Baby 3.0 Nursery

I have had this room done for a while but I was waiting to post it until I had taken a few detail pictures. Sorry it took me a while to get around to it. 

Designing this nursery started as a real challenge to me. There were a few things to take into consideration.
 - I try to design these nurseries for my kids to be able to be lived in for a while, or like Miller's room, easily transition to a big kid room. I do not want it to only be a baby room.
- I usually pick a theme but I try to make it more of an inspiration than the theme threw up all over the room.
- This girl was getting lots of hand me down items from her older siblings that I had to make work all together.
- There is a possibility that her and Scarlett will be sharing a room one day so I was trying to keep some things cohesive between the two.

That being said, it is nice to finally own our home and know that I could do whatever I wanted in this nursery, starting with paint. Also, that we will not be moving anytime soon so this will be her room for a while. Miller had 6 months in his original nursery and poor Scarlett only had 4 months.

Before pics. It was just boring but served as our guest room. The guest room has now moved to the basement. 

Lets talk about paint color. When I found out Scarlett was a girl, I was so anti-pink. I was all about purple for her. As soon as we started to think this was another girl, I knew I wanted to paint her room pink. Now finding the right shade was tricky. I did not want bubble gum or baby pink, I wanted a light, vintage looking pink. Pretty much I was looking for a light pink with just the slightest tinge of orange. The color we ended up with is perfect but you will just have to take my word for it that it isn't too pink in person. It is Airy Pink Balloon by Behr. 

On to theme, I really wanted to do an ocean/mermaid inspired room. I tried to just get that across in textures, colors and a few other small touches. The main colors for the room were the vintage light pink, a little coral, aqua blue, gold and a little navy.

Scarlett has gold dots behind her wall and this baby has herringbone. 

This artwork is special to me. Each child has a large monogram on their walls that goes with the theme of their room. Scarlett's room theme was just girly things so I did pearls for her and was stumped about what to do for this room. I made scales with polymer clay and painted it pearl. It is absolutely perfect. As for the canvas, for Scarlett's room, Miller and I painted something for her wall so this time we got Scarlett in on it and painted something for this room.

Each kid has a wreath on their door in their room colors.

I worked so hard on these pillows. There is really no need for most of them but I like how they bring the theme all together. 

I am really happy with this room. It turned out so much better than I was originally expecting it to and I am so excited  to be able to see this little girl grow up in here. 

Baby Girl's Nursery Reveal

Finally, I can show off all our hard work. You can go back and look at the before pictures and all of our start up issues in this post.

I bought this light off of craigslist two years ago because I always loved it at Ikea and knew that I would find somewhere for it. It is perfect in here.

Here are two before/after comparison shots.

Nursery Project: Wall Decor

Some of the finishing touches in the nursery were to hang up things on the wall. Before I reveal the whole completed nursery, I wanted to feature those snippets.

With all the headbands and hairbows that I made (and bought, and mom bought), I needed somewhere to store them. I saw people using old frames with hooks and ribbon and it seemed like the perfect idea. The only problem is that some of her thicker headbands do not fit on the hooks so I have them in a tray on her dresser.

I made a wreath for Miller's nursery when I was pregnant with him so I needed one for her room.

I ended up going back and redoing Miller's wreath so that they match. I love seeing  both of them on their doors when I am upstairs.

When I was early in my pregnancy and always worried that something would go wrong, I swear that I would immediately see a rainbow. I have gone years without seeing one and all of a sudden I was seeing them all the time. I told my mom and that afternoon she texted me a picture of one outside her window. Since, mom and I are huge "Wizard of Oz" fans I wanted to put up a quote from the song "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". I could not narrow it down so I just used the whole song.

 

I wanted to have some consistency between both kids rooms so I needed to make a quilted name banner just like the one over Miller's bed. I guess this also serves as a reveal of Baby Girl's name.

Miller has a large "M" on his wall and while I looked for the same one on etsy (the shop has since closed) I went with something much more girly, an "S" covered with pearls. I keep picturing if the kids end up sharing a room at some point and Miller has his wirey black "M" over his bed and she has this pretty pearly "S" over hers. Or they might make their way onto a family gallery wall someday.

