Nursery Craftery

Ernesto and I have some serious disagreements on nursery style.  First, I wanted all neutrals.  Lots of beige-y creams and shades of white.  Ernesto said we would have a depressed, unstimulated baby.  He wanted BRIGHT colors and stripes and shapes.  So I compromised and said we could go for a selection of bright colors, without all the stripes and shapes everywhere.  BUT, he also wants elaborate murals on the walls.  An ocean scene, a safari scene, etc. I am unwilling to go as far as the mural.  So I was frozen for quite some time, reluctant to take action because we hadn't reached an agreement.  I finally decided to break the impasse by saying we can add murals later if we still want them.  :-P  Hopefully not, though.

So, first off I made this mobile for above the crib.  The blue paint on it is what will go on the walls, and the magenta is what I used on the curtains.  The yellow is destined for whatever crib I find on Craigslist.  Is that a lot of colors? Yes. I might need to buy some stiffer wire for this project.  I just used what I had lying around, and it's a little...limp.  The string it's hanging from is just a placeholder so I could take a picture of it.  What do you think I should use?  Twine?  Tiny chain with s-hooks?

This isn't our nursery, but an example of the color that's going on the wall, Valspar's Aqua Glo.  It can appear a lot darker/lighter depending on the lighting.  I'm waiting on a warm day when it's not raining to paint.

And here we have the awesome curtains I made.  I already have some white curtains from Ikea that I could have used, but they're fairly translucent.  So for slightly superior light-blocking ability (and affordability), I got two drop cloths from Lowe's.  They're more of a natural, un-dyed fiber color, which is fine by me.  I saw this tutorial on making these curtains, but the girl bought her stencil online, and it costs more than $50, which totally ruins my attempt at saving some money.  So I made the stencil myself.  Hobby Lobby has some great clear acetate for stencil-making, and in precisely the dimensions I needed (!!). With my coupon, the pack of 6 stencil sheets cost less than $2.  Oh, yes.  After going through the process of making the stencil, I would never recommend you do it yourself.  Cutting out the design with an x-acto knife was rather painstaking, and I don't normally mind a little bit of tedious work.  If the design had been simpler or with straighter, more geometric lines, I would do it again.  But screw ikat.  That is nothing but tiny, difficult little wiggles to maneuver around, which of course were all too small to really appear after actually using the stencil.  This color is supposed to be magenta, but sadly looks more red.  I'm hoping for it to balance out all the blue on the walls.

Oh, I also need a large, tall work table in my life.  I think I spend half of my life bent over large projects on the floor.  It's not so bad when the floor is carpeted, but because of the paint I was working on the cold, linoleum floor in our basement, so that was uncomfortable.  The back pain I have in a regular day (thanks, pregnancy) sort of quadrupled the unpleasantness of all the bending-on-knees.  Maybe post-pregnancy I'll be able to return to bending over projects on the floor without complaint. :-P  Also, do you spy that couch in the background?  It's one of my most proud Craigslist finds, which I will share with pride later.

Unrelated to any craftery, here is my birthday present from Dad!  Thanks, Dad!  It's a lovely, well-reviewed, 16" Greenworks electric mower.  I really hate the loud noise of mowing and trying to pull endlessly on that thing to start it (yes, I know to prime it).  I considered the manual push mowers, but the lazy person inside me said, "Ehhhhh...."  This is corded, because I don't quite trust batteries that cost that much, yet.  So, now I can't wait until our lawn needs to be mowed!  Look at that mower, isn't it beautiful?  So green....