Nursery Progress

One of the reasons I was looking forward to finding out whether our little one would be a he or a she was so I could get started on the nursery.  I love decorating, so it is no surprise that I was excited to create a new room in our house for such a special reason.  I posted a couple of months ago that we had cleaned out our previous "office" for the would be nursery during one of Kevin's rare weekends off, and that we had found a dresser on Craig's List to refinish.  Well, that was as far as we got for several months, since we were waiting to find out what we were having.  I had planned on a neutral nursery all along, with some minor color differences, but Kevin envisioned a baseball themed room for a little boy, so we were in wait and see mode.  When we found out we were having a girl, I was thrilled to be able to go ahead with my planned nursery.  If you know me well, you may know that I love elephants, so an elephant themed nursery was in my mind long before we planned on starting a family.  Kevin's only request was that the room be colorful, he immediately rejected my original plan of having neutral gray walls with accent colors.  So between the two of us, our nursery plan looked like this:

- Elephant theme
- Colorful (preferably coordinating with the rug we already had in the room)
- Eco-Friendly and Safe
- On a budget

From that list, and lots and lots of research, pinterest browsing and searching fabric sites online, this is what we came up with!

The top two are the paint colors; Benjamin Moore's "Robin's Nest" for the walls and "Galapagos Blue" for the dresser.  I love love love the elephant fabric found here on spoonflower.com, and feel it was well worth the $18 a yard I spent on it!  The rest of the fabric I found on sale at fabric.com, and am very pleased with. (Fabric.com has a 100% satisfaction guarantee and although I haven't needed it, I have heard, fantastic customer service).  They are called "Remix Stripes Bermuda", Michael Miller "butterfly kisses kiss dot yellow" and Michael Miller "backyard baby samaras white".  I have plans to make curtains, a crib skirt, crib sheets (3), a changing pad cover, book slings and cushions for the rocking chair.  If I have enough time and fabric I would also love to make a baby quilt, blankets and a car seat cover, so we shall see.  So far I have ordered and received all the fabric, and made the crib skirt.

 I am very happy with how the skirt turned out (I followed this tutorial: sew4home.com).  I highly recommend the sew4home tutorials and plan on following a few more from their list of baby items.

Last thing, mostly because I spent a lot of time and effort researching and deciding; we got the baby mod modena crib from walmart.com.  I know, Walmart! but it was the most affordable crib that met my criteria for solid wood, relatively eco friendly and had non-toxic finishes.  We ordered the colgate eco classica III mattress from amazon.com, which is not 100% organic, but has several "green" certifications, was well reviewed, is eco "friendlier" and definitely safer as far as chemicals go without costing more than the mattress I sleep on.  Kevin had a difficult time stomaching the $200 price tag even then! "It only needs to support 30 pounds, how nice does it need to be?!" was his reaction.  Keep in mind he also thought a laundry basket would be a legitimate place for a baby to sleep .. I wish I was kidding.  Overall, I am very excited with how far the nursery has come, and I will keep you updated as I work on my possibly over-ambitious projects.