Decal Fun

I purchased some decals for the nursery a few months ago.

They took a little while to get here, and once they did (surprise, surprise) I was indecisive as to where they should go. One day I just put them up.

The giraffe is on the wall as you walk in:

And the birds (an extra one on account of the delay in the seller getting them out) are on a mirror that will eventually go above the crib.

No, the nursery isn't completely complete yet, but it's ok-she's still sleeping in our room for a little while longer. Also, I thought the birds were a little girly if it were a boy, so I didn't want to commit to tacking the mirror up if it was a boy. And since we've found out it was a girl, well, we've been busy.

Anyway, the process was super easy and kind of fun actually. Just decide on your placement, rub, peel, tape, rub and peel again. Presto!

Unfortunately now though, hubs loves the process and wants to buy every wall decal he sees.

The basketeers

Any Friends fans out there that get the title? Anyone?

Anyway, storage is always an issue for everyone. Especially little babies who come with proportionately WAY more stuff that their size should allow. So, once hubs installed the closet system, it was up to me to figure out how we were going to organize all Hailey's (at the time his/her) many things.

Good old HomeSense is always a great spot for baskets and I found some really nice ones that came in a bunch of sizes and were pretty darn nice as is frankly.

But, since we didn't know the gender of our babe, I thought this liner was a little too feminine in case it was a little boy who came along. So in all my foolishly eager newbie seamstress-ness, I decided to sew all new basket liners for the 6 baskets I bought. Who do I think I am?!?!

After some figuring and some almost-running-out-of-fabric, I finally got them all done.

I chose the polka dot fabric I'd used on the lamp shades and the rocker pillow so there'd be some consistency/pseudo-theme running through the room.

In the end, I really like them and I'm glad I was able to complete them, but man-will I ever NOT do that again.

DIY Nursery art

Admittedly, most of the art in the nursery is DIY. And why not? It's personal, cheap and custom.

This is one idea that my sister and I both stole from Wanderluster at Rambling Renovators, but it's a great one.

It's a shadow box with a collage of all the shower cards I'd received. Great idea, no? Especially since the cards are so sweet and cute, and what the heck else are you going to do with a stack of them otherwise?

The idea had always been in my head, I just procrastinate like it's my calling so never got around to doing anything about it. Enter big sis-included in her friends shower gift was a shadow box for that very purpose.

And here it is. I'm happy to report that at least a piece of every single shower card I received is represented in here somewhere.

And here it is in action when you first walk in the nursery. I love it!

Thanks sis! And, of course, all the lovely ladies that gave me the medium.

My back's saviour

In the last month, I have logged many hours in this chair. And boy, am I ever glad I took the time and went with one that's comfy and firm...and that's cute-let's be real.

Here it is pre-Hailey, before that side table was covered in cloths, and other baby paraphenalia.

I originally bought that fake sheepskin rug to go around the crib, but it didn't look right, so I tossed it on the back of the chair to be out of the cat's way. Turns out I love it there and it's SOO comfy to lean back against when you're exhausted at 2am and can semi-doze during a feeding.

The other saviour for my back has been the pillow on the chair. Again-originally made just to be cute, but it turns out you have to have all sorts of weird posture while feeding and this little pillow has made them a lot more comfortable.

Overall, the combo has been some of the most useful nursery items so far.

Ever crib needs a mattress

I really love our crib. Really, I do. But Holy poop it's given me its share of headaches.

After the refinishing and air hole situations were resolved, we then had to sort out getting a mattress for this thing.

Since it hasn't been used in more than a couple decades (the last person to use it, my youngest sis is now 23), the mattresses it had were a little...um...rough. In fact, here's the one in best condition that my mom had made more than 30 years ago:

So needless to say, I wanted to get something in slightly better shape, and a bit thicker. You see, the crib is pretty deep and while I'll still use the above mattress at the bottom of the crib for a little extra boost, I still need a 5 or 6" mattress on top of it so I'm not doing deep bends every time the baby needs to be picked up or put down. Plus, the higher they are (obviously within reason), the more air circulation...that issue never really goes away.

