My DIY Nursery

So, this is a big first for me - I'm linking up to the DIY Thursday party over at A Soft Place to Land. I have been a blog stalker over there for quite some time - I think I've pretty much read every post she's ever written - and I've gotten a lot of inspiration. And I've been using a lot of the inspiration I find there (and the Nesting Place and Centsational Girl and Thrifty Decor Chick and... the list goes on) to put together the nursery for Andy (due date is just a week and a half away!!). So, without further ado, here are all the projects I've been working on:

First an overview (you'll probably have to click on the picture to enlarge it if you really want to read my clever in-picture commentary.) :


My inspiration for the whole room was (were? I hate antecedents. I think it's was.) these three prints I found as I was wandering around on etsy. (They can be found in Gumball Grenade's etsy shop.)

I fell in love with them and knew I had to have them. Once I decided to base the whole nursery theme around them, though, I found that there really wasn't a lot out there in the baby realm to complement them, which necessitated many DIY projects - which suits me just fine.

So here are some of the projects I did:

I would have loved to have these prints custom framed, but I'm cheap and working on a small budget, so I bought those super cheap unfinished wood frames at Ikea ($2/per I think?), painted them, and then made "mats" out of scrapbook paper. They deserve so much better, but for now this will have to do.

Also in this picture you can see my shelves that I painted (same color as the blue frame). They look better in person. Really, they look better than the unfinished wood condition that I bought them in. So that's always good.

Here you can see the quilt that I made- it's a rag/shag quilt and it's fairly simple. Just blocks of color that echo the colors in the paintings. I also made that dust ruffle out of a plain red flat sheet I found at DI (like Goodwill). I just ripped two long pieces from it and sewed them together. The bottom was already hemmed hallelujah, and then I just tucked it around under the mattress in a ruffly sort of way. Totally pleased with myself there. Oh, any opinions - to bumper or not to bumper? I'm tempted to make one, but then I keep hearing how you shouldn't use them. Thoughts?



And here's the mobile I made using this tutorial. It uses the red, white, blue, and yellow motif from the paintings (and the rest of the room) and also the sail boat that is in one of the three prints. I like it. It's not amazing, but it's kinda cute.

And, my piece de resistance, the window "mistreatment" ala Nester. When I bought sheets for the crib (from Ikea) I was saddened to find that one of them had a hole in it. I couldn't be bothered to take them back (I'd lost the receipt and Ikea is a bit far away), so I racked my brain thinking what I could do with them. Then, after seeing several curtains and window treatments, I finally hit upon the idea of this, my own window mistreatment. I used 1/2 yard of 50" dark blue fabric for the top, the rest of the red flat sheet (from the dust ruffle) for the trim and ties, the crib sheet (that's the big blue part), and - as the lining - a curtain from Savers that I originally bought for the room and discovered was too small. Oh yeah, and some left over yellow fabric from the quilt, which I used to make the stars to cover the hole in the sheet. Whew. I only sewed one seam (across the top). Everything else I did with hemming tape, which I loved because I have issues sewing straight lines, especially when the fabrics are all different textures (that crib sheet was danged stretchy). Oh yeah, and of course I used the glue gun. How could I not?

Last of all, some advice? This room is doubling (tripling? quadrupling? It's also my office and craft space.) as a guest room while my mom stays with us for a month or so after the baby's born (thanks Mom, you are the best). I feel like that wall needs something, but I don't know what. I've got four prints by the same artist who did the sail boat painting over the bed - they are gorgeous prints of Greece, but they don't really go with the nursery. I was also thinking of doing an alphabet wall, but then I'm worried things will get too busy in the space ... and also that it isn't fitting for the "guest room" zone of the room. Any ideas? Should I just leave it? Really, I should just leave it, seeing as 1.) The guest room will only exist for the month that Mom is here and 2.) we're looking to move out of this apartment (I wonder why?) and into a house in the next few months, so it's probably just not worth the aggravation. Still open to suggestions though.

Anyway, thanks for looking at my DIY Nursery :)

More 4th-Themed Fun

4th of July Festivities

7am - the race begins - James and select family members (Dad, Anthony, George, Allison and her *friend* Michael) run the 5k:

The race was followed by the parade:


Then there was a family BBQ at Greg and Mary's, at which I was too busy eating to take any pictures.

Later that evening we went to see the fireworks - we watched it from a field that used to be my Freshman dorm! (Let us all sadly shed a tear for DT)

But, Mr Adams

I love this song from 1776, and while we're still basking in the glow of Indepence Day, I'd like to share it with you:

What We Did this Fourth of July

What you didn't know is, the fourth of July really starts on the third. Early on the third.

It starts at 6am with the Kiwanis Club Charity Breakfast and Balloon Launch:


The delicious breakfast is followed by a waterfight at Discovery Park, starting at 8:


Then milkshakes at the Purple Turtle. Sadly I did not take pictures, but here's one of a milkshake:

The rest of the day was less scheduled, but we still managed to cram a lot in there. There was Tiger Woods Golf on the Wii, a nap on the couch, a trip to the fair, and a dinner at Brick Oven:


All in all very fun. A post on the actual fourth(and the fifth!) to follow.