Birth Announcement Ideas

In a few days our little guy will be a month old, its so hard to believe he'll be one month. Life is filled with even more joy since his arrival, so glad he arrived two weeks early! The last few days I've been looking birth announcements to send to family and friends, even with face book and social media connecting family. I really wanted to send a special card out to mark is entry into the world. Last week while the little guy was sleeping, I did a little photo shoot. Here are a few contenders, I'm sure before we pick the one I will take another 200 pictures of our sleeping cutie. I wrapped Avery up in  darling hand knitted quilt I received from a dear friend. It's the perfect delicate backdrop for the baby announcements.

I did a little photo work on the one below making the background blurry - not sure if I like that affect?

And and couldn't resist sharing this little picture of Avery in the morning. I love his bed head!

I've looking last some designs at Shutterfly the one styles like are on sale for $ 1.75 per card and I have a coupon for 20% off - so we may go with Shutterfly or go the DIY Route like we did with our Save the Date cards ( read more about our wedding here ) and the Baby Shower Invites ( see them here )Here are the two styles we are digging. I like that both full pictures of baby with detail and feel modern & classic. If we go the DIY route I'll print the cards out at Costo or Kinkos ( love there quick print services )

Which style card do you like? Do you like sleeping babies in Announcements for Awake baby's? Thanks for your help!! Feel free to share your go to source for online prints, and I'll check them out.

PS -- There's two days left to enter the Shabby Apple Giveaway! Enter HERE

Sewing Zippers, Not Hard

Remember last week when I planned to sew two new pillows for our living room, only to realize I didn't have enough fabric. That super sucked. Lucky for me Joann's carries a dark navy fabric that worked well with the fabric I originally bought. I'm addition to making pillow covers, I decided to try using a an invisible zipper. Usually when I sew pillow covers I do an envelope style closure, because the zipper scares me. I love how the pillows turned out! The deep the print and dark indigo looks good on our sofa. Love it!

Not only to the pillows look good, I was able to sew-in the invisible zippers. Can I get high five! Oh yeah, I'm still doing my happy dance.

I conquered the zippers (kind of) Let me explain. I have a standard zipper foot, but invisible zippers turn out best when you use an invisible zipper foot. Well my Joann's sells invisible zippers, but no invisible zipper foots. Which makes no sense to me at all. I used this Zipper How To and improvised on installing the zipper doing and inside stitch and outside stitch. The zippers were actually pretty easy to install, just made sure I pinned a lot and they came out NICE!

For the pillow insert, I used Ikea's 20x20 feather and down pillow. I love this pillow inserts, so affordable yet well made. Next I'll be on the lookout for an invisible zipper foot for the next set of pillows I'm sewing for the living room. Just waiting on the fabric to arrive! So like the blog title states, sewing zippers, not hard and I'm pretty sire they'll be even easier with a invisible zipper foot.

Now that I've conquered my zipper fear.  What's your fear about sewing?

His & Hers

You may remember last year I organized my top dresser drawer using some clear acrylic storage compartments I found at Target. Here's a reminder of how my top dresser drawer looks. A year later everything is still organized, love that.

Lately Mr. CLH has been having some serious drawer envy. He too wanted his top drawer to stay organized. So over the weekend his drawer got a little mini update for next to nothing. Instead of using three clear acrylic storage compartments, he opted to use one. I lined his dresser drawer using two sheets of scrap book paper bought at Joann's for 30 cents each on sale.

A little bin found in Target's dollar section to hold his handkerchief from our wedding, Flip and keys.

The other side of his dresser drawer is the perfect spot for his sunglasses and wallet.

Now we both have organized and stylish dresser drawers, and the best part his drawers upgrade was under six bucks. Mr. CLH likes his drawer upgrade and no longer has drawer envy :)

How do you organize your drawers?

Shabby Apple Giveaway!!

There's nothing better than wearing pretty vintage inspired dresses for the Summer from Shabby Apple! I'm loving all there pretty women's dresses and want to share a special offer with all my lovely readers!
Shabby Apple is hooking all my lovely readers up with 10% OFF your purchase at Shabby Apple by entering this coupon code at checkout: chichouse10off  --- But That's not it you can also be the first to know about special promotions and exclusive discounts by 'liking' Shabby Apple on Facebook here

Here's what I'm loving at Shabby Apple

Shirt Dresses - yup

Loving Maxi's - yup

Sexy Vintage Swimwear - yup (loving this color)

Now for the Giveaway! Shabby Apple is Giving away this pretty Azure Coast dress.

How to Enter: Leave a Comment on My Blog ( please include your email address or a link to your blog, so I can let you know if you won!

Bonus Entry: Become a Follower of Chic Little House

Giveaway Starts: Monday June 27, 2011
Giveaway Ends: Friday July 1, 2011 at Midnight

Good Luck!

Maybe Tomorrow?

Last week I shared the fabric I planned on using for new living room, but I couldn't find my camera cord and to share how the fabric looked on our sofa. Here's how the fabric looks on our sofa. I'm in love with the dark Indigo color.

