Category Archives: Nursery

Handmade, DIY & Vintage Woodland Themed Nursery Reveal

Posted on February 6, 2014 by freshfrippery

I mostly finished the nursery months ago, but haven’t posted because there was one last piece of artwork I wanted to hang. A friend sent a beautiful handmade card that I framed, but I had very limited chances to hang it because hammering into the wall when the baby sleeps is not a good idea.

Most of the items in the room are handmade, modified or vintage, so that the baby could have a unique room (without too much expense).

Here is an overview of the room as you walk in.

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The rocking chair is vintage, and I made the chair cushions. I also made the toadstool footstool.

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The nightstand is from Ikea, the elephant hamper from Home Decorators, and the Carter’s Forest Friends lamp and blue baby box were gifts.

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I used decals from eBay on the door, closet doors and walls.

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The wall art was made by me to spell out my baby’s name.

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I made the fabric birds using scrap fabric. Originally, I had them all hanging on a large vine wreath, but it was so heavy I did not feel comfortable suspending it from the ceiling. I got the pattern from Spool Sewing.

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I made the tree stump ottoman, and should make a construction how-to post later on.

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It works triple-duty as a table, extra seating and hidden storage for toys.

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The cushion covers and button tree pillow were sewn by me. The Martha Stewart storage bench and fabric bins are from Home Decorators.

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The convertible crib with attached changing table and dresser are from Target. Later on, the crib parts reassemble into a toddler bed and full-size bed.

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I painted the drawer knobs with mushrooms.

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The laser-cut bamboo clock is from Decoylab and was used in my sewing room. If I was buying from them now I’d get the hedgehog clock for the nursery.

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I made the curtains and tiebacks from gnome fabric. I love the print, but the cotton wrinkles so easily.DSCN0042

I have a second set of green thermal curtains (purchased from Target and hemmed by me) so I can control the lighting in the room.

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The hot air balloons in the corner were another craft project of mine.

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The mushroom light switch plate cover was purchased from eBay. (Can you tell I really like mushrooms?)

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And finally, the card from my friend, which is made of different colors of paper glued to cardstock.

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Some Project Summaries:

Baby name wall art: https://freshfrippery.com/2013/12/20/baby-name-wall-art-for-the-nursery/

Rocking chair cushions: https://freshfrippery.com/2013/11/22/quick-cushions-for-a-vintage-rocking-chair/

Mushroom pouf (toadstool footstool): https://freshfrippery.com/2012/06/08/toadstool-footstool-mushroom-pouf/

Deer bench pillow covers: https://freshfrippery.com/2013/07/21/fabric-covers-for-storage-bench-cushions/

Button tree pillow: https://freshfrippery.com/2012/09/08/button-tree-pillow/

Hot air balloons: https://freshfrippery.com/2012/07/23/hot-air-balloons/

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Baby Name Wall Art for the Nursery

Posted on December 20, 2013 by freshfrippery

A full nursery reveal post will be up later, but for now I’d like to show you some wall art I made for my baby’s nursery. I wanted his name on the wall, but didn’t want to paint wooden letters.

The nursery is loosely based on a woodland theme, so I made the art to match.

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The gold frames are from the dollar store. I hot-glued dried preserved moss mats directly onto the glass, then hot-glued on the other materials.

The O is a bird’s nest with fake eggs.

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The T is a mushroom I made out of red wool felt and white linen.

ImageThe second T is cut out of birch bark.

ImageThe last O is made of sola wood flowers, which are wonderfully light-weight. I think I would like to use them for millinery sometime.

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The moss, nest, bark and flowers were purchased from Sav-on Crafts.

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Quick Cushions for a Vintage Rocking Chair

Posted on November 22, 2013 by freshfrippery

I have this green wooden rocking chair I bought from the Alameda Antiques Fair, 1-2 years ago.

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Now that I will be using it in the nursery and sitting in it a lot more I decided it needed some cushions. My original plan was to buy some padding and cute fabric and make a bottom and back cushion set.

Then I realized, I had materials on hand and didn’t need to spend anything. Free projects are my favorite!

