. daily daydreams . a blog by love ardently design studio

Remember this post? I was planning on decorating my baby’s nursery with a nautical theme. My inspiration board on that previous post was way too ambitious though. I tried to get it done during the earlier stage of my pregnancy, but it was still a lot of task. However, I did manage to make this wall fabric decal that I’m pretty proud of. This room ended up being my favorite room in our home :)

So, here goes a little tutorial. Because I live in an apartment, I was very concerned of finding the perfect solution to adhere the fabric decal to the wall without causing any marks. I researched a lot and found a great tutorial that worked for me. I basically use her tutorial with a few little tweaks to make it work for me.

Things you’ll need:

• the design you want on the wall, printed and cut out into shapes
• fabrics in the color of your choice
• Steam-A-Seam2 Double Stick Fusible Web
• Clover mini iron

First, I designed the whole layout on Adobe Illustrator. I measured the wall and then enlarged my design in correspondence to my wall measurement. After that, I printed the enlarged illustration. I only needed to print several shapes, which were the fish (small, medium, and big size),  the ship (3 components), and the cloud (big and small). Then, I cut out all the shapes and I made them as the tracing guide.

Then, I used the Steam-a-Seam Fusible Web as the adhesive agent. I got mine at Joann’s Fabric. So, the fusible web actually has 3 layering: the adhesive in the middle that is sandwiched by wax papers on each sides. At this point, I removed one of the wax paper which then reveals the sticky adhesive in the middle layer. I place that sticky side down onto the wrong side of the fabric. Then, I apply a bit of heat to the fabric with the mini iron, just so the fabric would stick to the fusible web, while I cut the shapes out.

After that, I used those fabric shapes to trace it onto the fusible web, and then I cut the fusible web according to the shapes.

Then, I remove the other wax paper layer of the fusible web, which leaves the one adhesive layer in the middle. I place the fabric (which has adhesive) onto the wall where I wanted. At this point, there’s a little adhesive and it’s still removable, in case you change your mind and want to change up the layout or something. The next step is to apply the heat.

A lot of tutorial uses simply a good old iron. It didn’t work for me because my shapes were too small and the iron was big. Whenever I try to use the big iron to apply the heat, it would leave marks on the wall on the surrounding area of the shapes that doesn’t have fabrics. I hope this makes sense to you. So anyway, I went to Joann’s Fabric and got the Clover mini iron which worked absolutely perfect for my shapes.

After you apply the heat, the fabric shapes are no longer removable. If for some reason you decide to remove it, it’s unusable and you’ll have to make a new one. One thing I really like about this method is that when I try removing one of those fabric decals, it leaves no marks on my wall!

One bonus pic with my little man in the crib :)

{Photo credit: Ivana Brata/Love Ardently}

{Source: Jane Reiseger}

Please bear with me with all the cute kiddie-related inspiration here! These days, my head is filled with these kind of things to welcome the upcoming arrival of our baby :) Although doing a nursery mural is something I’ve been wanting to do since forever, we won’t be able to do that in our rented apartment (and although at first I was disappointed, I’m now over this ;)). I have decided to just stick with hanging a nice curtain and some good looking art print. At this point I will be satisfied with a decent looking, comfortable and functional nursery! Well, maybe someday when we get to have our own house, I can go all out with the mural :)

Meanwhile, I’m adoring all these nursery wall mural illustrated by Jane Reiseger. It’s so simple, light, and effortless. Love her child-like stroke style. I’m in love with that huge whale mural. How amazing is that third pic of the mural at a children’s hospital!

So sorry for being absent! I have a pretty good reason for it, though. I hope this is a good enough reason :) Below is the last ultrasound that I had last month.

Yup! We are expecting a baby boy, due in August! We are very, very excited, although it certainly came with a price. I was practically sick for about 4 months with nausea and vomiting. I spent time mostly on my bed feeling miserable, especially during the month of January-February. The second I saw my baby through ultrasound, though, I no longer felt miserable. I fell in love at the first sight and suddenly my sickness became more bearable :) Thank God it’s mostly over now and I feel like having a lot more energy compare to those months!

This our first baby, so I’m clearly one clueless pregnant lady. So for the past few months, I’ve also been educating myself with a lot of baby and parenting stuffs. At this point, I’m a little freaked out, though, because we don’t have anything yet for our baby’s nursery! Zero. None. I’ve looked at a lot of stuffs on the web and have a certain look that I like on my mind.

I love the idea of having sea life or nautical themed nursery. I’ve also been gravitating towards turquoise, coral orange, taupe, gray and white as far as the colors. I’m thinking to make the nursery as light/white as possible in terms of color because we live in a small apartment and having darker colors would make it look even smaller :) Below are some inspirations, taken from my Pinterest board.

Sources: Ohdeedoh | Apartment Therapy | Hepstyles on Etsy | Somewhere Splendid | L’Affiche Moderne | Flensted Mobile |