A Letter to Your Baby Wall Art Tutorial

By far one of my FAVORITE parts of Rad's nursery is the letter we wrote to him.

It was the last project we took on before he was born. 

At the time we had been told that Rad had 2 heart defects and had a high probability of being born with Downs. 

So for me, this letter was a way to kind of deal with what might happen during and after his birth.

Thankfully he was somehow born completely fine, and healthy and handsome can be.

(You can read more about it here and here.)

The idea came to me one afternoon while I was sitting in his room.

I wanted something that would be a reminder at a 3:30AM feeding of all the good that lay ahead. 

Plus I had like exactly $18 left in my budget so I had to get creative. 

Here are the supplies I used:

A 24X30 white canvas from JoAnn's

A sample paint pot from Lowes in Canvas by Valspar

A white paint pen from JoAnn's

Chartreuse acrylic paint from JoAnn's

Small paint brush

Small foam roller

Step one was to paint the canvas. 

I just poured a small amount of paint on the middle of the canvas and used my roller to spread it evenly. 

In the end I did two coats to make sure there was even coverage.

Once the paint had dried (it took about 20 minutes) I just started to write.

I wanted it to be from my heart and my biggest concern wasn't that it was perfect; but that it said what I felt toward my little boy.

If you want to be a little more exact in the spacing of your sentences, try marking down the sides of the canvas with bits of painters tape to get a visualization of where your lines will be.

As a side note, when working with a paint pen, make sure to follow the directions and shake it often. Also, test it on a scrap piece of paper after each shake to ensure it won't splatter or bleed onto your canvas.

Once the letter was done, I used a small paint brush and the acrylic paint to free hand his name and the heart just to add a little more color to it. 

They do sell paint pens in a variety of colors, they just didn't have the color I wanted so I opted to free hand it. 

And there you have it.

Easy, affordable and most importantly from the heart. :)

Total cost breakdown:

24X30 canvas (JoAnn's): $13 on sale for 50% off plus a 20% off my order coupon

Tester paint pot (Lowes): Already had on hand, but are about $3

Paint pen (JoAnn's): $3 after %20 off coupon

Acrylic Paint (JoAnn's): $.80 after %20 off coupon

Small foam roller (Lowes): Already had on hand, but are about $5

Paint brush: Already hand on hand. (Honestly, you could use a Q-Tip and get the same result.)

Total: About $17

Rad's Nursery: Source List

Thank you all for the sweet comments for Rad's nursery! 

I love designing kids spaces because the same rules of standard design seem to be a little less structured. 

It almost makes me want to have one more little one just so I can design a nursery for them. 

Almost. :)

In this post I'll be sharing the source list for what we purchased for Rad's room.

And next week I'll share some tips and tutorials for the projects we did. 

Rad's Nursery Source List

Chair: Previously owned and reupholstered. Fabric from Joann's,

Pillow: Target (it looks really yellow/gold-ish online but it's more of a chartreuse color)

Poof: Target 

Rug: Urban Outfitters (it's on sale now!)

Curtains: Etsy (I ordered 1 pannel and made it into 2)

Dresser: Ikea Tarva (refinished) 

Knobs: Anthropologie

Changing pad cover: Etsy

Green elephant: Urban Outfiters (no longer available)

Lamp: Ikea

Lamp shade: Target 

Wall art: DIY'd (Canvas with a letter we wrote to Rad on it)

Crib: Ikea Sniglar (refinished)

Wooden Letters: Hobby Lobby (refinished)

Floating Industrial Shelves: DIY project from Vintage Revivals (more on them later)

Stuffed Animals: Various stores over time, but Anthropologie carries some similar to them.

Wooden blocks: DIY'd

Frames: Walmart (refinished)

Prints: DIY'd

Rad's Nursery Reveal

So in the process of redesigning the blog, we might have accidentally deleted our Adobe Photoshop programs. 

Opps. Big opps.

But we think we can get it back, fingers crossed. 

So until that time I thought I should just keep on blogging and I want to show you Rad's nursery.

I'm not a big fan of "themed" baby rooms so when I started putting ideas together for Rad's room I was really drawn to the idea of clean lines, geometric design, and a simple color palette. 

So let's just look at pictures and then get to some details. :)

I'm really happy with how it turned out!

Actually, it's still a little in process. 

For example, the floating shelves (inspired by Mandi at Vintage Revivals) are in desperate need of some cute accessoriness and styling, but yeah I haven't gotten that far yet. 

Darn budgets and lack of desire to drag 2 kids to Goodwill and Home Goods. 

And I've got 2 walls on either side of the windows that might need something hung on them, but I don't want the walls to look busy so I'm still debating.

Anyway, tomorrow I'll post the source and project list for what we used. 

See ya then. :)

Source list link HERE

Unplugging

Last Tuesday little Rad turned one month. 

I feel like I should insert some cricket sounds here, because I'm in a little bit of shock at how fast the time is flying. 

Sometimes the days are long, but the weeks are flying by.

Because of the extreme post-partum depression I experienced with Rhett, I never experienced the joy of having a newborn till now. 

And oh the joy of having a little fuzzy head snuggled on your shoulder. 

And the satisfied little grunts during a 2AM feeding session. 

And the started flinging of the arms when you kiss their soft cheeks. 

And the satisfaction of taking a warm bath with a little one curled up on your chest. 

And when they stare off into space and give a little mysterious smile...like they know a  wonderful secret. 

I don't know if we'll have more kids. 

We feel so blessed to have 2 little boys and our family feels complete; so if there is a chance that this will be our last little one we feel especially compelled to cherish every minute. 

We've been making it a point to "unplug" a little bit, to spend less time online, on Facebook, Instagram etc and more quality time as a family. 

