Baby Girl Nursery Ideas

The weeks are starting to fly by and we're beginning to put together the nursery for Baby Girl.

Same as when Dylan was an infant, the nursery and guest room will be combined. We have the space in our new house to split them up, but there were a few times when he was little when I really appreciated having a full size bed in the same room. The guest room is larger than our other remaining bedroom and also quieter & darker.

Having an existing room to build off of gave me the inspiration for the colors. The comforter on the guest bed is navy blue. The dresser is one I found on Craigslist a year ago and painted yellow. I've recently acquired a changing table also from Craigslist and painted it the same yellow. Adding navy and coral elements such as the new fabric for the crib bedding to help tie it all together.

I'll share more photos as we make progress. Hoping to start sewing the bedding and new crib rail teething cover this weekend.

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Vinyl Wall Decals - the ugly

Vinyl wall decals have become an "in" thing.  They are relatively inexpensive.  Easy to install.  Come in as many designs and colors as you can imagine.  I fell for an adorable giraffe growth chart one for Dylan's nursery when I was pregnant.  I finally decided to order it and a word/image combo "It's a Jungle In Here" for over his crib.  I liked the cuteness and fun to both of the designs.

I was thrilled when the package arrived.  Trent and I carefully placed them (I wanted to be sure the "60" on the growth chart was actually at 60 inches and not 59).  I admired them.  They looked so cute and got rave reviews from everyone who saw them.

Then I decided to move Dylan into another room.  The giraffe I was planning to leave as is.  The Jungle decal unfortunately was in the way of shelving I would be hanging over our computer desk so it needed to come down. 

The company I bought the vinyl decals from is Single Stone Studios.  It had a wonderful reputation on Etsy and was featured in several magazines.  The Etsy shop where I placed my order and the company website both proclaim how the decals won't damage your walls:

Q: How do I get the decals off when I'm ready to redecorate? Will they damage my walls? A: To remove the decals, start at a corner and simply peel them away. They will come off easily and will not damage your walls or leave any residue. Landlords love us!

This is one of the reasons I was excited about the decals in the first place.  I knew they wouldn't be permanent.  Whether we changed furniture layout, changed rooms or even when we moved someday - they would come down.  Little did I realize they would not remove cleanly.  Perhaps they do in some situations.  But, no, not for me.  As I slowly peeled back the letters, up came paint and even the top layer of gypsum wallboard in some spots.  The walls aren't ruined, but they will need patching and repainting.  So much for the promise to "not damage your walls."

Honestly, I feel like I should have known better.  It seemed too good to be true.  I emailed Single Stone Studios in late June.  As of the beginning of this week, I still didn't have a response.  I forwarded the original email and tried again.  This time I received a brief apology saying this had never happened before and offering suggestion to try a hair dryer when I remove the rest.  I'll definitely try and see what happens because, while the "Jungle" text was small, I'm honestly quite concerned about the damage the giraffe decal will do as it covers far more wall space.

My final two cents isn't to avoid vinyl wall decals altogether, but buyer beware.  As for me, there will be no more applied directly to my walls.  One was headache enough.

Update
I tried using a hair dryer to warm the palm tree portion of the "Jungle" vinyl decal and it only made the situation worse:

Honestly, the entire area is a mess.  Where the vinyl did remove cleanly, it left behind the adhesive residue.  Trent & I have agreed to leave the giraffe as is for now.  I'm leaning toward hiring someone to remove it and repair the wall when the time comes.  The "Jungle" decal damaged approximately 2 square feet of wall ... the giraffe one covers about 10 square feet ... aye yi yi. 

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Room Remix

For a while I have been thinking about moving Dylan to a new room. Originally he was in the larger of our 2 extra bedrooms and shared space with the full size guest bed. This worked really well at times particularly when he was sick in December and he & I spent nearly a full 48 hours in there together. It was nice to be able to tuck us both into the big bed and have all of his stuff (diapers, medicine, etc) at hand.

As he's grown (and we've had overnight guests stay more frequently ... ie, Grama :D ), this has not been the most ideal situation. I do think he and my mom had quite a good time playing "peek-a-boo" through and over the rails at each other during her last stay. But we all need sleep so I began to think about putting him into a new room.

