Owl Love You Forever...

This weekend was quite productive on the baby front. Not as restful as it probably should have been, but ah. I figure that will be my life from about now on. First thing we did was Saturday my mom and I went down to Gastonia (about a 45 minute drive) to the Costco of the fabric world in this area called MaryJo's. It's a legend in these here parts. If MaryJo's doesn't carry it, it almost definitely doesn't exist. (Well, except for last summer when I was looking for netting to make a birdcage veil for a bride. They weren't carrying it at the time but that's because it had fallen out of style and then suddenly popped up in all the wedding magz that summer and MaryJo's didn't have enough time to contact a supplier to stock it. But unlike the other fabric store I called who thought I was asking for water from a turnip, the lady at Mary Jo's did in fact know what I was talking about and lamented her inability to get it in stock in time.)

I've known for a while that I wanted to make my own bedding set for Lily's nursery. See... bedding sets usually come with at least four things. A crib bumper which has arguably been associated with an increased risk of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), a quilt which can't be used in the crib for many months also due to an increased risk of SIDS, a crib skirt, and a crib sheet. The only things we'd really be using would be the crib skirt and sheet which unfortunately are usually the duller, less interesting elements of the set. The rockstars are usually the bumper and quilt as seen below.

source

With only a quick bit of research I was able to find some awesome tutorials for making your own crib skirt and also found out that a lot of people are deciding to forgo the traditional sets in favor of making their own. For instance here's a tutorial from the great decorating/remodeling/diy'ing bloggers Young House Love. And here's a great video from Project Nursery on making the crib skirt the focal point of the design. And for those who just can't quite visualize it... here's an example of an awesome bumperless/quiltless crib.

image via Project Nusery

I should also probably back up a minute and tell you that we decided a while ago to get this crib from IKEA.

I know it doesn't look like much but it comes very highly rated by all the "experts" for safety and value and gives me basically a modern, blank slate to work with as far as decorating.

In order to make this whole DIY nursery decor work, though, I had to find some inspiration in the form of some cool fabric, which brings us back to our weekend adventure to the fabric Mecca of the Charlotte area. I was actually amazed at how quickly mom and I found a pattern that we LOVED! And from then on we just kept comparing anything we found that we liked back to our favorite and amazingly we never did find anything that we liked as much as our first fav. So, by now I'm sure you're totally dying to see what it looks like. Well here it is...

I L.O.V.E it! It's whimsical yet modern, gender neutral, fun and playful and uses some of my favorite colors. I think what I'm going to do is make a basic crib skirt straight from the fabric. Then I'll make a valence and hang a black out shade or curtain behind it. I'll take the fabric to Babies R Us and register for sheets that coordinate with the colors, and then start working on cool wall decorations using the fabric. My biggest idea is to take the shape of the owls, cut out the shape from the fabric and then applique it onto a solid color fabric to make a scene... I'm thinking a mommy, daddy, and baby owl. Then I'll stretch the fabric on a square frame and mount it on the wall. Sort of like this...

or this..

I am also insistent that I will make my first quilt to put over the back of the rocky chair (since it can't go in the crib). I have a good idea of how I want it to look but haven't found a pattern that looks anything like it. So, I might be winging that one. I have the Quilting for Dummies book. Hopefully that will give me enough info to be able to make it up as I go along. :-) But really... would you have expected anything less from me.

So that's where we are on the nursery. Except that we can talk all day long about how to decorate it, but if I don't get off my fanny and get it and the guest room cleaned out then all the baby stuff is going to have to live in my living room where it currently is and I simply cannot take 4 more months of that!!