Carver Junk Company — Coral

UPDATE:  This giveaway has ended. Congrats to Nancy S - she won the MN Heart Art Print! To be informed every time we have a giveaway {or post other cool stuff} - sign up to receive emails on the right side of the page! No spam, we pinky swear. ******************************************************** We love Minnesota. And we know you do, too. We know, because everything we carry that has a MN outline on it is among our best-selling items. MN necklaces. MN pillows. MN cardigans. MN barn wood signs. MN art prints. Metal MNs. Vintage book MNs. We've got a lot of pride in our state, we Minnesotans. {even those of us who are transplants!}

So, we thought we'd let you know that we love you as much as you love Minnesota, with a little Wednesday giveaway. One lucky winner {chosen at random by Rafflecopter} will receive an 11x14 MN Heart Art Print, including shipping within the U.S.

Click on the MN Heart Art below to enter!

Good luck! Winner will be announced Monday, October 27th.

If you missed our last post, we're currently working on furnishing a nursery. Good news - it has a floor! We have paint picked out, Baby D's dresser is done, and new windows and carpet should be going in shortly. While Chad was finishing the manual labor projects, I spent a couple of sleepless nights making a quilt....er, blanket....for D. It's not really a quilt, because I didn't "quilt" any of it. But it is a nice, heavy well-made blanket that's double-sided and edged with satin.

 DIY Minky Satin-Trimmed Baby Blanket

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="570"] I found this inspiration while shopping Etsy. I loved the coral, gray and white combo and decided I am good enough at sewing straight lines with my sewing machine to take on a blanket.[/caption]

Skill level: Some sewing experience. I once followed a tutorial for making my own grommet curtains, and I have sewn a duvet cover and some pillow covers. None of which I would have considered high quality enough to sell to someone else, but good enough for us!

Cost: More than buying it off Etsy. Likely because I didn't have time to shop for the best deals on fabric, nor was I buying in quantity. The gray chevron minky was particularly expensive, and I couldn't find it at any of the "box" stores so had to custom-order online. Time: Not much. Will vary depending on your sewing skills, but I'd say 2 hours, tops. I worked on it for 20 minutes here and there when I couldn't sleep.

Supplies:

White thread 45" square of fabric for each side Sewing machine Pins Satin Blanket Binding (I purchased at Hancock Fabrics)

We already had the coral fabric because I plan to make curtains for D's room from it - I bought extra in case I decided to make an extra set to sell in the store, or to do small projects with...like this blanket!

Chad and I stopped in at Hancock Fabrics one day to grab some minky. He had no idea what "minky" was - and for those of you who also don't know - it's SUPER soft fabric that feels like it sounds. People even make cloth diapers out of this stuff, it's so soft! I showed him the options, and he didn't like the dotty minky (like in the inspiration photo). This guy has something against polka dots in general.... So I found the chevron stuff online!

I figured I didn't even need a pattern to re-create the inspiration photo. Pin the "good" sides of the fabric together in a square, sew 90% of it together, turn it inside out so the "good" sides were out, and sew about 1/4" in from the edge to finish. Bam.

But, I wanted a nice, satiny edge, too! Babies love satin, right? I want this to be "the" blankie that D loves and keeps until it just won't keep together any longer...so I found this inspiration:

And then I found this tutorial online, which I followed step-by-step (with the exception of her fabric choices, obviously).

[caption id="attachment_547" align="aligncenter" width="665"] How gorgeous is the bassinet my Mom found us, too? Chippy white paint (don't worry, it's been sealed with zero-VOC clear sealer to prevent any lead paint issues) and original wood. We <3 it![/caption]

I am sooooo happy with how it turned out! Halfway through adding the satin trim, I showed Chad - and even he was impressed. He said something along the lines of "family heirloom."

  The best part? It matches her new dresser so beautifully. Here is a sneak peek at the dresser - which is another blog post waiting to be finished. It's obviously a work in progress in this photo, but you can clearly see the finished color on 3/4 of it! What projects did you work on last weekend?

Perhaps the title needs more explanation? We're expecting a little girl in July, and we couldn't be more excited! We don't share much about our personal lives, but when it comes to decorating our house, we might just fall in the "oversharers" category. You've been warned. We've had nursery plans in our heads for months now, since before we knew she was a "she" {in fact, this Momma was sure "she" was a He! whoops.}  We get a lot of questions now that we're in the last trimester, about how we're decorating the nursery, or if we've finished decorating. My typical response has been "it's all finished...in my head...," because we haven't even started! We've got some slanty floors upstairs, and we're working on getting them all leveled out before we start the nursery. That is a post for another day...but in the meantime, we've got a ton of inspiration in mind. Here's a little look at our favorite Pinterest ideas. We'll keep you posted on the progress {seriously, she's due in 3 weeks, so we're moving quickly} as we go! The piece that started the nursery decor journey: [caption id="attachment_524" align="aligncenter" width="600"] We found this primitive cabinet at a local vintage store, and fell in love. We left without it, but I convinced Chad we needed it, and called back the next day to purchase! It's a perfect changing table![/caption] We didn't really have a plan in mind, but based on the colors in this piece, we decided whether Baby D was a boy or girl, teal would be in the color scheme. Once we found out D is a girl, we opted for a combo of coral, teal, and gray. I was really convinced that this was a new, hip color scheme that I was inventing - we got the idea for coral from Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in the Apron Strings color. A quick search on Pinterest told me that I was behind the style curve on this one, but loved it anyway! [caption id="attachment_523" align="aligncenter" width="200"] We didn't create this - I found it on Pinterest, but can't find the original source. A little crazy that it's C & B Color Story (as we're also C & B) - maybe this was a sign...[/caption] The next thing we knew we wanted was some cool art. I am pretty sure I woke up out of a dead sleep with the idea to do some tattoo-inspired, child-appropriate artwork, and was sooooo excited about it! We wanted something that was colorful, fun, and inspiring, but not too "babyish." This idea apparently is not as well-traveled as the coral/teal/gray idea, and so finding pieces was tough. Here are a few we liked:   None of them was quite right, and we couldn't find enough to get a cohesive look. We have a few friends that are tattoo artists, and thought we might get them to draw us up some art. And then we found this, and we were in love! We contacted the artist, Mary Vogel, hoping she had an electronic version of the image she'd drawn - we wanted to purchase it and have it blown up into a huge (like, full wall) decal and colored in for D's room. Unfortunately, it was only available as a drawing, so we continue our search for a similar style of elephant in a vector image format, so we can color it in our color scheme, and have it made into a (removable) decal! And lastly, I fell in love with this gorgeous coral dresser. We're working on DIY'ing one in Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in Apron Strings, which is a bit of a deeper coral.   [caption id="attachment_530" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Inspiration from Make Bake and Love, via Pinterest[/caption] Oh, just kidding, this is the last part. Chad was inspired by this photo. You'll have to wait and see our interpretation of it! Stay tuned for our versions of these ideas, all crammed into our tiny 10'x10' (if we're lucky) nursery! We can't wait to share!