Nursery Ideas!

As I mentioned in my previous post, I am so excited to begin repainting/decorating/crafting for our baby boy's nursery!  I have a lot of ideas, and I am trying to make them all come together to form a cohesive, sweet room for our little one.  The first decision I wanted to make was the colors.  I wanted to tie in a little blue, but I really love the brown, tan, green, blue combinations, so that's where I began.  Our nursery has a chair rail, which I love, so my thought is we are going to paint the bottom half a green (not too dark, but definitely not too light either) and the top half cream.  Here are some of my inspirations...

The green is a little to light for me but it incorporates the green and cream. 

Granted this is for a little girl, but I like the darker shade of green.  Find it here.

This has the two tones, but I was thinking more of the darker green on the bottom and cream on the top.  Find it here.

And I think this one ended up being my favorite.  We aren't doing stripes on the bottom, but it's the closest to what I am looking for!  Find it here.

I went to Home Depot and picked up at least 20 different paint cards.  No I am not joking.  But I think we have it narrowed down and are ready to paint when we actually have a free weekend! (Come on mid July!)  This momma is nesting!

While my mom and I were at Target one day, I found an adorable blanket/bedding set that I completely loved, tied in with my colors, and was a perfect fit for me!  It's going to be the kind of "theme" for our nursery.  (I'm hesitant to say theme because I want to find a lot of unique pieces that mesh, not everything the same, so I'll tread lightly when I say "theme" :) haha)  Here it is...

Too sweet. :)  You can see it here at Target.  Mom and I are going to grab it soon, just in case we can't find it later.  I would be bummed!

At this point, especially if you follow me on pinterest or have been in our living room at our house, you know I love trees.  Therefore, when I started finding wall decals of trees in nurseries, I knew I had to have one!  And it would match my colors perfectly.   Here are some of my inspirations...

Love putting shelves up on the branches idea...  Find this here.

Again, love the shelves and like the simple design with the birds.  Find this here on etsy.

I like that the leaves are different colors on this tree and it has a more whimsical feel.  (I tried to find the original link but it's no longer on etsy.)

The only part I dislike about these decals is the price.  The cheapest one I've found is $82.00, and that just seems a bit pricey to me, especially when we have a lot more important baby things to be thinking about!  Colby has suggested that I paint one.  I, however, am not so sure about that idea!  We'll see what this bargain shopper can come up with!

The awesome thing is we already have a great start on furniture for our nursery.  We have the crib picked out, not bought yet, but at least chosen.  I found a great changing table at a garage sale for $25!  All it needed was a good scrub and a little touch up paint.  Here it is looking pretty...

I had already taken a dresser from Mom and Dad when we first moved into this house for the spare bedroom.  I repainted it and fixed it up a bit.  I knew one day I'd want to use it for a nursery.  I went to Hobby Lobby and purchased new drawer pulls to match the room for the top four drawers and voila!  New dresser!

(PS- that awesome tree picture is taken by my uncle Tim... Can't wait to frame it!)

And last but not least, I had been looking on craigslist, kinda just keeping my eye out for some deals on things we could possibly use.  My rule for craigslist is a.) I never go alone to look at something/pick it up and  b.) I only buy things that can be washed thoroughly by Colby and I.  Case in point- our bistro set of glass table and chairs, our patio chair and table set, and now my newest craigslist purchase... a rocker!

I had been looking and found an ad for a very nice looking rocker.  I didn't really pay attention to the brand name or anything.  I saw it was in a nearby city and it looked nice.  The family had said they outgrew it after moving.  Colby and I went to check it out.  First of all, um wow! is all I can say when we pulled up to the house.  It was huge and beautiful.  The family was very nice and showed us the rocker.  It was in AHmazing condition and was the perfect color to match the nursery.  Better yet, it's brand was Dutailier (which I had never heard of) but after researching, they retail around $400.  And we bought our gently used one for $125!  Wooooo! Happy day!  We got it home, cleaned the wood frame, washed the cushions, and now it's a perfect fit in our nursery!  

(The monkey is from one of my kiddos at the end of the year :) too cute!)