I planned on using the dresser as a changing table and wanted something hanging over it. I saw these tassel garlands on pinterest and I had to make one, especially if it  had some metallic in there. I am no longer using the dresser for that anymore but this is still pretty. It was pretty much my substitute for a mobile over her bed, which she does not really have a place for.

 

Miller has a print with a "Rocky Top" quote within the state of Tennessee so I needed something to represent our home state in her room. There are hearts over our hometowns. The bottom picture is a painting that we made with Miller.

I had this on my initial to-do list so that it would be something Miller could be involved in. I had pretty much scrapped it when one day a couple of weeks ago I decided to attempt painting with Miller. He loved it so I figured we could give this a shot.

I taped up my design and put our colors on a plate. He had so much fun. Mommy and Daddy had to help him so that the whole thing got covered but that just makes it a whole family project that we made for our newest little member.

Baby Project: Headbands

I came to the realization early on that this baby girl was going to be stuck in her brothers hand me downs a lot for the first few months. Part of me feels guilty for that but part of me is happy that all of his clothes are not going to waste. I know that we will encounter plenty of cases where people will call her a "he" and I know that wearing some boy clothes are not going to help (and I mean wearing neutral color onesies, not blatant boy clothes).

I wanted to try to make her look more girly and I started looking into headbands. I was going to buy some on etsy but then I started thinking that I could make most of them. I was only going to make 10 or so, just so I had one in every color but then I went a little crazy. Like 23 headbands and 8 hairbows being made in 4 days.

I started out wanting to make some celtic knot headbands with t-shirt yarn. Goodness knows that Ben is always wearing out his undershirts so I knew that I had that on hand. I took one t-shirt of his and it made 14 headbands. I dyed them using moms tie dye stuff.

I first made all of these knotted headbands using this tutorial at Love Stitched.  Once I did the knot, I would spread out all of the yarn ends and sew on a piece of elastic to connect the two sides together.

I really liked them but they were not as wide as I was hoping they would be. I went back and cut some yarn strips to be 2" wide and did those. This is definitely more what I was picturing.

Just for a size comparison. 

I did not need all of these to be knotted so some I braided. These were the first ones that I did so I was experimenting with how to sew up the ends (That is why you see one with a white band around the back). These do not have elastic on them as you can see. They still stretch some but they definitely will have a shorter life span than the ones with elastic since they will not be able to grow as much with her head.

Lastly I wanted to try another method. I made these pinched bow headbands using a tutorial from Sugar Bee Crafts. I love how simple they are!

These I just made a bowtie using the same method that I did for Miller's birthday party. I sewed the two ends of elastic together at a felt circle of the same color as the fabric. Then I hot glued the bow on.

Same concept as above except I made a bow with grosgrain ribbon.

I already had these flower made from a project a few years ago. I just did the elastic with felt circle sewing and glued on the flower.

 

The bows were so easy to make for the headbands that I decided to make a few more just for her to wear when she gets hair (if she is not born with it like her dad and brother). Yep, I already have a Halloween, 4th of July and St Patrick's Day bow in there. I am just being prepared because I know I will not have time for any of this stuff for a while after she is born. The orange one in the top left corner is to put on our UT hat for the hospital. It has a safety pin back.

The rest have a simple alligator clip. 

I am aware that I went a little overboard but I had fun. Confession time- as soon as I made these, I started researching colored elastics on-line. I ordered 27 yds of different elastic ribbon for future headbands. I am not making them all now but if I was going to pay for shipping, I wanted to get all of them for future use. I might be making a few before she comes but I will try to keep it under control.

Baby Project: Baby Cardigans

Right around the time when Miller was born, my friend Lindsey pinned these adorable cardigan onesies and said they seemed like my style. Oh how I fell in love with them but at that point, I had no time to make them. As soon as I found out I was pregnant this time, I scoured pinterest for projects that I wanted to do for this baby. These cardigans were at the top of my Must Do List.

