Baby Boy Nursery

This week I made some time to work on the baby's nursery.  The space is small, and it will only be a temporary space, so I didn't want to spend a lot of money decorating it.  The decorations also needed to be temporary, so no painting was involved. I tossed around a lot of different ideas, and finally settled on paper airplanes.  Sweet, simple, and easy to work with. I actually woke up one morning thinking of a paper airplane mobile made out of fabric.  I don't know if that project will ever see the light of day, but it served as a jumping off point.  You can find more of my paper airplane inspiration on my nursery board on pinterest.

A few months back I picked up a killer deal on some indoor vinyl from Pick Your Plum, and it has been waiting in my craft closet for the perfect project.  These little paper airplane decals were super easy to make, even without any sort of craft cutter to speak of.  I designed the airplanes, and then printed out a template.  I then transferred the image to the paper backing side of the vinyl, and used an x-acto knife to cut them out.  The white pieces were cut out first, and then spaced slightly apart on darker pieces. The dash marks are all the same width and length, and I just made up the design as I went.

It was a fun, inexpensive, and easy way to update the space. At least now I feel like some effort has been made to prepare our home for this little guy.

The I Am A Child of God printable I found on Pinterest, but you can access it on Mommy Mormon Blogs if you are interested.  It is available in several colors.  This shade of blue just happened to match my vinyl and the blue stripe in the striped crocheted afghan.

Read more about the refinished bassinet.

Apologies for the low lit photo....the room is in the basement.

Refinished Vintage Bassinet

Finding additional sleeping room is a must with any baby.  With Miles, we put Clark in a twin size bed, and Miles took over the convertible crib.  With baby boy number three, we decided that the crib wasn't ready to be abandoned.  Despite the fact that Miles climbs in and out of the crib, he isn't quite ready for a big boy bed.

So, in an effort to find additional sleeping space, and spend as little money as possible, we refinished a vintage bassinet that my mom had.  Hopefully he can sleep in it for a few months at least.  

The bassinet is over 30 years old, and was in need of some tender loving care.  The base was pulling away, the paint was chipped, and the wicker was separated in places. My husband was also really concerned about the interior of the bassinet being scratchy.


So I busted out the staple gun, reattached the base.  Secured nails that were pulling out, and added a few coats of fresh paint.

In an effort to eliminate scratching, I added a bassinet liner.  I found some single layer quilted cotton fabric, and snatched up 3/4 of a yard.

I finished off the raw edges with serged seams, added some darts to the corner to accommodate the shape of the bassinet, and attached in with velcro. The lining should be breathable, and washable-two major pluses when dealing with babies.

The mattress itself could stand to be replaced, and I need to make a couple of extra sheets.  Before I do that though, I really need to decide on a color scheme for the nursery.

It still isn't perfect, but the facelift really did wonders for it. It should be a nice cozy place for this little guy to spend his first few months.  There is something so sweet about the idea of the baby spending his first months sleeping in the same place I did.

Nursery Decor: I am a Child of God, and Love You Printables

I recently created a few printable for a collage frame that we had hanging in the area of our baby's nursery. The frame was previously filled with our wedding photos, but I thought that it would only be appropriate to switch them out with something new.

I created these simple printables in Photoshop Elements. The love you print was inspired by a print that I saw on Pinterest.  The I am a child of God print is based on a children's song from church.  The files are designed for 5x7 prints.  You can find my files below.  They are free for your personal use.

I Am A Child Of God 5x7

I Love You 5x7

I Love You 8x10

Enjoy! Once our little one arrives we'll have to switch out that last wedding photo with a baby picture.

Nursery Decor: Bentwood Rocker Refinish

When we found out that this baby was going to be a boy I was relieved to know that we wouldn't have to build an entire baby wardrobe from scratch. Without the added expenses of new bedding, clothing, and toys, we were able to set aside a little bit of money to get a few additional baby supplies that we didn't have with Clark.  One thing that was on the top of my list was a rocking chair.  Clark wasn't/isn't much of a sleeper, and I remember many a night sitting on his bedroom floor, holding him in my arms, and rocking back and forth trying to get him to sleep.

I was really excited when I found an old bentwood rocker at our local thrift store.  New rocking chairs can be rather pricey, and I think that bentwood rockers have a lot of charm.  I bought the rocker immediately, and bungie corded into the back of our tiny corolla, and hauled it home.  I was especially excited about the possibilities of the rocker because I'd seen this before and after project from Crazy Domestic.

I was so excited about my new find, that I failed to take any before pictures of the rocker.  Just imagine a very damaged light finish, with rust colored tufted cushions.

I completely replaced the foam, and used some home decor fabric that I had in my stash for the cushions.

It's not perfect, but I'm pretty excited to have it in our little nursery.  Do you have a similar rocker to refinish?  If you do you can find the tutorial that I followed for refinishing the rocker here.

 Thanks for reading!

Nursery Decor: Embroidered Monogram

When I first started thinking of what I'd like to do in our nursery space, I knew that I wanted to have a large initial hung on the wall.  I'd planned on a large wooden letter, but I wasn't able to find anything in the scale or style that I'd wanted.  In the back of my mind was the thought that if I were to spend money on preparing for the baby, it should be on diapers and not decor.  So using what I had on hand, I came up with this simple embroidered initial for the space.

I used some gray duck cloth for the background, and then used several strands of green and navy embroidery thread to stitch the initial.  I used a simple chain stitch, and it actually came together quite quickly.  I would have liked to fill in the entire shape, but I didn't have enough thread on hand.

The decorations in this room are quite simple, but it is a temporary space at the end of our bedroom, and I didn't want to spend a fortune decorating.  I also didn't want to make any permanent changes to the room.

Nursery Decor: Paint Chip Mobile

I've been trying to spend a little bit of time (and very little money) on decorating our baby's "nursery".  One thing that I never made for Clark was a mobile, and I thought it would be a nice touch for the space he'll be occupying.

I've seen paint chip mobiles online, and thought that it would be an easy and inexpensive option. Most of the mobiles that I've looked at have circles in varying sizes and colors.  I chose to do that very thing.  The one change that I made to many that I've seen, is that I strung the double sided circles so that they were parallel to the floor, rather than perpendicular.

To make the mobile I used several scrapbook dies to cut out varying sizes of circles.  I had several different shades of blue, green, and gray.  I then glued the circles together with a glue stick and let them dry.  The structure of the mobile is two embroidery hoops that are attached with fishing line.  The smaller of the two hoops hangs down a couple of inches lower than the larger of the two.   I then strung the paint chip discs onto embroidery thread, and tied a knot beneath each disc.  I intentionally pierced the discs in different places when stringing them.  Offsetting the disc causes the discs to tilt at different angles, and I kind of liked the effect.

It was a pretty simple project, the most time consuming part was cutting out the circles.  I spent next to nothing on it, although I must admit that I wish I'd purchased some scrapbook paper rather than using paint chips, I feel a bit guilty about depleting the stores supply. I picked up the embroidery hoops at a local thrift store for twenty five cents a piece, and I had the embroidery thread on hand.

So there it is, the first piece of decor for our little one's nursery. I've got more to show you later this week.

Thanks for reading.