One of the pros or cons of me being a stay-at-home mommy now is the simple fact that I am here enough to see what is/isn't working, what we do/don't use, what I do/don't like, etc. Last year I created a 3D model using Google Sketchup to help arrange the furniture in the nursery/guestroom. I went back to that model and updated it to match how the furniture was currently arranged:

Then I drew the second room (the former computer/scrap room) and began drawing & repositioning the various pieces of furniture to determine the new arrangement.

The new layout of the guest room:

The bed remained in the same place. The computer desk and scrapping desk run along the wall between the two rooms and the Crop In Style cubes sit between the foot of the bed and the closet.

Dylan's new room:

I started taking apart the computer/scrap room about two weeks ago. I patched and touched up the paint where the shelving and pictures hung. Since the room was originally painted with "regular paint" (ie, before the no-VOC paint option we now have) and I just wanted to touch-up versus totally repaint, I let it sit for a few days to air out before moving Dylan into the room.

As of the beginning of the week, all of the furniture is in place in each room. I'm now focusing on organizing and decorating. Dylan's new room is taking on more of the feel of a toddler room now that he's more mobile. The built-in shelves in the corner by the glider once held old textbooks and scrapping magazines as well as knick knacks. Now they are taking on childhood favorites and stuffed animals. I confess, I'm having fun looking through Flickr again for more inspiration. His room will still have an animal theme (after all, I did just finish the zoo print crib teething rail cover). But some of the details are changing. I'll share photos as the rooms progress.

ETA: If you decide to play with Google Sketchup (it's free!), be sure to check out the 3D Warehouse for free models you can download (I did this for the glider and Aeron chair). And I have begun sharing some of my own models as well - 2pD Models. Enjoy!

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DIY: Crib Teething Rail Cover

Last year, my mom gave us a gorgeous crib for Dylan. It converts into a toddler bed and later a full size bed. Recently, it has been obvious that we might soon end up with a lot of teeth marks in the foot board as Dylan has discovered it is perfect for teething:

Wanting to protect it, I started searching online for quilted teething crib rail covers. I found only two options and quickly realized they would not work for our crib due to it's wide vertical rail. Both covers have a tie in the center.

This was also a problem with the bumper that came with our bedding set. It too had center ties that were not long enough to reach around the vertical center rails on the front and back:

That ended up being okay since we chose to purchase a Breathable Bumper to use instead. Thus the original bumper ended up in the top of Dylan's closet where it sat until I began thinking of ways to make my own teething rail cover.

Last week, I pulled the bumper out and began using my seam ripper to carefully pull apart a third of it. The reason behind tearing apart a third versus the entire bumper is because it contained enough fabric to make the teether and leaves the remaining four panels intact for use as a bumper if we choose when we convert the crib to a toddler bed later.

I ripped carefully to leave as much of the fabric and piping as intact as possible. I might have been able to do less "deconstruction" of it had the original batting not been so thick. It wouldn't form around the rail as I liked so I had to tear out a good bit of the seams to remove the batting.

After I removed the batting. I shifted some of the ties - leaving two on each end corner and two offset 4 inches each side of the center of the cover. This way it would tie down just beyond the center rail. Then I added new batting and sewed it to both long sides as well as one end:

Next I flipped the cover right side out. Straightened it out. Sewed the open end closed. Then measured and marked lines for quilting:

I carefully sewed 5 individual straight lines spaced at approximately 9 inch intervals on the teether. This fully attached the fabric and batting.

Finally, I tied it onto the crib rail (taking care to position it so the animals face inward) and let Dylan check it out. I think I have his approval. Moments later he even "tasted" it.

And I finished this project just in the nick of time as his first tooth began poking through on Friday night.

Post linked to: Get Your Craft on Tuesday at Today's Creative Blog and We Did It! Wednesday at Sew Much Ado.

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Dylan's Mobile

I've put Dylan in his crib almost daily and turned on his mobile. Only in the past week has he really started to notice it and react. I love peeking in at him as he watches the animals go round & round and talks to them. :)

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Baby Product Manuals

After our baby shower in May, I began to realize just how many product manuals we were accumulating. I didn't want to misplace any of them or related receipts so I grabbed some page protectors and an extra binder we had to organize them. This week I dug through my stash of scrapbooking supplies to create a fun cover for it:


In it's designated spot in the nursery closet:


Supplies: Avery binder; miscellaneous white cardstock; Die Cuts with a View patterned paper; Making Memories and American Crafts letter stickers.

