Stella's nursery

A lot of people have asked about Stella's nursery, so I wanted to let everyone in on some of my secrets.   Most of my inspiration came from Pinterest.  Sure, I had an idea of what I wanted for her room, but Pinterest just helped finalize my thoughts.  I wish Pinterest had been around when I got engaged 4+ years ago. I don't know, maybe it was around, but I didn't know about it. It was my go-to resource for decorating Stella's nursery and definitely would have been helpful planning a wedding.  As many of you know, a nursery is never completed overnight, so some of the photographs have stuff everywhere as they were taken as we decorated.   

Even though we found out the sex of our baby, I wanted something mostly gender-neutral for the nursery. A lot of my big items (stroller, carseat, diaper bag, etc) are gender-neutral since we plan on having another baby in a few years and have our fingers crossed for a little boy.  I decided on The Very Hungry Caterpillar as a general theme for Stella's nursery. It was my favorite book as a child.  Wow, there is a ton TVHC stuff on Pinterest.   Like here, here and here. 

Sidebar. Not exactly nursery related, but too cute not to share.  One of my showers was TVHC themed and our friends put together this adorable-ness:

I wanted stripes, but not the usual vertical ones.  And again, we wanted to stick with a neutral color. What's more neutral than yellow when it comes to babies?  I saw this and knew it was exactly what I wanted.  My brother and his girlfriend came over one Sunday to help draw the lines and Donald and I painted the stripes that night. I must say, if you are going to go the horizontal stripe route, it's so much easier to measure out so you don't have to tape the ceiling & baseboards.  So we painted away.  The color we selected was Behr Roasted Corn in eggshell.

I've always enjoyed reading and I want Stella to have the same passion. Turns out, she does! She absolutely loves  when I read to her. She starts kicking and waving her arms around. She'll even "talk" while I read the words. It's so fun to watch her vivid enjoyment. She actually watches the pages as I turn them and when I move my lips. I could really go on and on about how cute it is when I read to her....but I won't.  Here's the inspiration and then our version:

I got these stick-able animal letters from a baby and kids consignment sale. The whole pack was $7 I think and it actually came with 2 sets of letters. I gave the other set to one of my teacher friends for her classroom. So basically, for $3.50, I have an educational and whimsical ABC border.  I was going to smack them around the book nook, but Donald actually suggested applying them as a border. Genius!  He got all mathematical and measured everything out.  I was still trying to divide 4 walls into 26 letters and he's up on the ladder making tiny pencil marks that were measured a certain number of inches apart to place them.   He's clearly the smarter one of the two.  

Oh, the fan is from Home Depot.  This isn't the exact fan, but it's very similar. Donald thought the white blades with the different colored flowers would be less busy since we have so much else going on. The blades are reversible with different colors and it also came with white flowers that you can pair up with the colored blades. 

I thought up this caterpillar all by myself.  It's just a few foam sheets, 2 purple pipe cleaners and circles cut from a leftover piece of yellow paper. I used a plastic Folgers coffee can lid (the black plastic lids that top the huge Costoc size cans/tubs) and an Exacto knife to cut the circles.  I just glued them together with a hot glue gun.  I free-handed the feet.  This isn't the greatest picture, but you get the general idea.  

Mr. Caterpillar now has a new home above the changing table to keep Miss Stella entertained. 

About 90% of the "art" we have on our walls in our home is something we have either taken (as in a photograph) or something someone has made for us.  We like the personal connection we have to it.  We wanted that for Stella's nursery as well. I asked some of the artists in the family to make something especially for Stella and her room that would not only be beautiful, but extremely thoughtful. Plus, she can have it forever.   

The piece on the left is a plaster of paris casting of my belly when I was about 37 weeks pregnant.  I met Kottavei at my prior place of employment. She is an amazing artist and she doesn't just cast pregnant tummies. She will cast hands, feet, booties, an itty bitty baby.  She suggested I have my body cast as a wedding gift.  I loved the idea.  So roughly three years ago I had a casting of my torso, hips and upper legs done.  We did a tree theme for a wedding and Kottavei incorporated it as well as our anniversary into the painting.  It's hanging in our room and I look at it everyday and think of our wedding day. 

 As you can see below, she painted a caterpillar and ladybugs (love them) and put Stella's name on it.  I thoroughly enjoyed being pregnant and knew I wanted to have that memory forever. I like that's it tangible and Stella will see what mommy's tummy looked like when she was in it.