I received a thick block of foam as padding material from an online purchase, and used a pocket-knife to carve off the corners to fit the chair. I also had a pillow that my mom made me back in high school, out of a rice sack. (She liked that it was “AA” brand and said it would remind me to get AA grades). The pillow followed me to college and grad school, and I like the idea of using something from my mom in the baby’s room.

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I was still planning to make new fabric covers for the cushions until I remembered I had some green, king-sized pillow cases in the closet. They came with my bedding set and I never used them because they were not as practical as plain, white pillow cases. Here’s a photo of one of them, with the foam block inside.

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After folding, tucking and stitching excess fabric underneath the cushions, I ended up with a pair of cushions that match the chair perfectly.

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Little Man Mustache Bash Themed Baby Shower

Posted on November 10, 2013 by freshfrippery

A few weeks ago I had my baby shower. The theme was mustaches! My sister and I made our own invitations, gift bags, party games, cupcake toppers and banner, with the help of some online printables.

We bought printable cardstock from Staples, which had little silver borders, and glued on little paper cut-outs of mustaches and bow ties from Etsy. Here’s a picture of the finished invitation (with a little card covering up my personal details).

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Our guests were greeted at the door by this sign, which you can get at the With a Grateful Prayer blog, along with some other neat printables from the mustache party she threw for a family member.

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Our food table was decorated by little rubber duckies with cute mustaches, that we got from Oriental Trading Company. We also put ducks, chocolates and mustache-shaped gummy candies into the goodie bags we gave each guest when they left.

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We got little white paper bags from Amazon for the treat bags, and printed out treat toppers that said “Little Man.” (You can get your own at Printabelle).

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We had a matching green and blue banner (also from Printabelle), and I cut the large mustaches free-hand out of black cardstock.

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The matching cake toppers were made by sticking printed squares or circles onto toothpicks with little mustache stickers.

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(We also had catered Mexican and Chinese food and leftovers for days).

We bought the mustache stickers at Oriental Trading, and they came in super handy! I ended up using them to also decorate the bingo game cards, prize gift bags and seal my thank-you card envelopes.

The bingo cards were made by customizing a word list and using the generator at Print-Bingo.

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We also had the guests guess celebrity mustaches. I made these cards on my computer but the graphic across the top is from the  With a Grateful Prayer blog.

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The mustache pictures I found by Googling. (They are John Waters, James Franco, Snidely Whiplash, Robert Downey Jr., Hulk Hogan, the Monopoly Man, Ryan Gosling, Salvador Dali, Jamie Hyneman, Borat, Ron Burgundy and Charlie Chaplin).

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We also had fun paper photobooth props, with different colored mustaches, lips, glasses and hats from Bebop Props.

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Craft Room Tour

Posted on August 25, 2013 by freshfrippery

I have been busy the past month dismantling my sewing room to turn it into a nursery. My fabric bins and other items are moving into a different room, that will turn into an office/craft space.

I took some pictures so I can remember what it looked like before.

cornerLook behind the cut for more pictures.

Read the rest of this entry →

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Fabric Covers for Storage Bench Cushions

Posted on July 21, 2013 by freshfrippery

This weekend I finished making fabric covers for my storage bench cushions.

ImageI got the Martha Stewart storage benches and bins from HomeDecorators.com during a sale last Thanksgiving, but thought the accompanying cushion on top was a little too plain. (It is the same beige color as the trimming on the fabric bins).

ImageThe cute deer fabric is from the Woodland Pals collection by Robert Kaufman. I purchased it at Stonemountain and Daughter in Berkeley.

I cheated by faking seams to minimize cutting. The edges you see are really one continuous piece of fabric pinched together and sewn on the blank side, instead of 2 pieces of fabric sewn together. This makes me look a little better at pattern-matching than I really am.

ImageBasically I ended up with a tube that slipped over the cushions, and then I tucked the edges in the same way you would wrapping paper on a present. The sides were then sewn down by hand.

This was a quick project that required only 2 yards of fabric, and I had a gift card, so the total cost was $0 out of pocket.

Right now the bins hold sewing patterns and other things, but will make a great reading nook and toy storage for children later. =)

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