Yuki’s Woodland Nursery

Description

We are expecting our first child and it's a girl. We just moved into an apartment with a second bedroom and we were thrilled that we would be able to decorate a nursery. Crafting is a hobby of mine so I definitely knew I wanted to take a very DIY/hands-on approach to designing and decorating our baby's room, while staying on a budget. I think our style and personality are reflected here. Hope you like it!

Design Inspiration

Nature, fabric, and a small budget

Decorating Style

Simple, playful, creative and bright

Project Details

My partner and I live in an apartment where we cannot paint the walls.  They are a bare white, so we knew that removable wall decals would be the way to go.  While there are some amazingly cute wall decals for sale out there, they can be a bit pricey, so I searched online for alternatives.  I found that you can use fabric to make wall decals at this blog.

This seemed perfect - I could choose whatever fabric I wanted, whatever shape or image I wanted and use just corn starch and water to create a completely non-toxic and removable wall decal.  We are really into woodland creatures right now, so I made a large tree, birds, a deer, rabbit, squirrel and a couple butterflies.

Almost alll the furniture in the room was handed down to us - the crib, rocker, changing table, bookshelf, storage cabinet and rug.  The only piece of furniture we bought was the blue-green dresser which we got at a thrift store for about $50.  It is a beautiful old piece with a couple missing knobs, and it has such character.  It became one of the pieces that inspired the rustic feel of the room.

I made the bird mobiles using a pattern and idea from the Spool website.  I had collected the sticks on a recent roadtrip up the California/Oregon coast and made the birds with fabric from Spool.  It was assembled using small eyehooks and nylon fishing wire.

We are having a girl, but are not very fond of the color pink.  We chose yellow, orange and gray with a splash of teal as our colors.  Using that palette, I collected fabrics to make a quilt, floor playmat, bunting (hanging flags), curtains, crib skirt, tag blanket and reupholster the rocker.

Instead of splurging on a crib bedding set (which I was extremely tempted to do), we decided to get an organic natural colored sheet and ecru crib bumper and just accent the crib with the handmade quilt and skirt.

I also bought wooden bird houses from the $1 bin at Joann's Fabrics and painted them with acrylic paint to match our color theme.  Another cheap decorating project was a series of framed postcards.  I bought the postcards from a gift store in Portland, OR on our roadtrip and bought cheap unfinished frames from Ikea (3 for $2).  I painted these also with acrylic paint - brown with white edges for a distressed, antique look.  I found some adorable ABC cards at Michael's Arts & Crafts which I hung above the changing table with some ribbon and tiny clothespins.

Every part of this room was put together with a lot of thought and love.  I hope that our daughter will be able to enjoy this room soon, but so far it has been a challenging and rewarding project for me and a room that I love being in.

Favorite Items

The wall decals.  I love that they give the room a lot of character.  I also love that I can take them down, rearrange or add new ones whenever I feel like it!

Advice

Be creative and use your resources!  I love to search the web for creative, fun, and cheap DIY ideas and that is where most of the projects for this room came from.

Go used!  Hand-me-downs, thrift stores, garage sales and craigslist - reusing items is good for the environment and with a little bit of love, used items can make great additions to your room, no matter the style.