Brooklyn's Birds & Birdhouses Baby Girl Nursery

Its been a long time since we've posted on our blog, but we've had a good excuse -- actually 2.  Over the Christmas holidays we discovered that both my sister and I were pregnant!  Since then its been a whirlwind of morning sickness, exhaustion, craft shows, and lots of baby sewing.

I had designed my little boy's nursery pretty quickly, but it took some time for my sister to decide on a theme, as well as her baby girl's name.  Once she decided, well once her husband finally agreed to the name she wanted, we had a lot of work to accomplish in just a few short weeks before her baby shower.  In the end, everything turned out perfect and adorable for my favorite
(and only) niece.

Oh-Not-So-Pink Birds & Birdhouses

At a random trip to the fabric store, I found a new nursery fabric that had birds and birdhouses on it.  My sister wanted something less pink with blue so she could reuse a lot of her first child's, a baby boy, crib sheets and things.  The birdhouse fabric had blue, green, peach, grey and pink. The perfect color scheme for her.

At first she said she didn't want much, just a quilt, but within a day or two her list had grown to include an entire nursery! It was fun to work on another baby girl's nursery while working on my son's gender neutral nursery.  There is just something about cute ruffles and frills that are so fun to work with!

Pillow with a B for Brooklyn and a stuffed animal bird

Baby Brooklyn's quilt with appliqued birds and birdhouses

Handmade bird mobile with sweet colorful stuffed birds

Crib skirt embellished with ruffles and ribbon

Wooden birdhouses painted and mod-podged fabric

Target clearance bird wall hanging recovered with fabric

Wooden letters covered in fabric

View our Baby Brooke's Birdhouse Nursery Pinterest board for more ideas how to recreate this nursery on your own.

Design Studio Update: Photo Studio for Quilts

Over a year ago I converted my guest room into a design studio or craft room for my sewing, scrapbooking, painting and other creative pursuits.  I updated it again to have more storage and now I've updated it again to help me take photographs of my handmade quilts.

I've been using thumb tacks, push pins and even safety pins to hang my handmade baby quilts so I can photograph them for our Etsy store.  This has left hundreds of holes in my wall and has caused my post production color issues as my wall is slightly pink.

I had been doing research on backdrop systems photographers use for photo shoots, homemade pvc alternatives, quilt hanging wood blocks, really everything I could think of.  On a visit to my favorite furniture store, Ikea, I found the perfect thing -- a curtain rod with curtain rings with clips! Great news, its not expensive or hard to install either ;)

I can move my storage containers around, quickly and easily clip up a quilt and take pictures.  When I'm not photographing quilts then I can put my storage containers back.  While I mostly only use a small portion of the curtain rods and clips for the majority of our baby blankets, I got a curtain rod long enough to support a a king size quilt to show off my larger master pieces.
 
With the white clips and rod I can more easily find true white when correcting the color of the pictures.  I also added colorful, inspirational fabric in black frames to help provide more color to help the graphics program make better 'automatic' adjustments.

Ikea Shopping List:
Racka curtain rod
Betydlig wall/ceiling bracket (I got 4 for the length of my curtain rod)
Vasentlig finial set
Syrlig curtain ring with clip and hooks (comes in 2 sizes, I got 4 packs)

TNT Ministries 2011 Quilts

Jeanine organizes the TNT Ministries, a missions service group, at Harbor Trinity Church in Costa Mesa.  It first started in the 1950s as Womens Missionary Society, then Womens Missionary Fellowship, followed by White Cross, and now is TNT.  TNT is named after two people in the Bible, Tabitha who sewed garments for the poor and Titus who was an advocator of good works. 

It’s original work was making flannel baby blanket, flannel baby jackets, flannel diapers, flannel and muslin sheets, muslin hospital gowns, and rolling bandages for the NAB (North American Baptist) mission hospitals in the Cameroon in Africa.  In the 1990s, the group started making twin size patchwork quilts to be given out to various groups in Orange County that have need for them.  The group meets monthly to work on NAB items but meets weekly in the summer to peice, sew, and tie quilts.  

This summer, we completed 73 quilts!

They were donated to Sheepfold, OC Rescue Mission, and Mercy House.  4 of the quilts were created as prayer quilts, tied by friends and family while saying a prayer, and given to convalescing members of the church.

Interested in Joining TNT Ministries?

Anyone from age 5 and up are able to volunteer and help with this service group in Costa Mesa.  Visit Harbor Trinity Church Calendar for more information.