So with that said, I'm going to be taking a few more weeks off from blogging and during that time I'm going to be doing some revamping of the blog.

The past month I've been journaling about our days and the moments (both good and...tiring :)) and I've realized how much I've missed writing about our family. 

I kept a family blog for the first 3 years of our marriage and I want to get back into that.

I think we all believe that the best blogs are those where the writer is passionate about what they post, and right now I feel passionate about our family. 

I still will post the projects we're doing and have done with our home, like Rad's nursery and Rhett's new big boy room etc, but I really want to make sure we have the small moments of our life documented as well. 

I don't expect to you all to continue to follow along. 

I know there are a bazillion "mom" blogs out there, but I want to sincerely thank YOU for following along over the past year and a half. 

THANK YOU.

And now I'm going to go change the 62nd poopy diaper of the day. 

At the least the little guy who has a stinky bum has the cutest little dimples on his cheeks. :)

See you again in 2 weeks! 

3 men and a lady

I'd like to introduce you to the newest little man in our family. 

Rad Aaron Miller

Born February 26th, 2013 via C-Section

At 4:25PM

6.6 lbs and 21 inches long

And the biggest miracle?

His little heart is totally FINE.

We went to the hospital on the 26th because his heart rate kept decelerating and was getting slower and slower.

Because of this and the previous ultrasounds, scans, and echos we'd done on his heart, we'd found 2 heart defects and our doctors and specialists were prepping us for our little guy to need surgery as soon as he was born. 

We were scared.

But when he was born they did an echo on him right away and found NOTHING wrong with his heart. 

Nothing.

The cardiologist showed us the original images of his heart with the defects and the images from the echo they had just done and he said he could not explain why his heart was now OK. 

Everything pointed to him needing surgery, but he was fine.

We had some more testing done in the hospital and every test came back positive for a healthy little heart.

I believe that God does answer prayers and that miracles do still happen. 

Through all of this Jake and I have found comfort in this verse;

 "I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up." - D&C 84:88

We LOVE our little Rad.

He is a peaceful, sweet, bright-eyed baby and we are smitten with him.

So far I have had a couple of panic attacks but nothing like the PPD I experienced with Rhett. 

Again, another miracle. :)

We love our 2 boys!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for you love, thoughts and prayers. 

An induction date, amazing doctors, and an update.

You know what is absolutely amazing to me? How the hardest times of our lives can also be the times with the most peace. It seems to be the biggest oxymoron, but the past few weeks have been some of the most challenging for us and yet we have felt peace and unbelievable support and we have found so many reasons to have joy. 

As an update on our little baby: My doctors have had me on a super high calorie diet for the past 2 and a  half weeks (about 4000 calories a day) to try and put some weight on our little guy. At our appointment on Friday there was a little growth, but nothing really significant or what we were hoping for. His heart looks as if it will be able to withstand natural labor (at least that's the plan for now) which is a blessing and so we induced at 39 weeks, or this Sunday, March 3rd. We almost delivered him this past Friday because he was consistently failing stress tests and heart monitoring, but after spending all day at the hospital he bounced back and our doctors and specialists agreed it was OK to wait one more week so long as we come in every other day for stress tests and ultrasounds.

The hard news we got was that his femur bones are under the 5% percentile for growth and that he has multiple markers for Downs Syndrome. We chose not to have the testing done for it early on in the pregnancy and any testing now would take about 2 weeks to process and we'd be delivered by then so we are choosing to wait till he's born. We've had multiple ultrasounds done with various specialists and each come back showing the same results and markers for Downs, but without a genetic test we won't be 100% positive of the diagnoses till he's born.

I've cried a lot about this. Not because I feel like Downs would be a disadvantage for our son or that we could possibly love him less, but more because I'm afraid of how the world would treat him. Either way, we really are so excited to bring another little boy home. Because of all the ultrasounds and appointments we've had about this little guy, I feel so close to him already. Being able to see his little face on the screen so many times has been a huge blessing because I feel like I've connected with him . That I know him. I didn't feel that with Rhett before he was born.

We are SO grateful for the prayers and good thoughts that you have sent our way. We really truly have felt strengthened. Thank you for being so amazing. :)

Sometimes things don't go as planned

For the past few weeks the most common comment I get on my pregnancy is how small I still am. 

Truthfully, I didn't give it much thought. I was small with Rhett, but when I started to look at pictures of my pregnancy with him compared to where I am now, I realized I was much smaller now than I was then. Again, I didn't give much thought.

On Tuesday at my appointment, my doctor expressed concern that my belly was still measuring like I was 32 weeks (I'm 36) and suggested we do another ultra sound to see if the baby was growing. 

The ultrasound confirmed what my doctor thought, the baby hasn't grown much at all in the past month. The first concern was that something was wrong with the placenta or umbilical cord so we went to a specialist yesterday to see what was going on. The good news from the appointment was that the placenta and umbilical cord look normal, but we're still not sure why the baby has stopped growing. 

The news we didn't expect from this appointment was that the baby's leg bones are aren't fully developed, they're shorter than they should be, and that there are two apparent issues with his heart. 

We're waiting to get an appointment with a cardiologist and the next 2 weeks will determine a lot about if we'll deliver the baby early to make sure we can get him to gain weight and grow and how we'll deliver him (natural or c-section) based on the strength of his heart.

Both Jake and I are amazed at the ability we have to create life and feel that this process is nothing short of miracle and we know that sometimes things don't go as planned. We feel peaceful that though this little guy might have a rough start, but that ultimately everything will be OK.  

If you could keep us and our little guy in your thoughts and prayers we would be so extremely grateful.