In my next post, I am going to compile a list of little projects I'd like to complete before baby boy gets here to add to the nursery.  For now, I have a rather large to-do list screaming my name before we leave for an 8 hour drive tomorrow- yikes!  Hope you are having a wonderful day!

A few projects...

Whew!  It's been a busy start to our summer!  Here I thought I would have a lot of extra time to get things done around the house, catch up on projects, and blog... yeah right!  Luckily, this week is somewhat free so I've had some extra time to get caught up.  We started our summer with friends coming to see us and picking up our extra dryer (yay for more garage space now!).  It was quite an adventure for them to get here -imagine trucks breaking down, problems renting a truck to take the garage back, etc.- but they made it and we had a great couple of days seeing them!  Then, Colby and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary.  Three years blew my mind!  Time has flown by but it has been an amazing three years.  And now we are quickly approaching our biggest adventure yet... the arrival of our baby boy! Yes, it's a boy and we are thrilled!  We've been working on the nursery (A LOT more to come on that later!) and I am super excited!

Here are some projects that I have been working on the past few weeks:

The first was a welcome sign that I had seen on pinterest.  Our front door gets a lot of love from about September-January.  It even gets decorated in July.  However, from about February-June, it's blank and quite frankly, just plain boring.  So when I saw this idea, I knew I had to make it.

You can find the tutorial here.

Here is my version.  I started with a pack of papers by the company "My Mind's Eye" that I bought at Archivers (along with the blue and white string) and I combined it with some other odd scraps and tags that I have collected while scrapbooking.  I cut out the letters using yellow cardstock with my Cricut machine.  I bought the frame at Goodwill for $3 and got rid of the glass and ugly flower picture within it.  Then I touched up the paint on the sides and I was ready to go!

I cut out various shapes and sizes of the tags and began stapling them to the string using mini staples, one strand at a time (3 total).  I kind of tried to follow the tutorial is shapes and placement but I changed my mind a couple of times as well.  When I was done, I wound the string around the frame and secured it in the back.  I couldn't wait to put it on our front door.  Our door looks much cheerier now!!

Pack of papers: $6 (with a 30% off)

String: $2

Frame: $3

Tags and staples: Free, already had extra

Total cost: $9  

My second project was for our anniversary.  I was working on a congratulations card for our friend who was graduating and I noticed that one of my Cricut cartridges had some really cute silhouettes of couples doing different things (it was the "Sweethearts" cartridge incase you want to know).  I thought to myself, "That would make a really cute anniversary card somehow."  I started cutting and creating and suddenly, 2 hours had passed and I had a really cute anniversary card for Colby.  Here is what I did...

I started with having the Cricut cut the silhouettes onto tag shapes.  There were 5 silhouettes in all.  One of a couple dancing, a couple sharing dinner, a man proposing, a couple dancing at a wedding, and a woman pushing a baby carriage.  I thought this was a sweet representation of big moments in our lives together... dancing in the park on our first date... a million dinner dates out... Colby proposing... our wedding... and now our new little one on the way!

After all the tags were cut out, I glued black paper to the black and then adhered them to vintage style papers I had saved.  The last tag I made as a place where I could write my message to him.

When it was all done, I added the final touches of writing a little description of each moment we had shared, and then tied it with a ribbon at the top.  I was pretty pleased overall.

We had a great night celebrating our anniversary by eating, believe it or not, pancakes! (Hey, a pregnant girl does have her cravings!)  We watched our wedding video and enjoyed a glass of sparkling grape juice since wine and champagne are out of the question for now.  We gave each other our gifts and then had to get ready for our vacation we were leaving for the next day.  My gift for Colby was very appropriate for the next day's activities- a new set of luggage!  Here were my surprises...

 An absolutely beautiful crystal heart necklace and a "I Spy" photo album with a list of things to find/do and take pictures of while we were in Savannah during vacation together.  (I will update on this later when I have the pictures printed and the album finished).  It was so sweet and I am one lucky girl :)

Sorry for the long post!  I'll be making a new entry soon that's all to do with baby boy!!!  I have a lot of ideas for the nursery.  Now it's just getting them in one place and deciding!  Hope you all are staying cool in this summer heat!  This momma is for sure!