Operation Baby Shower – The Nursery
What is Operation Baby Shower? It is a charity event my friend Linda Millimaki is part of that throws a baby shower for all the couples on our local military base. Linda is the Director of Operation America Cares. They send care packages to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Over 7000 packages have been sent from her home in 3 years. She gives of herself to this charity like no other, she is such an amazing woman! I have seen her house full of care packages and it is astonishing to see the work that goes into getting those packages out. It is such a huge undertaking, but she will tell you that her reward is in the smile it puts on the soldiers faces and the endless thank yous when they get a one of her packages. Truly inspiring.
For me personally, I can not express my gratitude enough for the men and women of this great country who dedicate and sacrifice their lives for our freedom. I asked Linda if I could offer my design services as a donation for the Operation Baby Shower, a little something from me to give back to our military.
The couple that won my services are from Minnesota and are stationed here in Oceanside, the sweetest people you ever met. They are having a baby boy in September, and his name is going to be Noah.
Listen To The Mustn’ts sign
I wanted to do a custom sign for the nursery I am working on, so I asked the mom-to-be if she had a favorite saying or poem she loved. She sent me the poem, “Listen to the Mustnt’s by Shel Siverstein. I was a little intimidated to do a poem, but I couldn’t go back and tell her “oh, sorry, there is a word limit on what you can have as your favorite because I have never done one that long” lol
I used an old chicken coop crate lid that I found at Architectural Salvage in San Diego. Which of course made it even more difficult since it has spaces in between the wood. Yeah, I like to make things as difficult as possible when I am doing something I have never done. So I took it really slow figuring it out on my silhouette program, and printed it out in sections.
I used turquoise on the main words to tie in with the inspiration picture I am using in the room.
The sign wasn’t easy with all those words, but it is done and ready for the room.
Linking up to
Amanda at Serenity Now Weekend Bloggy Reading
Angie’s Create & Inspire Party
Gail’s Catch as Catch Can
Amy’s Saturday Seven Party
Turquoise and Navy Nursery
I am working on a turquoise and navy nursery for a couple in the military. Designing this nursery stems from when I donated a gift certificate for my design services for the charity Operation Baby Shower. It is for our local military base, Camp Pendelton in Oceanside. The young couple that won the gift certificate are super duper sweet and are having their first son, Noah in September.
I showed them this picture by Carl Christensen and they loved it. It was my starting point for the nursery.
I knew they wanted to use navy in the room, so I needed to figure out how to marry the turquoise color in the picture with navy. After a little research on Pinterest, I fell in love with the navy and turquoise combination
I also used the web site Design Seeds to pull together color combinations. You put in your colors and it gives you a beautiful color palette with a picture
Since my inspiration picture has a lot of brown in it, and their crib is brown I also made a palette with browns and turquoise
In the end, I came up with this design incorporating gray, navy, turquoise and brown
The blue chair is child size that will have the Ikea shelves above it for a reading area. The poem is by Shel Silverstein, a favorite of the mom-to-be that I am going to make into a sign for the room.
Nursery progress
Well, my daughter Shannon hasn’t had her baby yet, but her due date is July 22nd and so little Carter will be coming soon! We are on our last leg of finishing up the nursery. We are still waiting on the roman shade {I choose not to sew it and we hired a professional to do the work} The one thing I did sew though was the crib skirt
It is Dwell Studio’s Zoo Pals Blue Fabric. I didn’t have a pattern, so I just winged it, {well kind of, I read tons of tutorials on how other people did it and then went from there} I think it turned out pretty darn good for a novice sewer. {just don’t look TOO close and we are good}
I haven’t taken any good pictures of the whole room yet, but you can see how it ties in with the ottoman in the room that I had done a couple of months ago
{isn’t that bear so cute! Shannon got it as a gift from her Aunt}
We kept the “carter” letters I used at Shannon’s shower, and put them above the changing table dresser. Shannon just re-vamped them with scrapbook paper that matched the room. {she has a lot of time on her hands being in the waiting mode and not working, she is getting kind of cre8tive which makes me happy!} We used the 3m velcro picture hooks to hang them. I highly recommend these for this type of project. Super easy to use and you don’t put a ton of holes in the wall trying to get them to hang perfect. Plus they come off easily when you want to take them down.
I’ll have some oil and vinegar with that dresser
I finally have the dresser done for the nursery. Of course I have to give all the credit to Marian of Miss Mustard Seed. I had recently emailed her with some pictures and asked if she knew any tricks to get out water stains and scratches. Well of course she did! And you won’t believe what it was…oil and vinegar. What you say? Oil and vinegar? Yep, and it worked like a charm, that woman is amazing.
Here is the dresser as it was given to us, it is beautiful piece, but just needed some TLC to bring it back to life. I love the fret work on the front and the curvy sides.
I of course thought I could hand sand it and then put a wax on it and be done. But that is never the way it goes right? These were my problem areas
This spot on the side panel
Scratches on the top
Water spots on the bottom drawer.
Marian said I needed to bite the bullet and sand it down with my sander, so I did. Then I went to her blog page for her secret recipe
Nursery Inspiration & Progress
My daughter and son-n-law asked me to help them design their nursery. Once they found out they were having a boy it was time to look for inspiration for the room. I am not into “themed” rooms, and thank goodness neither is my daughter. So I was trying to help her find some items that she liked and bring them all together without looking “themed”.
I first was showing my daughter all the beautiful pictures out in blog land of the board and batten that everyone is doing. Like this one
image from here
And of course she feel in love with it. Then I started thinking…which I really should of thought of before I opened my big mouth and started showing my daughter the board and batten. They just put brand new baseboards in when they did their renovation 6 months ago, and those would have to be re-done if not replaced. Plus, this room doesn’t have a closet in it, and for now they are going to forgo putting one in since a baby really only needs an armoire for the first couple of years. So if we put board and batten up now even replacing the baseboards, it would have to be torn down for the future closet. So board and batten wasn’t such a good idea, oops.
Now I had to come up with a plan “b”
I saw these two images on Potterybarnkids and an idea came to me
