New Crochet Pattern: Dino Bath Mat

As part of redecorating my sons' bathroom in a dinosaur theme I couldn't find a bath mat that I liked. So I got the idea to crochet a bath mat out of cotton yarn in the shape of a dinosaur. It was a bit daunting and at times I thought I was going to have to scrap the whole project, but here is the finished product. I love it! The pattern will be available for sale in my shop in a day or two if you are interested :)

Number Towel Hooks

Now that we are expecting our third child I needed to add another towel hook in the bathroom. Okay, so I know that is not the first thing you think of when expecting a new baby but we're in the process of redecorating the boys' bathroom anyway :)

I really wanted these cute towel hooks from Pottery Barn Kids but I couldn't bring myself to spend $30 plus tax plus shipping on hooks (and they've since sold out anyway). So instead I bought some wood numbers from my local craft store and some wood pegs. My husband attached the pegs to the bottom center of each number and then I painted them. In hindsight, it would have been better to spray paint them, but it is freezing here and I can't spray paint in the house! The wood isn't very good quality so I had to sand some rough areas and you have to be very careful drilling into it or you will split the wood. For a few bucks I think the towel hooks turned out kinda cute :)

Decorating Babies' Bathroom

One delimma I faced when I was expecting my sons' was converting our guest bathroom into a bathroom for little boys. I had spent countless hours painting that bathroom one coat of grey primer and two coats of red so there was no way I was repainting it. My sons' bedroom is decorated in Alphabet Soup from Pottery Barn Kids, so I wanted the bathroom to coordinate. Unfortunately, that particular line of bedding only came with a bathmat and hand towel... no shower curtain (and no red in the bathmat either)! For the shower curtain, I bought a regular green gingham shower curtain from Pottery Barn Kids. I thought I would buy some extra window valances and put a valance over the shower curtain and get some red into the bathroom. But, of course, the window valances have every color in them other than red. My solution -- make a shower curtain valance using one of the crib sheets, line it with white fabric and trim it in red gingham. Actually, my mom did all of the sewing. I have aspirations of learning to sew but there are only so many hours in a day. For about $25 worth of fabric (most of that was the overpriced crib sheet), I had a shower curtain that I love.




To bring some more color (and red) into the room, I chose 4 of the animals that are on the quilts in my sons' bedroom and painted them on to artist canvases stretched over wood frames. The canvases and my acrylic paint set cost about $20 at my local craft store. I know they aren't perfect, but hey this is a kid's bathroom, not a museum. For my first attempt at painting, I'm pretty happy with them. And the most important thing is that I didn't have to repaint the whole bathroom...