The Nursery is Almost Done!

I've seen my spring semester schedule - it is not pretty. I really needed to get working on the nursery early if I had a hope of it being done by the time baby girl arrived. Luckily, I've gotten a few open weekends and a few 2nd trimester energy bursts and have made some serious headway.

Over the past few weeks, we've gotten the carpets cleaned, painted, refinished/fixed the furniture, bought some decor, and got fabric for bedding. There is still a bit to do, but here are the pictures of it so far!

Paint and Tree Mural

I know its cliche, but I have loved the idea of a tree mural ever since stumbling upon Pinterest last year. I knew I needed one in my little girl's room. The biggest road block was the price for a wall cling on Etsy - upwards of $100! Not in the budget. What was in the budget? Borrowing a projector from work and buying a sample size can of paint from Lowe's.

Thank goodness for my sketching helper. :-) Its hard to tell, but the picture on the right is the tree fully sketched out. It only took about 20 minutes to draw out the tree - I was amazed! How long could it possibly take to paint, right?

Answer: 4 hours. Holy moly - my arms were killin' me! It was worth it though. After it was painted, I cut out a bunch of leaves from various prints and patterns of green scrapbook paper. A little Scotch tape did the trick sticking them to the wall.

Next came the birdhouses I had painted earlier. Using a small tap light, I turned one of the birdhouses into a nightlight (thank you, Pinterest). Its the perfect amount of light to peek in at night without disturbing her. An eye hook on the birdhouse and a small mug hook on the wall keeps it in place as its turned on and off.

Finally, I hung letters to spell out baby girl's name, which is....

Ginny. Well, Virginia Fay, but we'll call her Ginny for short. We fell in love with the name Virginia when we first considered it; its classic and simple, but still unique. It matches well with Charles and has a cute nickname to boot. Fay is borrowed from J's late Grandmother. She was a wonderful, sweet woman and we're happy to carry on her name.

Paint, supplies, scrapbook paper, birdhouses, and letters, total cost = $30.

Lantern

I wanted to buy one of those big fancy lights from IKEA, but the closest store is a few hours away and they are crazy expensive. Instead, I bought a plain paper lantern and a few boxes of rose petals (found in the wedding section at Michael's). This project ended up being a little more expensive than I first anticipated, but still cheaper than a $60 IKEA light. Total cost = $25.

In a spiral pattern, I hot glued the petals around and around the whole lantern. After a few rows, I realized that the petals were very wrinkled from being in the package. Unfortunately, I ended up ironing the petals to make them lay and glue flat. It was worth it to make it look right, but I don't think I'll ever be making one of these again.

Odds and Ends

We have gotten some other odds and ends for the room to keep with the bird/nature/pink/girly theme.

The chicken wire baskets were $3 each at Hobby Lobby and the books are my collection of different version of Alice in Wonderland (yes, I really own that many versions). Since taking this picture, I've also bought a pretty white vase ($1 at thrift) that I plan to fill with a big bouquet of fake flowers to give the dresser decor some height.

Pink pig! Its the first thing we purchased after finding out we were having a girl. This time around we went with Breathable Bumpers for look and safety. Fortunately, I found this set, in the exact color I was looking for, at the consignment shop for $5. SCORE! The white frame and V are wood and scrapbook paper from Michael's. With a 40% off coupon, the frame came to $4. 

The To Do List

Ah, the dreaded to do list. There isn't a ton left to do, but it'll definitely take some time. Hopefully, I can take advantage of the next few days off work and knock a few things off the list.

• Paint thrift store picture frames
• Make art for frames
• Hang frames
• Make growth chart
• Sew quilt
• Storage for shelves above changing table
• Find inexpensive throw rug
• Unpack and clean infant toys
• Organize cloth diaper stash
• Buy/arrange flowers for dresser
• Hang coat rack
• Make bird mobile

Okay...a few more things than I thought. Its okay! Most of these are quick projects that I already have the supplies for. Now to find the motivation and time.... Hmm...

14 weeks to go!