For more info on casting yourself, go to sagebelly.

The purple painting in the middle was done by Donald's incredibly talented Aunt Janet. She made the caterpillar the "S" in Stella and also included fruit from the storybook.  

The painting on the right is a butterfly from cousin JP.  She also does amazing work and we were so happy she was able to find time in between work and her very hectic SCAD school schedule to paint something so special.  

The crib is on loan from my cousin, Terry. She used it with her two children and offered it to me to use for Stella. She hated the thought of a perfectly good crib sitting in the attic.  So I gladly took it off her hands.  I've always wanted a sleigh bed and a sleigh crib is just as good! 

I had the dust ruffle made by a lady back home who does alterations and sews for the family. Mrs. Pat also made my birdcage veil for my wedding.  I found polka dotted ribbon at Hobby Lobby and purchased it to make Stella's bow holder which you'll see below.  On a separate trip I realized they had fabric that matched. So I bought three yards and asked her to make the ruffle.  I couldn't find anything I truly liked so I went this route.  I decided to forgo the crib bumper for the same reason. Besides, you know what all those people say about bumpers.  Blah, blah, blah....  

I had an adorable hamper on my registry at Target, but it was almost $50. I thought that was insane for something that holds dirty clothes.  So I had Mrs. Pat also make the liner for the clothes hamper below.  That fabric was found in the clearance section at Hobby Lobby for $7 and the hamper was a $2 or $3 find from Goodwill.  Umm, $50 vs. $10?  $10 please!   This goes with the room better too.

Being a child of the 80's, I had a bow holder to hold bows such as this. Yes, that is a bow made from balloons. Stella does not have balloon bows, but she was given many beautiful bows by her Aunt Ginger.  So I made this personalized bow holder with her initials. Again, like Mr. Caterpillar, I came up with this idea all by myself.  I did not go out and by the letters all at once. They were collected randomly over many years. The "G" is from either Piggly Wiggly or Food Lion when they were remodeling. My mother acquired it randomly and gave it to me years ago. It's been in hibernation....until now.  It's weird seeing me and my daughter with the same initials.  

These two pieces of furniture below were also thrifty finds.  The TV stand (yes, Stella has a TV in her nursery. My husband's idea.) came from a furniture store that leases furniture to mainly businesses. I think we paid $15 or $20 for it.  The dresser/changing table was $50 at Goodwill. We found it last year the day after Thanksgiving and it was perfect.  The color we chose was Behr Fiji in semigloss.  The shelves are from Ikea, the framed butterfly  piece was a find at the Habitat for Humanity Restore in Atlanta.  The rug came from Goodwill during the Thanksgiving trip.  My mama spotted it.  

The lamp was one of my favorite purchases.  I found it at Hobby Lobby and was excited to use my 40% off coupon for it.  Stella means "star" so there are stars sprinkled throughout the nursery such as the personalized door hanger. My friend, Amanda made it at a sign painting party. She asked what colors I was doing the nursery in and then surprised me with it. Funny thing is, she didn't even know Stella meant "star", but picked this design.

I painted this sun for Stella. I copied the sun out of TVHC book and we put it next to the "You are my Sunshine" sign I ordered from Zulily.

My mama gave us this sign below. She saw it and thought of Stella and Donald.  The heart sign below was given to us at a shower. It reads, "A baby is a gift that touches our heart forever." It plays "Row, Row, Row your boat" and Stella loves for me to play it when I'm getting her dressed or changing her diaper.

We still have a few things to do.  We want to get a nice fluffy rug in place of the striped rug. Even with the rubber mat underneath, it still moves around a lot and it really doesn't offer any padding.  Now when we play, I put a quilt on the floor.  She'll be crawling soon & rolling all over the place so a soft place for her head to land will be nice.  Right now, she's mostly just flipping from her back to her belly, but when she starts going from the belly on to the back, she'll definitely need more padding for her noggin.  I'm waiting on pictures from Snapfish so we can fill the frames and the shadow box that's filled with her stuff from the hospital.  

I think Stella's nursery is so fun and colorful. I really hope she enjoys being in it when she gets older. I love the light in it and love spending time in it with her.  It was so fun finding things for her room while I was pregnant and imagining where I'd put them.  She is such a joy in our life.  Our little star.  "I don't know why people say 'you have a baby.' The baby has you."