Navy and Pink Baby Girl Quilt

I finally finished up a quilt for our baby girl.  I blame ordering fabric online for taking me so long to complete the project!  Because it was rough sitting on the floor pinning fabric well into my third trimester!  But I absolutely love how it came out and am so grateful I got the motivation to finally finish it up.

I made a few minky blankets for my son using fabric I ordered from Spoonflower.  Since then, ordering fabric online has become my go to.  Our local fabric store doesn't have as wide of a selection as I would like so being able to order online has been a time saver.  It is a bit more expensive but I think the larger selection makes it worth it.

The Spoonflower website has a template where you can order fabric already in a quilt design.  I did not order my fabric this way but I did use the template to try to narrow down my fabric choices and get an idea of layout before ordering (since I couldn't physically do this in the store).  I did not end up using exactly the same template as I had planned but the process helped me narrow down my choices a lot more easily.

Another advantage to ordering through Spoonflower is that you can split your yard into two designs.  So as you will see below, I have three separate yards with two fabric choices printed on each.  It is laying next to the quilt I made for our son as I was comparing size and layout.

I tried a variety of ways to lay the fabric until I came up with a pattern I liked.

I even laid down some clothes to get an idea of what the quilt would look like as a background for baby girl's weekly photos! 

I finally settled on a design - taking out one of the floral prints.  I liked the simple hint of pink against the neutrals of black, white, and navy.  Having a boy has really ingrained my love for simple neutral prints!

I started folding the pieces in different sizes using my son's quilt as a guide and then went to sewing.

At this point I stopped taking pictures because it was at least a month later that I decided on a backing fabric (also from Spoonflower) and was way too tired to document the process.  So if you would like more step by step instructions, check out my son's quilt for more details.

But from here I purchased batting, cut the back to match the size of the front and then sewed it all together.  I purchased gold bias tape to finish off the quilt which proved to be a huge headache again (the tape is just too small for how thick the quilt was) so if I ever quilt again, I may consider making my own.  Though I do love the gold detail even though it has proven to be a lot of work for both quilts.

The quilt is not perfect but I sure do love how it came out.  The batting I used this time is also thicker than what I used for my son which gives it a more "puffy" appearance.  Surely it is softer and fluffier but I would have preferred something thinner for our weekly photo sake.

I am just relieved to have it done!  It was definitely a labor of love.  And surely once our sweet girl is laying on top of it, I will forget all about the quilt's imperfections.

I struggled with finding a fabric for the back that I liked.  I really liked the modern print I used for our son's quilt and wanted to replicate it.  I tried shopping the fabric store to save some money on a large back piece but couldn't find anything I loved.  So I went back to Spoonflower and found this pretty blue, grey, and white geometric print.  I just can't quit my love for navy.  I think baby girl will be okay with that though.

Here are a few more styled shots to show off all of the quilt's glory.

A simple quilt for each of our little ones means so much to me.  I would love to have the energy and enthusiasm for more crafty projects or larger quilts to pass down to my children but having this sweet and simple gift for each of them feels just right.  

By keeping it fairly neutral I hope it is something that continues to grow on them for years to come.  We finally put my son's quilt on his big boy bed and it feels special to actually let him enjoy it and use it now (I was all about keeping the quilt clean during his first year due to our weekly photos).

Check out my other quilt projects here:

My first quilt

Neutral baby boy quilt

Making a quilt with my nephew

Easy minky blanket tutorial

Scrap fabric baby quilt (the beginning of my love for simple stripped quilts)

Baby Girl Valentine's Day Decorations

It is always a sad moment when the Christmas decorations come down.  The house suddenly feels a bit empty and without the warm ambiance of twinkle lights.  But then throw in Marie Kondo's Tidying Up show on Netflix and I was suddenly ready to purge my whole house.

With Valentine's Day being so close to when our baby girl arrives, I wanted to have some small nods to one of my favorite holidays without it taking over the house.  I knew I didn't want to be worrying about taking stuff down while we have a newborn around.  So I used some paper cut outs I had from a baby shower that seemed Valentine themed while also welcoming our baby girl into the world.

