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Abstract Nature Nursery

We are big DIYers and over the last few years, have DIYed a lot of the renovation on our 1960s house. When we found out we were expecting our first child, I knew I wanted to do something fun and special with her nursery. Before we got to the fun stuff like decorating however, the husband did a bunch of research on some bones-work on areas he wanted to improve on the room (things like removing the popcorn ceiling, adding sound-dampening measures to the room etc) and he got to work!
We were gifted a dresser from some friends that had used it with both their kids, so we knew it would be a great project to refresh for our own nursery!
Then, after all that work, it was finally my turn to have fun with designing and painting the nursery (at 33 weeks pregnant too!!)
While I love “themed” rooms and have done my fair share of them in the past, I wanted to design something that would be easy to buy accessories/items for, and not box ourselves into a corner with a too-specific theme. I also wanted to try to design something that in 3-5 years from now, she might still enjoy having as her room.
We are big gardening/nature people, and we also love the feel of mid-century-modern decor, so I took those areas of interest and loosely designed the room around them. I did a combination of MCM and plant shapes for the mural, picked a warm color scheme (most of our house is a combination of warm yellow/green/brown colors as well) and carried that theme throughout the room, by designing and painting some art and unfinished wood decor items to tie the room together!
We’re thrilled with the end result, and it’s been so easy to add items to the nursery, as the colors I used for the mural are very common to find in crib sheets, changing pad covers, baby clothes, stuffed animals etc.
Here’s all the DIY work we did before decorating the nursery
Here’s what we did to turn an old dresser into a modern-looking changing table
Here’s some behind-the-scenes pics on the nursery mural I designed and painted

Where the Wild Thing Sleeps

The entire room is inspired by the Maurice Sendak book, “Where the Wild Things Are”. I wanted my son to have a space he can grow with, encourages his imagination, play, adventure, and of course, reading! Nothing encapsulates all those things more than the childhood book that I grew up with, “Where the Wild Things Are”.
My family and friends helped bring my vision to life with my mom making our son’s name, “Mac” above the closet using pages from the book and my Aunt, cutting out the silhouettes of the iconic characters. The mural was done by my very talented friend, Amber Bambler, https://www.amberbambler.com/, which really brought the room together and brought a coziness that one can only find through love and imagination.
My biggest piece of advice is to incorporate use of color, the old with the new, and try to put your own special touches from your childhood into the nursery. Have fun with your design and don’t be afraid to chose bold color choices!

Campbell’s It’s A Small World DIY Nursery

“It’s a world of laughter, a world of tears.  It’s a world of hopes and a world of fears.  There’s so much that we share, that it’s time we’re aware…it’s a small world after all!  There is just one moon and one golden sun, but a smile means friendship to everyone.  Though the oceans are wide and the mountains divide, it’s a small world after all!”
We LOVE disney world and are annual passholders…therefore we love it’s a small world!  It’s such a special ride to me.  I rode it as a little girl too!  For a few years now I’ve wanted to do our nursery in this theme and finally got to do so.  I wanted it to look very much like the ride–and my favorite artist, Mary Blair’s beautiful geometric designs on the ride and her ride concept art.  I knew I wanted lots of gold and white, but it took me a long time to figure out what other colors I wanted to add.  I was very close to doing just golds, silvers, and white like the ride queue at Disney World, but I decided to throw out the silver and add corals, pinks, and mint–still nodding to the tons of gold and white and glitter found on the ride :)
The geometric prints are my absolute fave part of this beautiful ride and concept art.  I knew I wanted a WHOLE wall…it took me 4.5 days and LOTS of painters tape…but I did the focal wall by hand.  I also added touches of gold glitter papers here and there as some of the shapes.  I also painted a lot of the shapes by hand.
Instead of going through each little detail, please note all the products and product links on the right side of the screen!
Made by me and not included in links:
clock face
buildings
feature wall
dresser (painted by friend)
lamp shade
several of the arts above the dresser (“2”, circles, one golden sun, happiest cruise, world of hopes, etc)
 
Couldn’t find a link for:
the round coral pillow in the chair :)  I think it’s from the At Home store!
The white flokati rugs I taped together from Homgoods :)
 
I knew I wanted a gallery wall–so I made lots of things and collected lots of items as well!  One of my fave things on that wall above the coral dresser (my childhood dresser painted by my friend and face-lifted with new hardware) is the gold heart with the hollywood lights.  Those lights remind me so much of the lights on the ride!
My fave thing besides the feature wall is probably the clock face.  I knew for a long time I wanted this above the crib, and I needed it to be light in case it fell randomly–at first it was going to be wood!  I changed my mind and had a local sign shop cut me a solid white circle from foam board and then I used glitter paper and hot glue to make the face.  I also did this with the large buildings (that look like the ride!) on the adjacent wall.  I originally had more buildings but took some out so it wouldn’t look too busy over there.
I also knew I wanted hot air balloons as a nod to the ending of the ride :)
I couldn’t find a cheap flokati WHITE rug (all I could find was tons of ivory!) so I found two small ones at Homegoods and literally duct-taped them together on the back :D
This entire nursery, all the furniture, decor, paint, etc–was probably around $1200.  I try to stay cheap!
This nursery is a dream come true for me and really special :)  The ride and words to the song are precious–promoting world peace and trying to get us all to relate to one another and see that we really aren’t so different after all!  I also love all the cultures in the ride and everything the kids can learn about world geography–it’s so fun!
Thank you for viewing our nursery!  I hope you like it :)