A little lamb

Apparently babies need mobiles, I'm not sure exactly why yet, but they are everywhere and when I saw this pattern in my new Aranzi Aronzo book, I figured that we needed this one in our house just for the sake of cuteness. I need to finish 3 more lambs and attach them, and then I need to figure out how to hang it from the ceiling in this rented flat without leaving too much of a mark, which means I also need to figure out where we are going to put the cot... jeepers!

And babies need drawers, even before they are born, because it turns out that even before they are born they accumulate a lot of clothes, so when we found this abandoned dresser on the street outside our house, we thought it would be perfect to clean up and paint. We used the stencil pattern from this Lena Corwin book that I got ages ago, and so far it's taken us 4 weekends to sand it back, paint with undercoat, paint, and then do the stenciling, and it's STILL not finished, it needs some touching up here and there, and some handles, and probably a hundred other things I haven't thought of yet, but we think it looks pretty funky:

Note: just ignore Joe's sculpture space in the background and imagine a nice white wall!

Edit/P.S. I just found this project as a free online one on the Etsy blog, it provides the template and the instructions from the book here!

B.

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Sydney siders: I will be at the Glebe Street Fair, Sunday November 21- which is held on Glebe Point Rd, so come and get all your Christmas pressies there from me in person, and I will be sharing a space with Riyo from Talk to the Wind and Sun, and Stephanie from Spark Candles. 

Comments

[Kirsty]

1.

That chest of drawers is ah-mazing!

You're little one is just going to love it.

[gretchen/juneatnoon]

2.

This baby is going to have so much awesome stuff! You know, my kids never cared about a mobile over their cribs, but I hung one over the diaper-changing area, and it worked wonders for keeping squirmy babies occupied while I was doing the dirty work. :)

[inkie mummy]

3.

those draws rock! but I'm not suprized!

[Abby]

4.

Totally loving the drawers.... great job!
Im with gretchen we have had the same one over the change table for all 3 and it really is a wonderful distraction :)

[Virginia]

5.

The dresser looks awesome!

And yeah, you're going to need more drawer/storage space than you could possibly imagine.

[Kelly]

6.

Wow! What a beautiful mobile that's going to be! And I think that book is going on my wish list.
As for hooks in rental spaces... We have always rented and I have found those removable ones with the tape work quite well. If you don't leave them up too long (like not more than a year) and pull them off exactly as they say, they don't leave a mark. They're no good on brick though - I once had a glass picture frame smash on my floor to prove that. :S I once hung a hot air balloon my son had made from the roof and it stayed there for like 2 years. :)

[Caroline]

7.

I absolutely love love that drawer unit - you have put a lot of dedication into the project! Sweet little lamb too, baaaaaaaaa!

[Lucinda]

8.

Amazing work on the chest of drawers - so beautiful!
I'm another one who keeps the mobile over the change table to keep the little man amused while doing the dirty stuff.Plus having it attached to the change table means no marks on the ceiling.

[Yana]

9.

aww, the lamb is so cute!!! and that dresser - awesome!!! look forward to seeing the finished nursery room :) (mine is way too far from being finished!)

[Nadiah]

10.

Woolies has these things called Command Strips that you can use to hang hooks and other things off the wall without damaging anything when you remove them. The idea is that you pull on this tab down the bottom and it stretches the adhesive strip, which causes it to release from the wall (if that makes sense - it's card of hard to explain).

Provided the mobile doesn't weigh too much, you might be able to hang it off the ceiling. Or perhaps run a line across from wall to wall, as I think it might be safest to have the weight pulling parallel to the surface rather than perpendicular.

[Nadiah]

11.

"card of hard" should read "kind of hard", as in, "it's been a long day and it's kind of hard to type straight".

[Rebecca]

12.

Thanks Nadiah!! I'll give the strips a go, cause the mobile is really very light, and I make those kinds of typos endlessly! Sometimes I have to republish posts 3 or 4 times!! :)

[floatingworld]

13.

I love the chest of drawers!

For mobiles, I stick them into the ceiling with a drawing pin... it only leaves a teensy hole, and if your landlord is really fussy you can rub in a tiny bit of toothpaste or putty when you leave... but usually because they're up high you don't notice anyway.

Street fair is in the diary!

[isis]

14.

you've done such a good job on the drawers, when i first scrolled down i thought they were some really expensive 'designer' drawers that i saw in a mag the other day, imagine my surprise when i read that you picked them up off the sidewalk! nice one!