Nursery pt 2

So I mentioned yesterday that we created Tessa's room on a budget, which was kind of difficult but also a fun challenge! I tend to rise to a challenge, hence the cloth diapering after people said we were crazy. Now, I know Joel would have definitely allowed me to spend more, but I really wanted to try to accomplish this feat.

This first photo is the top of the armoire. I should mention that we got the armoire, the glider/ottoman, and a crib for Grandma Pam's house at a garage sale for $125. They used to belong to a teacher here in town whose children have outgrown them. It was a great deal, and we were able to verify the safety of the crib and get some gently used furniture! 

 The piggy bank is from my mom Grandma Pam, who somehow found a website that has customized and personalized things like this, so she was able to design it perfectly. The blue and pink frames were $.49 each from Ikea with scrapbook paper inside. Eventually there will be photos in the frames, but for now this was an easy decoration. The pink bottle is from uncle Marcus who brought it back from his adventure in Australia, and the candles/candlesticks were garage sale finds.

 The green lamp we got on sale at Target for $6 during their back to school sales. We also have a dimmer switch on the main light in the room that Grandpa Steve installed for us.

The valence was created by Grandma Laura and Great Grandma Judy. We were going to hang plain brown curtains here but the blinds work great at blocking out light so we wanted to keep those up. I found this fabric at Hobby Lobby and Judy said it would be pretty easy to create a valence. I am pretty clueless about sewing but she seemed to think it would be a piece of cake so I turned over the project to her and Laura and voila! 

These polka dots took up a large majority of the time and effort in this room. Since we couldn't paint the walls, we had to get creative on how to decorate so many white walls. I found some unfinished wooden circles in different sizes at Hobby Lobby on sale and some paint on clearance at Ace True Value that I thought would match our theme. I also bought some colored foam sheets and cut out circles and some packages of foam circles on sale also.

Although this project was very inexpensive at under 30 dollars, the real challenge was the time consuming annoyance of painting, cutting, and hanging every single circle. Grandma Pam came and helped hang the circles on the wall. We used double sided tape and foam tape to secure the circles to the wall. We'll probably need to put on a fresh coat of paint after we move out, but it'll work for the next couple of years!

I found this at Goodwill for $1.99. It used to be blue and have sailboats and sailboat hooks on it, so it just needed a couple coats of white paint and some fresh hooks, which I found on clearance at Target. The pictures inside are of our first date (October 3, 2001) and our program from our wedding with our wedding rings on them (January 3, 2009). Eventually they will be pictures of her at bath time, but those work for now!

This is Joel's pride and joy. These were made from wooden circles that I bought at Hobby Lobby on sale. Originally I tried to paint the circles, but it took way too many coats and just didn't look quite right. Then Joel found this scrapbook paper! He glued the paper to the wooden circles and then  cut around the paper to make a clean line. Then, he drilled a hole in the top for the ribbon. Grandpa Scot (PaPa) has some serious artistic ability so he drew the letters on some white 2" foam, cut them out, and glued them to the circles. Luckily he knows to make things the right sizes and the right angles and the right shapes so he took control of that part! Grandma Pam tied some cute little bows on top to hide the nail heads and BAM! Tessa's got her own personalized, hand crafted, name badge at the cost of glue, ribbon, paper, and a few wooden circles.

 
This shelving arrangement is a temporary thing, but fills the space until she comes. These, again, were Ikea frames filled with some scrapbook paper. After Tessa's born, we'll put a few keepsake items on these shelves where they are out of reach, and also a few photos of her and her new cousins.

 

 This is the glider/ottoman we got as part of the deal at the garage sale. We wanted to find some new cushions for it but they were not in the budget and we hated the idea of spending more than $100 on replacement cushions when the chair itself cost us a fraction of that. So, Great-Grandma Judy came through and took these home, scrubbed and brightened them up, and they look great now!

 Here is a shot of the entryway to her room. More polka dots and a picture holder that Joel picked out. Right now there are ultrasound photos in there, but there will be pictures of her and her visitors.

 This is our changing table. This was the first thing we purchased after finding out we were expecting. It was a fabulous Craigslist find at $20 and just needed a fresh paint job. One can of spray paint later, it looks brand new! We got the baskets on sale at Target and hold all her cloth diapers. You can see more about our decision to cloth diaper Here!

Above the changing table we have a mural-ish wall hanging. We found some adorable fabric at Hobby Lobby that was brown with blue, green, and pink polka dots. We put this in a white frame to add some color to the bare wall above the changing table. Then, Grandma Laura found a few more white frames that matched and the fabric in the colors that were in the big frame. So she put the fabric in the frames, added some fabric letters to a couple of them that say "I love Mommy" and "I love Daddy" and we hung those around the big mural. We added a clock on top so I can keep track of how long she eats and we fixed the bare wall problem!

 This is her bookshelf for now, although I'm sure it will grow very quickly as she gets books. It also serves as my feeding station so I have some of my supplies ready for nursing her. I'm sure we'll spend a lot of time in that chair between nursing, reading books, and snuggles before bed.

The only things we purchased new for this room was the crib, and that was a safety thing. But, we purchased it when it was on sale for almost $100 off the regular price, and we got free shipping and the mattress free with it, which would have been another $125. The small bookshelf, the baskets under the changing table, and the 3 wall shelves were also new, but on sale! Other than that, we got almost everything gently used, thrifted, or gifted! The beauty of the crib is that it converts to a toddler bed and then to a full size bed so she can use this piece of furniture as she grows up!