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Blog Hop Wrap Up

I had fun participating in Scrappin' Mojo's blog hop this past weekend. Ten of us hosted challenges on our blogs with chances to win small RAKs and one chance to win the grand prize of Bo Bunny scrapping goodies from Scrappin' Mojo. Winners will be announced in the Scrappin' Mojo Forum tomorrow by 12 noon.

Here are the projects I created for the challenges...

For Marcie's challenge to complete at layout with a cute little nature animal and Stella's challenge to use a non-alpha stamp on a layout.
Supplies: Recollections cardstock; Staz-On black stamp pad; Studio G stamp; Marvy LePlume markers; Micron black pen.

Terri challenged us to make a card. I made one that we will send to Trent's younger brother after the baby arrives.
Supplies: Bazzill cardstock; miscellaneous white cardstock; Staz-On brown ink pad (edges); American Crafts letter stickers; QuicKutz Moxie font; Die Cuts with a View adhesive backed cardstock; TaDa patterned paper.

Tackled three with this layout of Trent's softball season - Angela's sports themed layout; Niki's red, white & blue color scheme; and Diana's sketch challenge.
Supplies: Cosmo Cricket patterned paper; Bazzill and misc cardstock; EK Success border punch & stickers; Martha Stewart Crafts sepia pen.

My final layout was for Jan's challenge to scrap your most recent favorite photo and Sophia's white only challenge. The latter took a lot of thinking especially since 99% of my scrapping supplies have some sort of color to them.
Supplies: Bazzill cardstock; EK Success corner punch; Prima flowers; Making Memories snaps; Basic Grey chipboard; white acrylic paint; Heidi Swapp chipboard.

I've been meaning to label these fabric bins in our laundry closet since we reorganized it last year. Danielle's challenge to create a home decor project using scrapping supplies inspired me to finally get around to it.

And I made a tag for a similar bin we have in the nursery closet that currently holds all of the small toys.
Supplies: Paper Reflections tag; American Crafts ribbon; Die Cuts with a View adhesive backed cardstock; QuicKutz dies; Staz-On black stamp pad; Daisy Hill acrylic stamps; fiber from 7gypsies album packaging; Dymo label maker.

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SM Blog Hop: Some Assembly Required

Welcome to all the Scrappin' Mojo blog hoppers! My challenge is to use at least 4 photos on a layout. The layout can be 1 or 2 pages - your choice. Remember to upload your project to the Scrappin' Mojo gallery (by Sunday at 5pm) with "blog hop" in the title to be entered in the grand prize drawing. Also, leave a link to your layout in my comments so I can take a peek and for a chance at a RAK from me. :) (note: link must be left in my comments by 6pm Eastern time on Sunday, June 28th to be eligible for a chance to win the RAK) Then pop on over to Niki's blog for the next challenge.

Here is a 2 page design I created for the challenge capturing a few of the many baby related items Trent has assembled during the past 4 months (click on photos to enlarge):



Supplies: Archiver's cardstock; Little Yellow Bicycle patterned paper (blue) & journaling spot; Frances Meyer patterned paper (green); KI Memories patterned paper (brown); Doodlebug Designs rub-on letters; American Crafts alpha stickers; QuicKutz hammer die; The Paper Company mulberry paper; miscellaneous ribbon from stash; Autumn Leaves buttons; fibers from 7gypsies album packaging; Bazzill corduroy brads; chipboard owl; Martha Stewart Crafts sepia pen. Inspired by sketch for June Celebrate the Seasons class at Two Peas.

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Baby Blanket

After many starts and stops since I began knitting in February, I finally finished the baby blanket on Monday night. It's waiting in the crib for the little one's arrival.

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Nursery Progress

The almost completed nursery:


I still have a few small details to add such as photos over the glider area. But for the most part it is ready and waiting for our little boy.

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All About My Boys

We had a wonderful, busy weekend including continued celebration of Trent's birthday. Friday my sister joined us for dinner and the Durham Bulls baseball game where I surprised Trent with "Happy 30th, Trent" on the jumbo tron during the 6th inning.


Saturday afternoon we attended our first of three childbirth classes at the hospital. The instructor was fabulous. I've actually been very calm and relaxed during the entire pregnancy even when thinking about labor. After the class, we both felt even more encouraged that it will be a very positive experience.

