Nursery DIY

I love, love, love decorating. When I decided to become a foster parent I became really excited to prepare a nursery (I call it the baby room more so than a nursery) in the house. I searched on Pinterest for ideas and read many blogs regarding ways to prepare a home and more specifically a room for a child in foster care. I knew I wanted to go with a gender neutral theme and keep it very soft and calming. I love the color gray on walls as it reflects natural light and can brighten a room as well as maintain a feeling of calm. Since I knew I wanted gray on the walls, I began my search for furniture. I looked on Craigslist and FB selling walls where I found a crib ($60), a Pottery Barn changing table ($40), and a rocking chair (free, I love those freebies)! I happened upon a gallon of black paint at Lowe's for $9 that I was using to re-do corn-hole boards so I decided to paint all the furniture black to match (prior to painting the furniture I made sure it was safe and also read up on how to seal furniture appropriately so that it would not harm the child).
Using the same paint, I planned on adding a stripe on one of the walls and then use a soft green, teal, or yellow to add smaller stripes. When I began reading how to paint stripes on a wall and learned how tedious it was going to be, I started to get anxious. I love to craft, but if you look at many of the things I create, they are not exactly perfect and I knew if I added a stripe that had a slight angle it would bother me. I nixed the idea and began strolling through Pinterest. I almost immediately became inspired to create a baby room with a theme from one of my favorite places to visit: NYC! I found a NYC skyline and knew I could easily paint it on the wall better than a perfect/even stripe. From there, my theme soared. There are not many NYC themed baby rooms out there so I used some things I found on Pinterest (like this awesome ABC print which I hand created) and thought of some additional details on my own. I love how this room turned out and it is definitely my favorite room I have ever decorated.

Found these awesome marquee letters at a local craft store helping to bring Broadway into the room.

Amazon has all kinds of great books, I searched for NYC themed children's books and found many. The book on the far right (Little Miss Liberty), I have owned for years, using in a summer program for children at a book store. When contemplating whether or not I should really do a NYC theme I happened upon the book in the middle (The Dancing Clock) at a store and knew that was my answer.

I found a print on Pinterest just like this displaying the NYC subway system as an alphabet and recreated it using card stock and my wonderful Cricut!

The changing table used to be white with pink baskets from Pottery Barn, I painted it black and spray painted the basket yellow to incorporate NYC taxis into the room. The rocking chair came from a friend. Again it was white with blue cushions so I re-painted and added new fabric to match the rooms colors. I created the apple pillow from some left over fabric. The wall print above the rocking chair was one of the very first things I purchased for the nursery. It is from Natterdoodle (see photo below for link to website and what it looks like).

The wonderful hand painted skyline! My favorite skyline in all of the USA. I love that is also incorporates One World Trade building. I used a projector to draw the skyline on the wall and then painted using two coats of black paint.

To add some childish items to the room, I found a print on Pinterest by the artist Julian Montague and was inspired to create my own using PicMonkey. I also created a Taxi print using the same website. The apple I found at Hobby Lobby and spray painted to create a "big apple." The Statue of Liberty came from my Great-Grandmother (whom also loved NYC). I purchased the Empire State Building from Amazon.

I love that I was able to incorporate this child's high chair into the room. When I was young, I used to shop with my Great-Grandmother at antique stores. One day when shopping I saw this high chair and told my grandmother that I had to have it. She purchased it and painted it white, it then stayed in her house until she passed a few years ago and I acquired it. Now it is a perfect book shelf for all the awesome children's books I have. 

This is the print located above the rocking chair. I purchased it from Natterdoodle. I fell in love when I saw it and knew it had to go into the baby room. Check back later for a blog post regarding this beautiful print.

To add "big apples" and to have a mobile NYC themed, I made my own. I hand cut and sewed felt apples, hanging them from a cross stitch hoop using fishing wire. 

I make baby blankets and if you follow me on Instagram, you know this. I scoured all over the internet looking for NYC themed fabric. It took me forever to find exactly what I was looking for and thank goodness for Etsy! I came across a little smaller than a yard worth of scrap fabric. 

This past December when the room was almost complete I went to NYC with my sisters. Of course, I had to pick up some items (including this teddy bear) to add to the room. 

Since I didn't know what age I was getting when applying for foster care I decided to keep a twin bed in the room. The colors already matched and I thought it would help add storage. I bought the 5th Ave street sign from a store in NYC while visiting and found this beautiful poster of the Brooklyn Bridge from Michaels. I spray painted the lamp to match, found a shade at At Home and created the age blocks to use for pictures.