, and the twin fitted sheet made 2 spud-box sheets. The spud box is similar in size to a long diaper changing pad...so you could potentially make those if you don't have a spud box to sew for :)

I had a hard time finding conversions for twin sheet to crib sheet (FYI- wikipedia's bedding sizes). We also re-used the elastic in the twin fitted sheet, I just cut it out and I had my own 1/4" elastic to thread through the whole fitted sheet casing. Some people choose to do just elastic on the corners, I like the look of elastic gathering the fabric through the whole sheet. I am sure the other way would be easier though.

Here are my dimensions...if it helps.

2 crib fitted sheets from 1 twin flat sheet:
-flat sheets are around 102" x 72", then we trimmed off all of the seams
-our standard crib mattress is 52" x 28" x 5"
-cut two rectangles of 68" x 44" fabric
-then cut 8" squares from each corner

2 co-sleeper fitted sheets:

-our spud box crib mattress/foam is 36" x 16" x 3"
-cut two rectangles of 48" x 28" fabric
-then cut 6" squares from each corner

From here I'd follow the tutorial for nice instructions on sewing the fitted sheets. 

[my mom smiling the whole project long... amazing to have the help and motivation!]

...I think it looks nice with the grey walls...not overly girly either. More pictures to come as we finish up the spud room!

a DIY dutch door.

[one dutch door and two goonies]

We have dogs...as I have mentioned before, now 2 big ones. We did the doggy-gate thing for awhile in our house until my legs just didn't want to clear the gate any longer. Something about having a belly and no abdominal muscle tone makes stepping over a gate tricky and rather unsafe. We like to keep the dogs out of our bedroom and now we want them to stay out of spud's room too. I was struggling with the idea of putting a gate up in front of spud's room when I really don't want to be stepping over it holding a precious baby. Yes, a dog-free zone is important but what a nuisance! We have an old house that has super narrow doorways, like 26". The fancy dog gates with the door that opens needs a modern sized doorway that is wide.... not tiny like ours. So, unfortunately those wouldn't work in our house.

[a cute one from pinterest]

So plan B?! Well...I tossed out the idea to matt that what if we made a dutch door? I thought he might laugh at my silliness, but instead he loved the idea. We researched how much a dutch door costs- upwards of $1,000. Ridiculous right, for a door...a nice door but still?! Oh...this is a dutch door, also known as a barn door, stable door, half door (pictured above). They are adorable. So... we thought...hey let's DIY a dutch door! That's perfect!! A little door to open and close with a doorknob when we want to enter spud's room. This will be a door that almost 100% stays closed to keep big dogs out and little Cora in. We can also close the top half when its time to sleep and want to keep the noise out of her room. Perfect.

[completed dutch door!]

Our steps to a DIY door...

1. We didn't want to cut the door in half that is already existing to Cora's room. We are renting our house, and it's just not nice to start cutting things in half that aren't yours.

[the old, very nice looking singular door]

2. Get an incredibly helpful dad to help with motivating to start a project and help with the logistics of completing a dutch door project. So, Matt and his dad went to a second-hand-construction store to find an old door that would kind-of fit in our doorway.

[matt, his dad, and even colby trying to help]

3. It took about 2 days for them to make the door fit. That was shocking. But nothing in our house is level or straight. Not the ground, not to ceiling and definitely not the doorway.

4. Two additional hinges were chiseled and attached to the door and frame. This is so that each 1/2 of the door has 2 hinges to swing on.

5. Once the door was custom fit to the doorway and hinges placed they measured a nice 1/2 way point to cut the door in half. The door was cut in half and then fine-tuned to fit yet again in the doorway now that the load was hanging differently on the 4 hinges.

[in progress]

6. The pre-existing old fashioned doorknob was placed on the door again.

7. Matt added a strip on wood to the top and bottom edge of the door interfacing. This made the door look nice, a little more of a finished look. It also made the door feel a little stronger and more durable. He also filled in that awful hole you see above where the preexisting door latch was.

