Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Sweet Sydney's Nursery

Let's get you up to speed. I have this lovely friend, Sam, who was going to be due with her 2nd daughter, Sydney, sometime in mid July. Based on her early delivery with her first daughter, she was thinking Sydney would come around the beginning of July. God willing, we took some Coppola family pics to mark their last times as a family of three and my fellow mom friends and I shared a nice "Mom Day" together knowing that we'd have to give same some space once Sydney arrived. A few weeks ago, Aimee, Kelly, Sam and I were anticipating hanging out and revving up for the baby on the way and I'm sure Sam and Jeff were thrilled to share some final days with Livi before she became a big sister. Well, Miss Sydney had some very surprising plans of her own ...


Sweet Sydney was born on her daddy's birthday ... in Sam's 33rd week of pregnancy! Sam had already been in the hospital for a few days due to her water breaking and was completely relaxed on the phone describing to me how they are hoping Sydney will "stay in" for a few more weeks. To help out, I had Livi under my wing and one Monday, Jeff came by to pick her up. As soon as he got out of the car, he was on the phone with that, "ohmygodareyoukiddingmethisishappeningrightnow" kind of look on his face and he immediately confirmed that Sydney was, in fact, on her way! Impromptu sleepover with the girls!! God blessed the Coppola family with an extremely healthy girl. Even after being delivered very early, she had strong lungs and left the hospital not even two weeks after her delivery - miraculous :)

Now for the real bummer at hand, the nursery! Let's face it, we mom's often have an idea for our nursery, a very specific idea. And .. ideally .. we like that to be taken care of well before the baby's arrival. Sydney did not even give her mommy the opportunity to pick up a catalog, let alone decorate - c'mon girl! Knowing Sam's colors, I decided I had to do something about this and I had to act fast. I enlisted our friend Kelly to go on a shopping spree with me and we scoured the stores for DIY necessities!! Here is what I came up with for under $100 (I got a little excited and hardly batted an eye at cost because it was extremely doable on a budget!!)

When I think of embroidery hoops I imagine a woman, ages ago, prepping embroidery work for a pillow in her rocking chair while humming an old tune. Well, I have a seriously affordable and contemporary project for you! We did most of our shopping at Walmart so I had to work with these plastic hoops over wooden ones (which would have been so much easier to paint). I recommend finding an eco friendly spray paint such as Krylon's line. Since I was working with whites and baby pinks, I decided to spray paint the hoops white. 

1) Lay out newspaper, lay out your hoops, spray one side, wait for the necessary dry time and do another coat. Once dried, flip and do the other sides. I was on a bit of a time constraint and didn't spray the backs to some of these. 



2) I have never purchased fabric before nor have I ever done this project so I had absolutely no clue how much I would need so I simply made a point to find a few cute patterns in white and baby pink and showed the kind fabric cutter woman the hoops so she could place them over the fabric and cut what I needed. We went with a sweet polka dot print and lace in both colors. Once the hoops had dried, I put the fabric in and cut off the edges. They came out beautifully! Spend a few minutes working with where you'd like to place the hoops. I set them on the floor and tried a few different placements until I found something that worked best. At this point you an either take a photo of your placement and eyeball it on the wall, which is how I usually go about it OR you can be more precise and get a large piece of craft paper to set them on and mark the paper where you need to place a nail. You will them put this on the wall so that you'll know exactly where you can hammer your nails in. You would then tear down the paper once nails are in!


Now for the delightful pom poms! These were too cute and soooo easy to make. You will need fabric (again, I have no clue how much. I say get more so you don't run out and you could always use extra for something else in the room!), pins from the hardware store and styrofoam balls of various sizes. I picked 1 large ball and 2 smaller ones.

For the "poof" portion of the pom pom you need to fold as follows:
1) Cut fabric into circles, size doesn't matter
2) Fold circle in half
3) Fold in half a second time and the corner my hand is pinching is where the pin will go

You will notice in the bottom left portion of this photo where the pins are placed. By the end, I realized I could have spaced them out more and not so close together. Being my first time making this, I wasn't really sure how to go about it and was pinning pieces SUPER close. I ran out of fabric fast but used the leftovers from the hoop fabric as a filler. That worked out great to tie the two pieces, hoops and pom poms, together!

I really have to hand it to Sam's husband Jeff who let me swoop in and set up the nursery shortly before Sam would be coming home. It's not easy to let someone come do work in YOUR home but he trusted me and I was so grateful because this was so much fun to do. Here are the hoops in their new home.

This is another view of the nursery. If you look at the middle shelf of the changing table, you will notice a white metal tray with three pots in it. I found these in the craft area and they were too cute to pass up! They were meant to be custom painted for plants but thought they'd be a sweet touch. I believe they were just under $10.

Here are the pom poms in place above the crib. Excuse my terrible photo ..

Close up of pom poms.


Sam was very interested in a girly nursery with a slight shabby chic feel. She has a more classic taste but I think we were able to find a meeting of classic and contemporary with the minimalistic feel in the room.

Here are some other additions that could really round out this room! This adorable bookshelf can be found at Christmas Tree Shops.


This lamp can be found at Walmart for under $25.


I bought this for Sam's nursery (but it hadn't arrived yet) for about $12. 

So you see, if you're short on time but know your colors and taste it isn't impossible to create something for reasonable cost. Knowing how excited Sam was for Sydney's nursery well before Sydney decided to show up - I was glad to step in and make this happen, especially since every mother knows how full your hands get once there's a new baby at home in addition to a toddler! One of these days I'll have to share Olivia's room - hers is so fabulously done by her momma!

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