Baby Girl Nursery Reveal!

Hooray!  It's nursery reveal day!  I showed you the nursery plan way back in February.  Since then, I've been hard at work creating a pink, aqua and yellow themed nursery with flowers, butterflies and hot air balloons!  And it's finally finished so I can share it with you... come along for the tour.

First things first, I cleared the room of all the guest room furniture except the cherry shelf and dresser.  Then I painted the walls a pale peachy pink called "Baby Blush" by Valspar.

I left the white floral tie-back curtains that we had in here, but behind those I added blackout thermal shades from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  So if baby girl is sleeping, we can pull the shades and have near total darkness.  

My mom bought us the white Jenny Lind crib.  I love it!

The wooden rocking horse was Michael's when he was a boy.  His father built it for him and we are so happy to have it in our home for our children!  Isn't it precious?!

I made three different crib sheets and a pink floral crib skirt for the bedding.  The quilt over the side of the crib was handmade by my grandmother when I was a baby.  It has animals cross-stitched on each square.  :)  I'm so excited to display it in my daughter's nursery.  The stuffed elephant is Michael's from when he was a baby and the little lamb is mine. :) 

Over the crib I designed a gallery wall of embroidery hoop art and some prints.  The garland and hot air balloons are from my baby shower decorations.  I decided not to make the felt hot air balloon mobile since we already had these paper hot air balloons and clouds.   

I did the two embroidery hoops with a hot air balloon and our baby girl's name.  The 'little one' print is from Katie Daisy.  The G artwork is made with pink buttons that I just glued on some fabric and framed.

In the opposite corner I have my glider chair that we bought from Walmart.com.  It's quite comfy and I sit in here in the evenings and read.  The quilt on the back is from my friend, Andi.  And the pillow is from HomeGoods.  The blue knitted pouf ottoman is from Land of Nod.  It's very lightweight so when Georgia gets bigger she can move it around and play on it.  My nephews have already tried it out. :)  

I added a couple of side tables to fill in the space.  This round one with a pink tablecloth will give me somewhere to put my drink and kindle or whatever when I'm nursing.  The lamp is the same one from the guest room, I just painted it aqua.  The mirror is from our bedroom, and I repainted it white. :)  It's adorable in here!

The white side table is from Wayfair. I love how the spindle legs mirror the crib design.  On top of the table is a basket filled with burp cloths and a white noise machine.  The round boxes underneath have some toys and things in them.  But I'm thinking eventually I'll put a basket with books on that shelf.  

Papa built the cloud shelf for me.  It turned out quite cute! :)  It's styled to hold a stack of books.  And of course to tie in with the shelf, I hung some more hot air balloons and a paper cloud.  

On the wall next door are a couple of prints I found on Etsy.  

 The last wall has the changing table/dresser on it.  The cherry dresser and shelf we already had, and while I'd love for them to be white, I just couldn't bring myself to paint them.  Next to the dresser is a blue floral bin that I'm using as a laundry hamper.  I decided not to make the hanging laundry bag when I found this fabric bin.  

We have our changing station all set up on top.  The changing pad cover that I made has little hearts and ladybugs on it.  So cute!

We have lots of cute clothes tucked away in the drawers.

The shelf above was built by my brother over 10 years ago.  Right now it's just displaying photos and collectibles, but down the road I can see it full of books!  

The porcelain ballerina is mine from my childhood.  I paired it with a pair of tiny pink satin slippers.  Aren't they precious?

And last but not least, the closet is fully organized with shelving inside and a container system on the back of the door.  The container system is by Elfa from the Container Store.  I love it for storing all those little odds and ends that you need quick access to.  And someday when it's outlived its usefulness for baby, we can move it to the back of the pantry door.  :)

I added some shelving on the bottom of the closet and some storage bins.  The bottom row of bins are from Michael's and they have toys and books inside.  The middle row is from Target's new Pillowfort line.  I love these!  They have toys and bottles and extra diapers.  And the top row has a ballerina trunk which will one day be filled with dress up clothes, and a pink basket full of blankets.  Her clothes are organized by size with dividers that I bought on Etsy.  She has plenty of cute outfits!! :)

I am so excited to share our nursery with you.  And even more excited to welcome our baby girl home to her pink room in 6 short weeks!  We wouldn't be quite so well-supplied without the generosity of our friends and family.  Thanks to everyone for their love and support.  We can't wait to share our journey with all of you!

Springtime on the Deck

Greetings and Happy Spring!  I hope everyone had a Happy Mother's Day weekend.  We had our families over this weekend so it was high time that I cleaned up and decorated the deck for the season.  This is our first Spring on our new deck so I had fun adding flowers and hanging baskets!

Let's start on the bottom:

I added three plant hangers on the posts down here for some lovely pink flowers!  

 

Since I am almost a mommy (7 weeks to go!) some people gave me Mother's Day gifts!  How sweet!  This cyclamen was from my sister-in-law.  Thanks Debbie!