Photo from Diesel in Bloom

I started searching through consignment stores to find just the right onesies to make these from. I wanted 3-6 month size, long sleeve and some sort of basic pattern. I finally found them on a trip with my mom. I believe they were $1 each. 

I pretty much followed the original tutorial. I was a little nervous about how difficult these would be but they were so much easier than I anticipated. I seriously started contemplating turning all Miller's gender neutral onesies into cardigans.

The only different thing I did was that I did not want to have to put a separate onesie or shirt on underneath this. I had just discovered that I had a dozen newborn tshirts from the hospital when we had Miller. I cut one up and made a little faux t-shirt to be sewn into each of the cardigans. 

I wrapped the double sided bias tape around the left side, around the collar and back to where it meets the other side. Then I pinned the right side under the left. Then I pinned in the t-shirt. I swear the scariest part was all the pins. I pinned generously so that I did not mess it up as I was running it through the machine and I think that is what made this project the biggest success. (I added about a dozen more pins to this one after I took this picture).

The biggest pain was hand sewing the buttons on but it is worth it. 

I wish I had a cute picture of my baby wearing these but that will have to wait another few months.

Baby Project: Carrier Carseat Arm Pad

So many of these baby projects can probably seem unnecessary to people out there but for me, this is nesting. While I can get overwhelmed with projects and feel a bit bogged down between them and normal daily life, I truly enjoy them. Crafting projects make me feel productive and keep me happy. Being a SAHM has been a major challenge for me because there is no day to day goals other than survive. Crafting gives me that.

One project I wanted to do but did not have to, was to make an arm pad for our carrier carseat. Yes, we managed to survive Miller's infancy without one but I thought it could be a fun project. Plus, that darn carrier can be a pain to lug around so why not make something to try to make it more comfortable.

I saw them in the store and knew that I could easily make one. It was not as super easy as I thought it would be, but I like small sewing challenges. It can only help me get better!

I looked at some other blogs on-line and while they were helpful to see the basic method they followed, ultimately I could not use their measurements because that is dependent on the thickness of foam you have and your personal preferences. I knew that I had  to make my arm pad fit between the two handles of my carrier cover that I made for Miller. I also already had some 1/2" thick foam that I planned to work with.

I sketched it out and planned on starting with two panels that were 6.5" x 8.5" with the finished product being about 4.5" x 6.5". I used the underside fabric from our carrier cover. I wanted a strip of minky running along the outside so I sewed up one panel like this.

I sewed on my velcro to each panel. One gets the hooks and one gets the loops. I made sure to do this about 3/4" in to allow for 1/2" seam. 

Lay the fabrics together so they are inside out (the fronts will be touching each other) and that the velcro strips are on opposite ends. Pin and sew around three sides. I also went back and did a zig zag stitch just to make sure they were super strong.

Turn it right side out. On the one end that you already did sew, sew seams, about 1/4' to each side of the velcro so that it lays flat and that you now have a little pocket started for the foam.

 

I waited to cut my foam until I got to this point, just in case I made any huge mistakes and needed to adjust the size. I ended up with a piece that was 4.25" x 4.25". Since I only had 1/2" thick foam, I doubled up and attached with some spray mount in between the layers. 

Once you insert the foam, make sure you have enough room to have a 1/4" seam allowance away from the velcro like you did on the other side. You can always snip off more foam if you need to. Sew that foam in.

Fold in the open end and pin the heck out of it. Sew that closed along the top.

 

The one thing I am disappointed in is that you can see the green foam through the white minky. Once you get it on the handle you can not really tell though. Besides that, I am quite pleased with it. 

It is not a big round tuft like I saw in the stores but I did not want it that way. We grab the handle with our hands so much and this one being thinner allows for us to grip it that way. It is much more comfortable for our hands which is what I wanted, but we will see how it holds up when he have a baby in there. 

I really like how it looks with our carrier cover that I made last pregnancy. Little things like how they coordinate make me happy.