[the strip being screwed in]

[ready to be painted]

8. We painted the door tailor's chalk white- the same color as the trim in the room.

9. This is an extra step that most people would want to make... add a latch to connect the top and bottom parts of the doors into one door. This would be helpful when trying to close the door in its entirety. We are skipping this step for now because we don't see ourselves shutting the top half of the door that often, and can't decide on a nice latch to connect the two. So, we will address this step in about 6 months when we need it.

10. Marvel over the 1/2 door invention, and love it.....DIY dutch door complete!

alphabet cards! [take two]

** So I posted this post a few weeks ago, and blogger ate it. I spent literally hours trying to resuscitate it, with no avail. Matt said I probably could have re-typed it faster. But, thanks to my incredibly amazing co-worker, Shauna... this post is now living again. Not to say it's an incredible post...it's not ...but the point is that I knew it was out there floating around on the internet, which drove me crazy. So thank you Shauna. You rock. You brought my blog post back to life.**

[on etsy, here]

In the spud room we have only one wall that is empty. Two of the walls have windows on them, and one wall has the closet/nook. So this wall is precious space. Being a former preschool/kindergartner teacher I LOVE alphabet cards and counting/number cards too. I had them up in my classroom and I really want them up in Cora's room. But I am having issues with throwing out my Montessori teacher training and jumping on the first cute etsy alphabet cards I find. It's like asking a nurse who has a child with a fever not to give her kid tylenol (ok, that's a little severe). But this is hard for me, and this is why...


Constituents for my alphabet cards:

-They should be displayed at the child's height. This is a Montessori thing where you are preparing the child's environment as their own sacred place- not for adults. So everything is at child level for them to access and learn from their space. I love this theory. It gives children the power and the independence to learn and grow without adult interaction.

-The letters should be appropriate to age level not only in pictures but that the word match up to how letters sound for the first words when reading. For example: A is for apple not ape. Children first learn to read very simple words, phonetically. English is tricky, but kids first learn it as though it is simple... each letter has one sound, then they add to that knowledge base by giving letters all of their corresponding sounds. So letter sounds are taught as short vowel sounds and hard consonants.

-The pictures should be colorful, enticing, and beautiful. I want Cora to be so eager to learn to read and absorb her beautiful environment.

-The first letters for children should be taught in lowercase. This helps to transition kids to writing easily.

[free to print out at home and a ton of other adorable free-printables!! from the handmade home here]

So after literally hours of researching alphabet cards I found some adorable and FREE ones. They are so gosh darn cute, I almost have the print button hit on my computer. They are exactly the splashes of color I want in spud's room and have a lot of turquoise in them. They are so much cuter than anything I could ever dream up. I am in love. Except. They are not 100% educationally appropriate. Do I just enjoy them for the first 6 months, then replace them with other ones later when she starts to talk? Do I just not care, and know that she will be fine regardless of the silly alphabet card I choose? Am I doing this for me then, not for Cora?! Ahhhh.... tricky! But, silly really. 


Problems I have with chosen cards:
-Babies are held, not on the ground crawling and walking for the first 6 months. So does that mean that the alphabet cards can be placed at adult level to show Cora the letters and words for the first few months while I walk around with her in my arms... then have them gravitate downwards on the wall later? I don't know how I feel about this. Because in real life the wall will look cuter if they are in the middle...not near the ground.
-It's VERY hard to find not only cute but educationally appropriate cards. I've searched. R is for rotary!? Come on. Super cute picture but seriously, that is not a first word I will be teaching Cora for R... how about river or raccoon?! Something that is in her daily life, it's a reality.
-Most of the cute alphabet cards are not short vowels and hard consonants. Like "I for icing"... it should be "I for igloo." So should I make my own? I can't really draw... so that makes things tricky.


This is what the alphabet looks like with short vowels and hard consonants from a very helpful website- montessori mom (I thought you might like to know these because I had to look it up again, I forgot all of them...)

a-short "a" as in "at" (later teach long "a" sound such as in "gate"- "ah" sound as in "father")

b- as in "rib"-With lips closed form a line and say sound.

c-"k" sound as in "cat"(later the "s" sound as in "cent")

d-as in " lid"-Place tip of tongue behind upper front teeth, keeping face still, say sound.

e-short sound as in "egg" (later long sound such as in "me")

f-as in "if"-Put upper teeth on lower lip and release air.