So I sourced out a couple options from upholsterers, seamstresses, mattress stores, etc. Not too much came up, and when it did, the cost was crazy. Like $250 was the lowest one, and he was doing me a favour.

Yes, I know crib mattresses are available at most department stores and baby stores. And certainly for less than $100, BUT...the mattress needed for this precious crib is 47" x 21", and a standard mattress (all new cribs have essentially the same dimensions) is 42" x 24" or something like that. Shorter and fatter than ours anyways. So...I was on my own.

Even I, in all my ignorance knew that somehow I could do this myself for a lot less than $250. It may not be perfect, but it would be perfectly safe and much more affordable.

So I visited a bunch of fabric stores trying to get as much info as I could. From some of the bigger ones in town, even just the high density foam would run me $150+. Shize.

Then...someone recommended checking out Rockland Textiles . Thank goodness they did!

I got the mattress cut perfectly to size in 2 days for a fraction of the price of anywhere else and I managed to buy baby vinyl for cheap from my angel ( Fabricland on Hazeldean) that recommended them.

I realize I'm making this out to be a much bigger deal that it should be to anyone, but it took SOOO long to finally find this solution.

Then, after repairing a broken sewing machine, a LOT of hand sewing on the ends (to the point of a lasting claw hand), and the serious consideration of duct taping it together, I finally got the mattress covered.

And I gotta say, for someone who couldn't even thread a sewing machine a year ago, it looks pretty damn good.

Of course, though, with a wonky sized mattress, I needed to craft some wonky sized crib sheets. Damnit!

But through the wonder of google, a bit of free time and the stubborn insistence that I could do it, I managed to figure it out somehow and have made a couple fitted (yep-like with elastic corners!!!) sheets that perfectly fit (if I may say so myself) the mattress.

I'm SO glad it's over and ready for a little donkey in there.

Le crib

If you recall from an update a while ago, progress on our heirloom crib came to a screeching halt about a month ago.

Fortunately, however, since then it's all been remedied and it's now all set up awaiting a babe in the nursery.

A reminder of what the crib looked like in it's original state:

And in an effort to give examples of how it could be altered to allow for some more air circulation, I did up these drawings in my fave program (next to Excel), paint:

Then hubs and I marked them out to see which one(s) we preferred:

And finally, had the slots cut out, and then I primed, painted and verathaned parts of it all over again until we have the finished project:

Which I'm confident allows enough air circulation for our little squirt, especially combined with the wide open top, and how high the mattress initially sits while the baby is really a baby.

Phewf! One less thing to worry about.

Nursery Project - still thinkin' small

After the relative success of my last project, I thought I'd try another one.

After a successful shopping trip a few weeks ago, I found these great lamps:

How cute is that giraffe one, seriously? But..the green on the shade was all wrong and I wanted some bit of consistency since we're not doing the whole "bedding set" thing in the nursery.

So, I picked up a new shade

Which I didn't buy to match, just to be a neutral base and for the shape.

And since I still had all that fabric sitting around, I had an idea to do this:

Cute, non? And SO super easy. Now that lamp is one of my favourite things in the room.

Nursery Project - beginning small

Knowing how I am, I knew there'd be a lot of DIY planned for the nursery. This is a great thing, I think-it personalizes the space, and often times saves some coin...both perfect. The unfortunate thing is that in planning, I always think I'm more creative, handy and capable that I really am.

So, I had to start small on the seamstress projects. A pillow cover. Simple, right? Usually yes, but this was a pillow cover for a breastfeeding pillow, which are all wonky shaped. Still pretty straight forward, though.

Here's the before pillow I got from a friend who's all done with her baby-feeding days:

So I washed that, and still had all that fabric I thought I'd use hubs' pick to cover the pillow. After a lot of shoving and tweaking and a healthy dose of hand sewing, here it is:

I really like it, and think it's pretty darn cute.

Le Floorplan

As I mentioned yesterday, we're finally getting our (bigger every day) behinds in gear to make progress on the nursery so that we're prepared when the peanut joins us.