That evening the birthday celebration continued with Trent's parents & sister coming over for dinner. I planned earlier in the week to use the slow cooker while we were in our class to make preparation easier. I settled on making spaghetti & meatballs. The recipe I came up with was quite easy and everyone enjoyed it. I simply combined one 26oz jar of spaghetti sauce, one 14.5oz can of Del Monte Diced Tomatoes w/ Basil, Garlic & Oregano, 1 tbsp of dried oregano from my garden, and 24 fully cooked frozen meatballs in the slow cooker and let it cook on low for 6 hours. When we returned home from class, I boiled the noodles, drained and added them to the sauce mixture in the slow cooker - leaving it on low until we were ready to eat. Then prepared a salad and garlic bread for sides. And, of course, we ended the evening with birthday cake - a must have for a birthday celebration.


Yesterday after church we picked up the glider we ordered a couple of weeks ago for the nursery. Trent put it together and I sat in it right away - so comfy! The nursery is almost complete. Still a couple more details I want to finish up.


Definitely a wonderful weekend all about my two boys. :)

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It's a Jungle in here!

| Credits: vinyl decor by Single Stone Studios.

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Guard Cat

Last month we purchased a child gate for the nursery to keep the cats out. I confess, it was Trent's idea and I was not convinced it would work. However, so far neither has tried to jump it. They have pushed their faces against the bars a few times to peek in. Occasionally, I'll let them in there with me and give them a chance to sniff around which seems to fill their curiosity for the moment.

The cutest part of this change has been watching Chester become the "guard cat." He spends most nights now sleeping in front of the gate. Here he is this morning practicing his "you must pass me to enter" pose:


I'm curious to see if this continues once the baby arrives or if Chester finds a new, quieter place to hang out.

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Nursery Peek

We're still working on getting the nursery together. Here is a peek of the recent progress:


Credits: Owlet photo by my dear friend, Wanda Hart; Giraffe vinyl decor by Single Stone Studios.

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PhotoHunt: Protection

The first fully protected outlet in our house as we prepare for the baby:


This outlet is directly behind the crib so I made sure to install the safety covers before we put the crib in place. Definitely not a spot I wanted to forget as it would be easy in the future for curious little fingers to reach down to.

Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt Participants

1. Lynn

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The Crib

We've been trying to decide on a crib for weeks and decided to go look at another store today. Trent & I were both drawn to the same one. A beautiful, wood crib with fixed sides. It converts into a toddler bed and eventually full size bed. The front side is lower than some of the other fixed side cribs we've seen allowing me to easily reach into it.


Lucky for us, it was on sale, in stock and fit into our CR-V so we were able to bring it home and set it up today. Next we need to find a mattress. My sister has already bought the bedding for us. And then it will be ready for Baby. :) In the meantime, we've lined it with aluminum foil to keep the cats from trying to get into it.

Thanks, Mom!!!

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Nursery Painted

Yesterday morning we cleared out most of the room that will become the nursery to prepare for painting. For a better visual, the 3-d model I shared in my post Making Room gives a overview of the entire room. I was standing approximately where the 3-d model figure is when taking this photo:

We wanted a nice neutral color on the walls so we chose to use Freshaire's Smooth Driftwood:
I love this paint company - the paints have no VOCs which mean practically no smell. They clean up with water (no icky paint thinner!) and the cans are recyclable. Better for the environment and better for us.

Here's a small sneak peek from this morning:
Unfortunately, it's a cloudy, rainy day so I can't get good lighting right now. The ceiling is still white so you can see a slight contrast there with the new wall color and from the white sheers in the window. The curtains are energy saving and light blocking panels from Target. The room faces west so we're hoping that these will help block out a little of the heat during the summer as well as keeping the room a bit darker.

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Making Room

Over the weekend we began clearing out and rearranging in our guestroom. It will become our guestroom/nursery in the coming months. Using Google SketchUp, I created a 3-D model to play around with various furniture arrangements:

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Nursery Inspiration

One of my favorite pastimes lately has been looking through Flickr for inspiration on decorating the nursery. Here are a few of the photos I marked as favorites:


1. New Nursery, 2. Nursery, 3. Cat Problem in the Nursery, 4. Baby Blue Nursery Closet, 5. Project: Nursery (after), 6. Baby Nursery: Crib and Tropical Paintings, 7. rooms 011, 8. Crib side, 9. Riley's Nursery, 10. Megan's Nursery which includes one of my banners, 11. Nursery, 12. Shadowbox Art for Boy's Nursery

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