More Nautical Nursery Decor

After I wrote about the nautical flags I made for Zachary's room, I thought I would do a quick little blip about the other nautical crafts I made for my sweet sailor's nursery. Unfortunately, I don't have step by step pictures, but the crafts really weren't that challenging, and you would be able to easily make them yourself.

When we first moved to our new house, Zachary's room already had window valences that were navy blue which was perfect! I wanted to spice them up a little bit and make them look more nautical. Since I didn't buy the curtains, I figured I could mess around with them without feeling bad if they turned out to be heinous. As I mentioned before, my mom and sisters threw me a baby shower which was also nautical themed, so I had a lot of rope and ribbon that they used as decoration. I decided to use a thick piece of cord rope and cut it in two equal pieces - one for each curtain. Then I knotted and unraveled the ends. My sister made two cute clusters of ribbon that I put in the middle of the rope and then I pinned the rope to curtain. I sewed across the rope and the curtain and TA-DA! I was done.

Alright, here is where I am going to be brutally honest. I actually broke my sewing machine needle while sewing the first curtain. I guess the rope was too much for the old girl to handle, so for the second curtain, I hand stitched the rope to the curtain and honestly, you can't tell the different and it really didn't take that long.

The curtain rods had dump trucks on the end which I took off. Then I knotted more cord and tied it around the ends of the curtain rods and let the rope hang down. I stepped back to look at my work and was really pleased! I thought the curtains looked great and was a nice way to give the room a nautical feel without having to slap a sailboat in your face.

The finished curtain.

After I hung the curtains, the wall opposite to Z's crib looked bare and needed something. I was looking on Etsy for nautical prints that I could frame. Once again, the cost inhibited me from pulling the trigger. I could find prints that were reasonable but then they didn't come with a frame so that would end up being more than I wanted to spend. I decided to make my own art. I went to Michaels and bought two canvas prints (on sale!) and some acrylic paint. I measured my canvas and then divided the area by how many stripes I wanted. Using my trusty painter's tape, I taped off my canvas and then painted the open space blue. I used a paint brush because I wanted to be able to see the brush strokes, but if you don't like that, then you could probably use a sponge and paint a few coats to ensure full coverage. When the paint was dry, I pulled off the tape and then used a clear sealant on the whole canvas. I found a wooden 'Z' and a wooden anchor that I decided to put in the middle of each canvas. I painted them both with red acrylic paint and then after they dried, I sanded them to distress them a little. Then I also sealed them. To finish up the project, I hot glued the 'Z' and the anchor to each canvas and voilá! I was done. I hung them up and they look quite spiffy.

Take that, expensive Etsy sales lady!

I know that I made these before the Fabric Lady challenged me to a craft off, but since these projects were inspired and executed, I am going to look at this as a win for me. As a favor to her, I will only count both of these projects as one. Let's take a look at the score thus far:

Pam 3, Fabric Lady 0 . . . . . Sha-zam!