To help get myself organized and know what needs to be done/bought/moved, etc, I went to my part-time bff Paint and did up a little floorplan:

We've got, or have ordered most of the big pieces seen here, so it's just a matter of getting it all and setting it all up, and then decorating, which I have several ideas for. Hopefully it starts coming together in the next week or so so I can get to the decorating part-that's always the most fun :)

Nursery Progress

We're finally making head way on the nursery. I should hope so with an estimated 36 days left until our family becomes 3. Um...36 days? Yep-I just triple checked...gulp!

My sisters threw me a fantastical surprise shower a couple weekends ago, and the once empty nursery quickly filled with baby paraphenalia.


And I loooove our new dresser. Hubs and I both kind of want to steal it for our own room. But, no-it was bought for the nursery, so there it'll stay...for now :) It fits loads of the little sleepers, onesies and what not that we got prior to and at the shower (I say we, but hubs was gratefully relieved of shower attendance duty).

We'd also finished up painting a couple weeks ago, and it's all been touched up and prettified.

Next up was/is filling the space with baby furniture and decorating it a bit so it's nice, fun and cozy. So I purchased the following decals from Etsy after way too much deliberation:
Source - in brown

Source - in white

And I've had a hard time finding a rocker/glider that I liked. There are the typical ones, which are nice enough, but I wanted something a little more streamlined and a little less busy looking (with all those gliding parts and hinges it was a bit busy for me) and I finally came across this little beauty:
Which is hand made in Ontario! Bonus! It's made by Off Your Rocker and I've heard some great reviews on WB.

Crib progress is at a bit of a standstill though unfortunately. I've painted and verathaned it a few times, but at our pre-natal class, a little issue of air circulation was brought up, so I called Health Canada and they don't really condone cribs with solid sides and no slats or anything in them for air circulation because of the risk of SIDS (aka every parent and parent-to-be's nightmare acronym). So now we've got to discuss with my dad and decide whether to modify the heirloom crib or go buy a new one entirely.

I've also bought drapes, a rug, a closet organizer, some cute accessories and our lighting fixtures are finally in! So there's a good amount of manual labour coming our way to get these things installed, but I know they're really going to get it looking a lot more like an actual room rather than a storage closet.

Nursery Fabric has arrived! (Mostly)

After a discouraging trip to a few local fabric stores, I decided to hit up J Caroline Creative to get some fabrics-knowing that they had lots I've been interested in before, and certainly more variety.

And did I EVER find some I liked. In the end I had a list of 15 that I was deciding between and settled on these ones after a consult with hubs :

So the first 2 are the main-ish fabrics in the room (although the 1st one is backordered) and the last 2 I just couldn't resist. Got them to make a couple pillows or blankets or something with.

So cute though, non? Now I need to decide what on earth I need 11 yards of fabric for when I'm an amateur seamstress at best!

DIY Nursery Art

I've mentioned once before about alphabet & animal posters that I really liked for the nursery. Unfortunately the ones I've found on Etsy weren't available in poster format, which I wanted.

What's a girl to do but make 'em herself then!

A few stock photography and a very basic knowledge of Photoshop, and here we are:
Cute, non? So now I've started barely accumulating stuff for the nursery and actually starting painting yesterday so I guess I've started 'nesting'.

The crib project

So I can officially say that the nursery progress has progressed. Incredibly slowly and nothing big, mind you, but you gotta start somewhere.

One of the big projects for the room is the crib. We are actually going to be using the very crib that my Oma (dutch grandmother) brought over by boat from Holland 50+ years ago, used for her 7 children and was then used for myself and my 3 siblings. Neat, huh?

It's a sturdy piece of furniture, that's for sure. So before anyone starts wondering if it's safe and in accordance with all the new standards, here's a photo:

It's solid oak and very sturdy, so I'm confident my little peanut will be in good hands.

However, hubs and I aren't real 'oak-y' people. Love the wood-not necessarily the colour. So...we've discussed with my father, who'd discussed it with my Oma before she passed away in November, and both were completely ok with us sanding it down and refinishing it in a darker stain.