g-hard sound as in "big "(Later introduce " j " sound as in "gem" )

h-as in "her" -Open mouth and blow out sound.

i-short sound as in "pig" (Later introduce the long sound "i" , as in "pie"

j-as in "jam" -Keep jaw still and say sound.

k-as in "ink"

l-as in "lad" -Place bent tip of tongue under front teeth and say sound.

m-as in "him" -Close lips and make sound.

n-as in "tan" -Place tip of tongue against the roof of your mouth and say sound.

o-short sound as in "on" (later introduce the long o as in "open", then introduce the long "oo" sound, as in "to"

p-as in "yap" -Close lips lightly together and say sound.

q-I introduce q with the u ie "qu" and explain that u is always with q but the u doesn't say a sound when it is with q. Word sound as in "queen" (Place tongue in middle of upper plate and release breath.

r-as in "brr" -Pull back t towards upper mouth the tongue edges to the back molars. Hold and say sound. This one is a bit difficult. I had to practice not to say "er" sound.

s-as in "gas" -Place tongue behind lower teeth, bite down and say sound. (Later teach the "z" sound as in "as")

t-as in "bat"-Put tongue behind top teeth and release breath.

u-short sound as in "up" (Later long u as in "unicorn" and short oo sound as in "put"

v-as in "vine" -Place upper teeth gently on lower lip and vibrate sound.Let the children feel your lips with certain sounds, such as "v" and "f" since the sounds are easily confused.

w-as in "wag"-Slightly pucker you lips, release your breath and say the sound keeping lower jaw still.

x-as in "fix"-This has a ks sound (blended)

y-as in "yarn" -Do the consonant first, which is always at the beginning of a word. ( Later introduce the "e" sounding y, such as "holly", vowel long "i" sounding y, such as "my" and the vowel short "i" sound such as "gym"

z-as in "zip"- Clench teeth together and make sound.

alphabet cards

oh geez. well this was a fun post about alphabet cards and teaching children how to read. Its gone, blogspot has eaten my post. I guess thats what happens when you go away for a weekend. we shall see if I feel like re-typing it (it was super long too!) Sorry yall.

** update: this is now re-posted to here**

spud room projects to do...

[here]

Here are our projects to do during school break for spud room (that's now! yay!!). We have been chipping away at our list of things we'd like to accomplish during our time off this winter break. So far, not too bad. We have one more week. But some of the little details can be ongoing throughout our busy semester too.

 DONE:

-find a crib or paint current one
-move my current office (spud room) upstairs where Matt's office is.
-put crib together
-buy a lazy boy recliner for spud room...turns out we have such a small house that a lazy boy will not fit in the spud room. So we are working on shifting around our furniture to fit a lazy boy rocker/recliner in the living room... and it's bought and beautiful & ready for Cora. Thanks mom and dad!!
-paint room gray
-take down shades
-make diaper changing pad covers
-make a platform for the diaper changing table to sit on to make it taller
-make dutch door
-change out light fixture
-new outlets/covers
-buy 6 cute metal knobs for diaper changing table

TO DO:

[maybe just one panel of this per window?! adorable, from land of nod...too expensive, must find cheaper alternative]

-decide on a style and sew white curtains for nursery that not only block out most light but lighten up the room. Is that even possible?!

[love the way this rug looks....so fun yet subtle]

[this cute one too...from anthropologie of course, but is it $348 of cute for a 4x6 rug?! probably not]

[this creme rug is pretty calming and then have louder accent colors]

[home depot rug...big contender. love this one, not sure on light browns/creme going with gray walls, but we do have the dark wood accents in the room too]

-shop for a rug to fit in tiny room...maybe 3x5 or 4x6. Grey rug perhaps? Green-ish? Floral-ish?

[my journal sketches of rope-ladder closet]

-make a little closet rope-ladder for spud clothes. This will be out of about 3 dowels and white rope. I think it might actually look cute and be super functional.

[here]

-make mobile/hanging cuteness for over the changing table

[from etsy]

[from etsy]

-decide on making or buying alphabet & number cards to hang on the big open wall

[like this cute one, but instead of storing bunnies, store toys]

-find cute baskets either metal, wicker, or white something for under the crib storage for toys and blankets etc.