So yesterday I got up and around early with the baby and tween ( BTW: loving the age gap so far in our boys ) and went to Joann's I decided to up my sewing game and use invisible zippers for my pillow covers. This will be a first for me, I usually skip projects that require zippers.

I got home and cut out the fabric for the pillows and realized I'm short fabric. There's only enough for the design to be on the front of the pillow. I guess I bought the fabric so long ago I forget how much I ordered! So now we'll be making another trip to Joann's looking for Indigo fabric so I can finish this project. In the meantime, I looked though my fabric stash and can across this fabric fabric I used a while back recovering a vintage chair I refinished. I've decided to make a pillow from this fabric too - just need to pick up a zipper. I think this fabric may be fun on the sofa. We shall see.

Has this happened to you, started a project only to stop because you don't have all the needed supplies? So like the title of the post, maybe tomorrow?

Project Nursery: Nursery Artwork

I think artwork really helps a room come together and feel more complete. For the nursery I wanted the artwork to be modern with a but of whimsy. After searching high and low for artwork, I couldn't find exactly what I wanted so I decided to DIY artwork for the nursery. Here's a reminder of how the nursery looked like before adding artwork.

Here's the nursery so far, I think the artwork made a huge impact on the room. Above the crib we decided three prints would give a nice balance in the room. The first print is a mom giraffe and baby giraffe silhouette, next ABC print and lastly bunting flag artwork.

On sliding glass door wall, I framed a stencil 'A' for Avery and Ribbon Dot art.

Here's how I created the artwork for our little guy's nursery - we affectionately call Avery the 'little guy'  For the Momma & Baby Giraffe artwork, I Googled Mom and baby giraffe. When I found the silhouette I like I printed the picture and then enlarged it by 115%. Next I cut out the mom and baby giraffe then traced the cut out on to card stock paper I found at Micheal's. I bought to large textured Art Paper for the background on all the artwork at Micheal's. After tracing the artwork on the card stock I cut out the giraffes again and place then on the white background. I really love the simplicity of the giraffe silhouette.

I created the ABC art print and letter 'A' art print using Microsoft Publisher. The ABC artwork was simple to create and decided on the layout and used a color scheme that went well with Avery's room.

The letter 'A' was easy to create, I used a Stencil font and made the letter white and placed a orange circle around it. I framed those four pieces of art using Ikea Ribba frames. The Ribba frames have got to be my favorite frames EVER, so cleaned lined and simple. I think those frames help give a more modern look to the nursery.

For the bunting flag artwork, I used the printed out the PDF template from Aubrey & Lindsey's Blog. I printed out the PDF flags along with cutting out flags in various shades of paper that related to colors already in the nursery. Then I placed the flags on the paper in a banner style. I really love how the mini flag artwork turned out!

I made the Ribbon Dot Artwork using the ribbon dot garland I made for my baby shower decoration. I loved how the garland turned out and thought it would be cute to reuse it in the nursery. I bought three frames from Micheal's for 3 bucks each thanks to a coupon for 20% Off. The frames were perfect, but the wrong color. I love the a few coats for spray paint is the perfect solution.

I placed the garland on white textured paper and framed. I like how the shades dark blue dots pop next to the lighter dots and the subtle shine of the ribbon.

Here's a picture I took a few days ago of our sleeping cutie, he loves being wrapped like a burrito and sleeps so well in his cradle!

I had so much fun creating simple modern nursery artwork for our sons room! We have a only a few more projects to complete for the nursery!

Have you created any DIY artwork for your home?

Follow Along: As we create a nursery for our baby boy due in June 2011 (He arrived early 6/3/11) From the beginning; Nursery Bare Bones, Paint Makes the Difference, Bye Bye Boob Light &Hemming & Hawing, Crib Notes, To Rock or Not To Rock?

A Few Changes

Hi Everyone, before I get into today's post I wanted to thank you all for your kind and loving words about our early edition aka our son! We are overjoyed with all the love given to us by you! Bloggers / Blog readers are the BEST! I plan on sharing our birth story very soon & updates of the nursery which is in the final stretch - thankfully!

For the past month + I've been thinking about making some changes to our living room since refinishing our hardwood floors in April. First we changed the layout of our room and made some other changes, I 'll share pictures of that soon! But right now I'm focusing on pillows. Which I find is one of the easiest ways to make quick updates in rooms. I came across this pretty Indigo Ikat fabric from Robert Allen a few weeks back and ordered some some yards for pillows. I love the deep navy tone against our tan sofa, it really adds a nice tailored punch. I had great pictures of the fabric on our sofa, but my camera cord is missing - so this picture of the fabric will have to do for now.

Here are some living rooms I've recently came across that have been inspiring this living room update.

{ via here }

{ via Apartment Therapy }

For those you wondering for sure I'm keeping pops of yellow in our living room! Love Yellow! I'm also in the mood to possibly change out the yellow pillows we currently have for a new fabric, just not sure what right now. We are also thinking about art, just got to find { or make } a great budget piece of artwork. I'm hoping to squeeze in some sewing time for pillows in between taking care of the little guy. I will report back soon on my pillow progress very soon.