Best Print Ever

The Wife recently posted this on her blog:

"This print is so incredibly awesome, it makes my heart race and my head light every time I look at it... and there's so much to look at! It's part of a limited edition set of 50, and I want one so bad it makes my teeth hurt... "

Of course I bought it for her. She's going to put it in Chuy's room with the other awesome prints we have from BERKLEY ILLUSTRATION!

Check 'em out and add a touch of class to your child's room...or one of your rooms.

The Nursery...

We're finally on the home stretch of nursery decorating at Casa Canacorn - just a couple tiny details to go and we'll be ready to roll!



I was so concerned that it wouldn't be the vision I originally had - but it is - more so than I ever imagined...



Let's take a peek, shall we?






The door to his room... this Q came white, but it was nothing a little blue paint couldn't fix...






The room is so small it's hard to get good photos, but this is the window wall complete with bookshelf, toy box, and some art and goodies...






The bookshelf has the owl that I made for our little guy a few months ago, my old owl lamp that I painted blue, and some books, toys, and baskets. We painted the inside of the bookshelf as well as the outside rim in blue too - just to make it a little more unique.






The artwork above the shelf came from Berkley Illustration



I so totally love these guys and their animal portraits and am so glad that we are the proud owners of not one but two prints! In fact, just talking about them makes me want to buy more... hmmm...



Moving on...





The Toy Box - which at the moment is more of a storage box for crib sheets and whatnot. The pillows on this box are both special to me - the white one with the blue dots came from our Trading Spaces room - it's one of the only original items not in that room now. The pink kitty/bunny/bear came all the way from Japan and makes an excellent pillow when on a plane. The black furry one isn't a pillow at all! It's Ozzy Osbourne-Corcoran who was following me around asking what this room was for and what exactly is going on with my belly... poor guy...






These silkscreened squid/ spaceship dudes came from someone who was making a bid to make some posters for me at my old job. I can't remember his name now, but I've always liked these little prints and knew I would use them somewhere someday for something...






Next up is the changing table/ dresser area. We highlighted the dresser with a bit of blue on the drawers - once again, just to make it a bit more decorative and a bit less plain white. I really like how it came out!



The artwork is from my old sewing room - The Hubs bought one of these for my B-Day a million years ago from Ye Ol' Urban Outfitters... I immediately went back and scooped up the rest!



Oh, and yes, we're leaving the plastic wrappers on not only the changing pad but the crib mattress as well... keeps the cats away...






This bookshelf shares the wall with the door. On it we have some super awesome night lights from Ikea - the Spooka series to be exact, a Friends With You Mr. TTT Rainbow, books, baskets, my Garfield doll from when I was little - I literally loved the stripes off of him, and a robot and gorilla courtesy of my baby daddy... you know, to butch up the room a bit...



The prints above the shelf are from Gama Go...





I used to be a wholesale customer of theirs, so, each year, they would send me a limited edition, numbered, very rare print as a Christmas present... these are two of them... pretty darn cool, huh?



and finally...





...the crib wall! We now have a mattress for the crib... wrapped in plastic to keep baby kitties from wanting to nap there... We opted to do the big dots on this wall instead of hang up any art - as we have trains that drive by right behind our back fence... making everything in the house do a little shimme shake...



So, there you have it - an almost complete nursery!



Just have to make some cute slip covers for the cube benches and of course get some more books and whatnot for the shelves... oh, and give birth to one incredibly cute baby genius to sleep in the crib, get his diaper changed on the table, and play with his toys!

28 Weeks!

Only 12 more weeks until we get to meet baby Chuy face to face... it's hard to believe he's almost here, although sometimes it seems like June won't get here fast enough.

We had our doctor's visit yesterday - nothing too fancy - he measured my belly, we listened to Chuy's hearbeat - Doc said he sounds like a happy baby in there - which made me feel very happy and relieved!

Usually, by the time the doctor visit rolls around, I've convinced myself that there's something horribly wrong in there... but there never ever is, so, I should give myself a break.

Glucose test happened as well - hopefully that turns out okay and we should be all set for smooth sailing to the finish line!

Just one million more things to do and purchase before the little guy gets paroled...

Curtain Impaired

I gave up making curtains for my house many years ago after many many failed attempts...



Just couldn't ever get them quite right.



I even tried my hand at Roman Shades here and there, but that was a mess as well...



Finally, I concluded that of all the talents that I may have, curtain-making will never ever be on the list... which I've been fine with for years... purchasing modular Swedish blinds, or lately, custom cellular blinds - a new fave.



But Chuy's room needed some more colors than just green... I knew I shouldn't even attempt to make a curtain - especially now that my sewing room is a pile of clear plastic bins out in the garage - but I threw caution to the wind and decided to at least try...



Voila! It worked!






...and it actually looks good...






I'm still in shock... I think the main reason for the success was that I made it cafe length - not ceiling to floor - or even worse - when you try to make it fit exactly in the window... nightmare!



I was so excited at how the curtain came out, I decided to make a crib skirt as well...






Keeping the mattress out of the crib keeps the cats out of the crib... in case you were wondering... but, check out that nifty skirt - pretty cool what a bit of fabric and some sticky back velcro can do to liven up an otherwise plain crib...



