A Look at my Nursery

My daughter is 2 years old now but, since I recently began this blog I thought I would showcase some of the things that I created for her nursery and the room as a whole. I wanted to do a gender neutral nursery because I plan on having more children and don't want to re-do the nursery every time. So, before I even found out the gender I began to plan the room. I planned the room around these adorable curtains from Target.



They are actually shower curtains but, they had the exact feel I was going for. I wanted something that was not too cutesy and would fit with the rest of my house but was still a room that contained some whimsy. These curtains also gave me the color palette for the room. I took the curtain to Sherwin-Williams where I had them mix paint to match one of the greens in the print. The other colors I chose to highlight were cream, brown, orange and turquoise. I also decided to go with a "paper" craft theme and most of the art in the room is made of paper. First off, I made a origami crane mobile for above the crib. To make it I simply folded origami cranes and then clipped them to a mobile picture hanger that I found at the MOMA museum in Chicago. Other than perfecting my crane making skill it didn't take very long and makes a big statement. Plus, I made sure it looks neat from the bottom by laying under it myself. To enhance it I even made a few cranes out of paper from an Asian food market that contained gold leaf sections on orange paper so, some of the cranes shine.




In keeping with the origami idea, I also made origami lilies. I made these after finding out I was having a girl and had chosen the name Lillian or Lilly for short. These had a few more steps involved but were still relatively easy once I understood the origami part. I only needed floral wire, floral tape, a vase, some glass stones and the same paper I used for the cranes which was origami paper. I tried a few with different paper and they didn't work out very well, except for the Asian market paper which was very thin. I simply made the lily and then cut the wire to my desired length and wrapped the base of the flower with tape, winding down the wire. I also included a few leaves as I wound down the wire.


 

The final paper craft I made for the room were these adorable pieces of art. I found some art that I liked online and used it as inspiration for these two pieces. I felt that they were perfect because it was a mother and baby. I simply free-handed the separate parts on a sheet of white paper and then cut them out for my pattern. Then I chose the paper for each portion and used my pattern pieces to cut out the decorative paper and glued them onto a larger sheet of paper. I found the mats pre-cut at hobby lobby and bought the frames for 50 percent off there as well.

The last thing I made for the room was this hair-clip/bow holder. I found the frame at hobby lobby for $8 at hobby lobby! Then I found the polka dot ribbon for half off as well. I simply cut each strip of ribbon to fit the frame and hot glued them to the back side of the frame. Voila! bow holder for under ten bucks!

 

Looking at the rest of the room you can see that I have two bookcases, a rocking chair, changing table, paper lanterns and a convertible crib which is now set up as a toddler bed. I bought all of the furniture at wal-mart. They had the best priced and the quality of all of the items is also very good. I am a little OCD and did massive research about all of the products before buying them. The paper lanterns were bought at Earthbound Trading Co. and I attached them to a remote switch that I leave in the chair so I can turn it off after we read a bedtime story. The room has been very functional and has met my needs perfectly for the 2 years that I have used it.