So sadly my Valentine's bin will stay in storage this year, but these sweet little pink hearts and baby banner are just enough to spread a little love this year.  I also added a little love themed quote to my letter board and it was done. 

We also got in a little Valentine's Day crafting...at the end of December!  Target already had out some simple paper hearts and stickers in their dollar section so I jumped at the opportunity to check something off my list early on.  Our little guy loved it and it felt good to squeeze in a little crafting (oddly enough something we really rarely do).

My husband had time off from work for the holidays and it was pretty cold outside.  It was a spur of the moment activity - not one I expected of myself - which I think made the expectations low and the activity extra fun.

So that is how we are celebrating/decorating for Valentine's Day this year.  My guess is we will have a sweet baby girl by the time February 14th rolls around.  I imagine it will feel extra special but also very low key as we adapt to adding another little human to our family.

I will admit as we were crafting I did fantasize a bit about one day doing a Valentine's Day themed tea birthday party for our baby girl!  Oh the fun to come!  I do miss my annual Valentine's Day tea with girlfriends but I look forward to finding new and fun ways to celebrate this sweet holiday in the years to come.

See our Valentine's Day decorations from years past here.

All About Our Electric Fireplace

One of our biggest advantages to moving to Virginia has been our home here.  It fulfills all of my farmhouse living dreams come true.  And I believe if and when we ever move away, this house will be one of the things we miss the most.  Yet in all it's wonderfulness I kept telling my husband it wasn't quite perfect until we had a fireplace!

It seemed pretty silly that we moved all the way across the country from California to a much colder climate here in Virginia and yet our house didn't even have a fireplace!  Even our house back home had one!  So after a year and a half of talking about it we finally decided on buying an electric fireplace.  We don't have gas where we live so a gas fireplace wasn't an option.  And we didn't feel like we had the time or long term investment here to put in a wood burning one either.  So electric was the final decision and I am actually quite happy with it!

We ordered the fireplace from Wayfair.  We actually found the same fireplace on multiple sites under different listings (but exactly the same listing photos).  We have found that buying furniture online - we hit up Wayfair, Overstock, and Amazon and can usually find the same items and then order the one with the best price. 

While the fireplace was still expensive, it was on the lower end of fireplaces we were looking for.  I wanted something with a white mantel and the bookcase was an added bonus.  But even though it is beautiful, it is definitely evident it is more cheaply made.  We had read up on the reviews and were prepared for what we were getting so we consciously chose a bigger hassle for the sake of a discount.

The fireplace came in about a million pieces.  Think putting together Ikea furniture and then times it by ten!  It was a little insane.  And a few of the pieces didn't completely line up - but fortunately it is only noticeable up close (see below). 

And a few gaps here and there.  There were also a few pieces that came broken but my husband was able to glue them together to make it work.

After quite a few hours later the fireplace was complete and it is gorgeous!  As for the electric fireplace element - it works great.  It can run without any heat blowing which I think is a great feature.  We had purchased it in the fall and were still occasionally running the air conditioning, yet I had my new fireplace running for it's cozy ambiance.  It has a timer and multiple heat settings, all controllable by a handy remote (currently storing this remote and our Christmas light remote in that little white bowl pictured below).

We didn't have a ton of extra space for the fireplace so it's slim design ended up fitting our space perfectly.  The shelves are more for styling than function - they are small and I felt like they needed to look nice to pull everything together.  So I used mostly coffee table books to style the shelves and then I have two baskets on the bottom for DVDs we are currently watching and for a few of my son's books.

To hide all our TV cables, my husband put together a wireless set up similar to what we had at our old house.  The cables run down to our basement for the DVR.  And then we got a Playstation Slim (after our Blu-ray player died) that he mounted behind the TV so we can play DVDs while keeping it hidden.

The fireplace is a dream come true.  I pretty much run it all day everyday whenever we are home.  And I love that we can take it with us if we move and it can easily cozy up any room we want.