Here it is close up...






So, now I can bring in some solid colors that aren't green - blues, oranges, yellows, even black - so many possibilities!

There's a crib in our house...

Saturday morning, we got up early and took a little road trip to my Husband's most favorite place in the whole world... Ikea!



A little Mr. Canacorn fun fact for you - not only does he despise large shopping situations full of people that are most certainly trying to get in our way - but he also has absolutely no tolerance for eating food at such places... like the food court at the mall... or the restaurant at his favorite Swedish modular furniture store...







...but for his wife and son-to-be, he made an exception... and even liked it... and was amazed at how good it was even though it only cost $ .99 cents... he's a keeper.



Anywhoo... we didn't just drive all the way to Round Rock to eat cheap breakfast... oh no... we went with a plan and a list and ended up getting all the large pieces of furniture for Chuy's room in one fell swoop...






This would be our Son's furniture... all of it... so Swedish and modular...



We got home and set forth to build all of the pieces...






This was a bit of an OMG moment... there's a crib in our house... for a baby... our baby... weird...






Did you know that you have to buy the mattress separately?



I didn't... and no, I'm not going to make my baby sleep on wooden slats covered in tin-foil... the foil is to keep the cats away, although somebody jumped in a couple times and made short work of it... we're both pretty sad we missed this particular cat-tastrophe...






Bookshelves for books, baskets full of stuff, stuffed animals, etc...






Dresser that will also be used as a changing table...



A couple of items are not pictured here - a storage box thingy on wheels and some cube ottomans... all of which are currently undergoing makeovers and will be featured at a later date...



So, yeah, Friday night... no crib in our house... Sunday morning... baby's room in our house... our baby... what have we done???

Saturday Morning Cartoons

Saw THE WATCHMEN today...

Now if only this cartoon existed:



If it did, I'd love to see the look on Alan Moore's face.

How many different cartoon references did you catch?

Oh yeah, the movie was more awesome than not...but I'm still going to make sure Chuy reads the original 12 issue comic run before he sees it.

Dawn Of The Dead

Today, The Wife and I are off to Ikea to buy furniture for Chuy's new room.

Like most husbands, I absolutely dread the trip to Ikea...I really don't mind shopping...it's the other shoppers I hate.

I know I'm not alone here, but I really can't stress how much these mindless consumers bug the shit out of me. These slow shambling creatures make my hands itch and my brain break out into a cold sweat...

I find myself daydreaming of various high powered rifles or even a handy machete to help me and my pregnant wife get through the damn maze of the undead and the flat-pack designed furniture (at affordable prices) like a modern day Stephen and Francine.

But, alas, I am armed with nothing....and I am forced to bob and weave, defenseless, through the drooling, Swede-obsessed living dead, on my quest to buy a fucking crib and some shelving.


And once the horror of shopping is done I get the pleasure of assembling our new purchases.

Thankfully, Ikea provides easy, breezy, wordless instructions:

What started as a perfectly fine blue boy's room...

Before










I always liked how calm and serene this room was when it was my sewing room. We always joked that if we had a boy, we wouldn't have to paint the room, it was ready to go...



...that is until we actually found out we were having a boy... at which point, my super relaxing blue room became completely unacceptable...



Must have green. Not just any green, mind you... the brightest, craziest green I could possible get my hands on...



Let's back up a little... here's the inspiration room... courtesy of Oh Dee Doh...





Cute, right? Sure is a bright green, isn't it?



Since we both agreed that we liked the inspiration room, it was time to get started...






The Hubs has a slight obsession with making sure all the painting supplies are perfectly clean and in "like new" condition... Personally, I could care if it's clean - once the old paint dries, it's kinda like a clean slate, no?






Even though the Doc said painting was not harmful, I still picked the lowest VOC paint I could find and purchased this nifty mask - it's made especially for painting fumes. It actually came in handy as the smell without the mask was overwhelming. My awesome Ghostface Killah shirt is courtesy of the Hubs and also the only old t-shirt we own that fits me at the moment...



Okay, on to the room...








Wow... that is one heck of a bright green room...






What have we done?






I'm not sure if I'm laughing or crying, but this was the point in the day when we figured out that we had turned a perfectly fine blue boy's room into an Acid Green Nightmare Factory...



So, the next day, we started on color number 2... Here's a little Noelle fun fact for you - I can't possibly paint a room just one color anymore, they all have to be at least two colors, sometimes more.



I had this idea to do big circles all in a row on the wall the crib will be on - just to give it some interest and because I'm afraid to hang any pictures above where my baby will sleep - what with all the trains that go by right past our backyard fence...



I was a little aprehensive after the Acid Green Nightmare Factory day previously, but knew it was going to be okay, or at least I hoped it was...






I'm pretty sure I'm smiling in this one - the circles and the color were exactly what I wanted!






The Hubs filling in all the circles that I outlined... he's such a good helper...






Finished dot wall! I'm really happy with it.



I think once we get some furniture in there, maybe hang up a picture or two, and most importantly, the custom blind that I ordered needs to arrive, because around 5:30 or so each day, the sun shines so brightly in that window... it casts an Acid Green Nightmare Factory shadow into the hallway... like some sort of nuclear experiment gone terribly wrong...