This arrangement was from my Mama.  :)

The hanging begonias are so pretty!

And some pink impatiens.  My favorite!

I fixed up my black planter upstairs with some leftover pansies and a few new things.  The top row from left is a nonstop begonia, lantana, and impatiens.

This lovely hanging basket of petunias was from my mother-in-law.  Thanks Mary!

 My centerpiece is a pink geranium, paired with blue lobelia and livingstone daisy succulent.

Now we're all set for some Springtime entertaining! ;)  Come visit!

I'll be back soon with the long-anticipated nursery reveal. :)  I showed you the plan way back in February, and now it's almost finished!  Wheee!

A Hot Air Balloon Baby Shower

Hello friends, it's been a while since I've checked in.  Pregnancy has certainly taken its toll on my productivity!  I'm a week into my third trimester, so only 11 weeks to go!  Which means I had better get the nursery finished (I mean started, haha!).  This past weekend my family had a baby shower for me, where I received lots of beautiful things for our new baby girl.  My sister and my mom tried to exclude me from all the planning and prep but since I am a party-obsessed control freak I forced my way into the project!  I did most of the decorations and I also made the cookie favors.  The jumping off point was the nursery theme-- hot air balloons and colors of pink, aqua and yellow.  My friend Nick designed the invitations for us.  He is a true graphic artist and drew all of the graphics himself, unlike some people we know (ahem.. me!).

The party was held at my mother's house.  The decorations followed the theme with paper hot air balloons in pastel shades and fluffy white clouds.  Pink and yellow flowers in the centerpieces completed the overall look.  Two of Mama's gifts for me were the gray glider chair and the white Jenny Lind crib.  They were set up in the main room and the presents filled the crib. :)  We decorated the bookshelf with my baby pictures.

I designed paper hot air balloon decorations using a tutorial I found on I am Momma, Hear me Roar.  I couldn't find striped double-sided cardstock so I printed my own stripes on pastel cardstock.  Then I cut out the hot air balloon shapes and sewed them down the center before unfolding them into a dimensional balloon shape.  I found a little box template online and printed it with basketweave and taped them together.  Then I hung the basket from the balloon with kite string.  We made some clouds using the same concept.  These were hung along with colorful pom poms.

Michael's mom shared some baby pictures of him, too, so we hung those on the banister.

For the centerpieces, I designed hot air balloon arrangements with helium balloons tethered with nets that I made from kite string.  The baskets we found in my mother's collection and filled with roses and daisies.  I think these turned out super cute!!

In the dining room we had the table filled with fruit and veggies, mini cheesecakes, sausage balls, ham biscuits and pasta salad.  On the buffet there were pink rose cupcakes and cream puffs.

Another centerpiece with a tiny basket of flowers! :)  

My sister made the scrumptious chocolate cupcakes (from scratch!) and yummy buttercream frosting.  She piped them with pink roses on top.  So pretty!  They are displayed on my pink Moser glass cake stand that I got from a friend a few years ago.  Any excuse to break out the pink cake stand!! :)

I made hot air balloon cookies for everyone to take home as a thank you.  It was my first time using royal icing to flood fill a cookie and I think they turned out pretty nicely!

After we had a little snack and some cake, we all settled in the living room to open the gifts.

I received an array of adorable baby things, some very useful baby supplies and equipment, and a beautiful quilt handmade by my friend in all the nursery colors.  Thanks Andi!  

My sister crocheted the baby a tiny hat with a flower. :)  Thanks Hannah!

After all the presents were opened, we made our way to the parlor for some crafting fun!  My sister bought lots of cute onesies for guests to decorate and she cut out tiny appliques for everyone to iron on the fronts.  We also had fabric markers for embellishing the onesies.  My brother-in-law Josh cut out and sanded a bunch of tiny wooden blocks for everyone to decorate with Sharpie markers.  We got a lot of cute designs.  I plan to seal the blocks with water based sealer so the designs don't get scratched off (eaten?) by the baby.

Another activity we had was "wishes for baby" for the guests to fill out.  I enjoyed reading everyone's responses, especially the kids who were so thoughtful and sweet. :)

Some of my favorites were:  "I hope you see the Disney castle."  "I hope you aren't afraid of Bandit."  "I hope you have red hair."  "I hope you learn to ride a horse," and "I hope you become as creative as your Mama."  I wish all of those things for her, too!  :)

Thanks to everyone for coming to the shower, for the wonderful gifts and the many thoughtful wishes and words of wisdom.  I am so lucky to have your love and support as we begin the journey into parenthood!  

And thank you to my photographer sister Hannah who forgot to be in a picture with me!  :)  

So now that the baby shower is past, you know what's next on my project radar... the nursery!  I will be back with progress reports as soon as there is some progress.  Aside from laundering clothes and blankets, I have made no progress. Haha!  I am hoping to start painting this weekend.  :)  Yippee!!

Stay tuned,