So I got to work sanding it. Wore the motor out of 1 palm sander actually before buying a new, better one and making much quicker progress with it. Once it was all sanded, I tried a section with the stain..and it just wasn't working. Like, at all. It's some very old wood and I was using a water-based stain (better for the babe), and the two are just not a match made in heaven, unfortunately for me.

My dad then suggested just painting it. Obviously I'd thought of that, but didn't want to make the call to paint over a family heirloom piece from a family (and paternal grandfather) who LOVE their wood. But he said he'd ask his sisters and a painter-friend to see if they had a problem with it/ had an alternate solution for it. There wasn't and they didn't, so we bought the paint yesterday.

The CIL website is under construction, so I couldn't find an actual swatch of the colour, but it's Stonebridge Brown and (on my monitor, at least) closely resembles this:
So it'll hopefully be a much updated crib and it starts tonight with priming, so I'm very excited.

Blog Baby Overload!

Yowza!

Who knew there was such a baby boom among some of my favourite bloggers?!?! Well, I guess lots of people since I haven't been checking them as regularly as I once was and announcements were made a while ago.

During some free time, I cruised on over to catch up with the youngsters at Young House Love and quickly found out they were expecting and that they'd announced an upcoming May baby a couple weeks ago in typical youngsters fashion-with help of their first son-Burger.

And while reading their bebe-related Q&A I discovered that Katie over at Bower Power also seems to be expecting! So, obviously I meandered over there next. And found many posts dedicated to their bebe journey and eventually the announcement that, again-was true to blogger form. Katie announced it in a goofy fashion with herself as the model:

Even as a mummy she looks great!

So between these bloggies and some of my other regular reads (including Ramblings of a Renovating Couple and Nicole at Making it Lovely, who are both fairly new moms) it's baby mania. I'm almost afraid to hit up some of my other used-to-be-daily reads in case there's a baby boom there too!

Congratulations to all of you, and I can't wait to see your ideas in the upcoming months as I'm creating our very own nursery. I can't promise I won't steal any (or all) of them, but I definitely am excited.

More cuteness

Ooh-and I found this one on Etsy as well:Oh dear---this is going to be a problem.

Great wall posters

Aren't these adorable? (I have a feeling I'll be using that word a lot)

I decided yesterday to start actually making note of some of the nursery ideas that hubs and I have had in the past while and looking for additional ideas. Where to first? Etsy obviously!

After cruising some mediocre wares and some that warranted "favouriting", I found the above decals from seller sixunderatree. They're quite large, and they're vinyl wall decals and are available in B&W or colours. Cute idea, non?

I'd been looking for something similar to use as posters/art in the nursery for a while, but had never quite found the appropriate graphics. So I messaged the seller and asked if she'd be willing to sell the alphabet in 12x18 poster form rather than the large vinyl decals. Unfortunately not. :(

So...if you come across something similar, please let me know. I'm definitely interested.

I wish I'd picked it up...

I'm sure no one remembers, so I'll remind you.

Back in May when I was still very much in shopping mode for our then-new home. Although-I don't know if I ever really leave shopping mode for anything, but that's besides the point.

ANYways, during one of my spring time jaunts to HomeSense, I came across the cutest lamp I'd ever seen. (You may remember the post here) Isn't it adorable? Seriously-I still love it. I know, I know-those in the design-know blah blah blah probably say that the owl trend has passed or whatever, but I can't help but love it-design trend past, present OR future.

At the time (May 2 specifically) I really REALLY wanted it and even called hubs from the store to ask if he thought I should/could get it. You see-it's not really a lamp that we'd have in our family room or anything, so it's purpose would be saved for a future nursery, and it didn't make sense to buy a lamp we'd (God-willing) be using in who knows how long.

So-that time is now. Yep---one of the driving forces for our sell/purchase/move is to make some changes for the upcoming babe. I'm 6 months pregnant and due March 6, 2010...so less that 3 months to go!!!!!!

And I'm SO excited to get into our new house so I can get started on creating the nursery for our gender neutral design (baby's gender is and will remain a surprise until we hear it from the doc after delivery).

So-be forewarned, not that the cat's out of the bag in my blog land, expect way too many baby & nursery-centric posts.