Girly (yet not too girly) Nursery Decor

It was a challenge......design the baby's room in a way that said "Welcome Home, Little Girl!" sans pastel pink, Disney Princess and ruffles galore. After a good 3 1/2 months of work, I think we may have succeeded.  Let's get into the nitty gritty..........

Frito checking out the lay of the land.

First off: The quilt. This as you know for those of you following my instagram/facebook was my first quilting project ever. The fabrics were collected from various places with Etsy being the main supplier. Echino was definitely a favorite for patterns. In fact, the underside of the quilt (which is obviously not pictured) features a black Echino animal print that will make another appearance as the chair upholstery. I probably spent about 70 dollars total on fabric (the Echino prints took up about $35 of that cost), thread, trim and batting. The hours that I put into this puppy though....I can't even begin to count up. 

Luckily from this angle, the flaws aren't visible 

The seating area! We decided to go with a futon in lieu of a rocker or nursing chair. One, I love sitting cross legged. Futons are glorious for this! Two, the futon gives us the ability to host an overnight guest during these early years. We don't have a dedicated guest room in a two bedroom home so this is it. I scored the side table at Goodwill for 9 dollars. Bam! Perfect! The lamp was something we had and ended up a perfect match. Our friend Paul made the beautiful wood shelf and when he moved, had no space to accomodate. He came by and installed it and I used the space to display some of my favorite toys from my childhood. The rug? We got a gift card for FAB.com from David's uncle and aunt. When we realized the color scheme of the room, we selected this beauty.

Cozy!

One thing I wanted to put into the baby's room was a small workspace for myself. A place to charge the laptop, store some writing materials and personal things. A desk was going to be just the addition I needed. After searching Craigslist for a few weeks, I came across this guy locally. I painted the knobs to match the walls and placed my supplies inside. The chair was a Pasadena flea market find which I recovered in the Echino animal print (a laminated version) I mentioned earlier. Somewhere on the blog there is a post about the chair but at the moment I am too lazy to link it up. The mirror was picked up down the street at a neighbors yard sale. The bookshelves...or shall I say spice racks.....are from IKEA. 4 bucks a piece. They are great as they promote literacy with the covers facing out. As a preschool teacher, I used to use rain gutters in the classroom to achieve this concept but they weren't too aesthetically pleasing. This spice rack idea was floating around some design blogs and I jumped on it!

Cute and colorful workspace for me!

We ordered the crib with some gift cards from JCP. The Jenny Lind style seemed to fit the look we were aiming for. The sombreros? I always needed a place to display part of my collection!

We ended up hitting Amazon for the matching changing table. Baskets were all found at Marshall's with the exception of one we had lying around the house. The ice cream print came from Shine Gallery at the Farmer's Market. It used to reside in the kitchen but it seemed appropriate to move to this new location. 

This beauty was a shower gift from my friend Genia. The colors are gorgeous. The yarn is amazingly soft. And most importantly....it is homemade. One of the most precious gifts received. I paired it up with a previous handmade blanket for the time being.

Some details: A little bit of family! The orange planter came from my grandparents' home. The little car toy is a hand me down from David's sister and niece.

All in all, I am really jazzed about the room thus far. We are still waiting for the mattress to arrive but for the most part we are finished. It took a lot of time, love and not as much money as I had anticipated with the hand me downs, garage sales and flea market finds. We had to go full price on the futon, crib and changer, but that is about it. I am finding myself sitting on the couch and just taking it all in waiting for the room to take on a life of its own once little girl arrives.........