Mission Nursery: Complete.

We have been crazy busy around here lately. Too busy, in my opinion. Then again, who isn't?! With church callings, family, school, work, doctor appointments, holidays, and most of all, trying to finish up the nursery for Baby Claire! All while being 7 months pregnant, no doubt! Poor Josh has been put through the ringer... way too many days and nights spent in the garage stripping, sanding, and repainting furniture. I am happy to report that it was all worth it and the nursery is done!! 

We needed a new dresser, as our old one is occupied with clothes for our boys, and I had a vision of rescuing an old, lovable antique from Craigslist and giving it new life and purpose. Not to mention getting it on the cheap! Not so much. Turns out, people here know what that kind of stuff is worth, and we couldn't find anything that fit our criteria and wasn't completely unusable for under $600. We settled for haggling with this dude at an antique mall and got the little beauty above for a fair price. 

And so it began. Josh settled into that project (plus a few more...) and I picked up a few of my own:

In November I had my FIRST BABY SHOWER, EVER!! (Held over Veteran's Day weekend in Oklahoma) (A huge thank you to all those who came, especially my awesome friend, Morgan, who came all the way from Dallas!!) The fabulous ladies who put it on knew that I needed some fancy frames for a few craft projects I had in mind, and boy, did they deliver!! (Theresa, Laralyn, Chrissy, and Tiffany: I love and miss you all so much!!) You can see below as I get my craft on. The sign is obviously word art, and the beautiful pink towel on the table became an accent pillow later in the day. Come, I will show you pictures!

Sadly, the ones above are all the "before" shots I got. Oh, wait, there's this one... nevertheless, without further ado, I present, the finished product:

 Both of these are the view from the door. We painted the boys' old crib and glazed it. I finally got some new bedding (thanks for the gift card, Theresa and Lara!) It might seem really neutral for a mother of three boys about to have her first and  only girl. I wanted it that way. I was going for "Sweet" rather than "Cute". Something calming and not overdone. I think it works. At least I feel calm when I walk into it!

 Looking at the crib from the rocking chair's perspective. I L-O-V-E the way the button art turned out!! Super easy, too! And the delicate pink ornate frame really sets it off. (Inside the crib is the baby's moses basket. The very same one I used for both Sloan and Mason. (It fit in with the color scheme perfectly! (that might have been by design...))Wasn't sure where to put it until the big day, so it's sitting in the crib. If you don't have one, I HIGHLY recommend them for babies 0-6 months.)

My mural! I woke up one morning with this in my head. No joke. I searched the internet and found the exact vinyl tree I wanted, only problem that they didn't make them in a size big enough. I found others (naturally at Pottery Barn Kids for $450... um. No.) but they didn't come in the colors that I wanted. I knew it had to be painted, so I e-mailed my sister to have a vinyl stencil made for it (being super scared as I am to mess anything up...) but she was busy. I finally gritted my teeth, bought an overhead projector (old school, baby!) off Craigslist, and drew and hand-painted it on the wall. I think it looks pretty good! There are a couple of spots where the graphite shows through, but all-in-all, I am happy with the result. I even "carved" a little heart with the first and middle initials of each of my babies!

The dresser. You can scroll back up to the before shot, but I think that it turned out great! Josh stripped, sanded, painted, and glazed the whole thing and then we ordered pink crystal knobs from Hobby Lobby. The details in the woodworking set off by the glaze really make it delicate and feminine. Add a changing pad, and a basket of essentials, and I think that it's a perfect "grow with me" changing table. The bow holder above it was another of my DIY projects. It's a twin frame to the button art, just with chicken wire added to clip the bows to. As you can see, she already has quite the collection... it's a weakness of mine! Oh, and just so you know, I am aware that the bow holder is off-center. We did that on purpose so that I can order small canvases of our infant/sibling photo shoot to go there. 

There I go, using the old think-box!

My DIY pillows. I'm pretty proud, even if pillows are the easiest thing to make! I used leftover material from the frames for the tan one and the before pictured pink towel makes up the other one. I was looking for pre-made pillows at Home Goods after an OBGYN visit and couldn't find ANYTHING! I happened to walk through the bath section and came across some super-soft Ralph Lauren towels on the cheap in the perfect pink that I was looking for! Fate! They were super fun to make, though please note that if you intend to cut up a towel, it makes a MESS!! Mason was playing with the "pink snow" all morning! (I would have liked to paint the rocking chair to complete the set, but I received this as a Christmas gift when I was seven years old and couldn't bring myself to do it. Too many memories to change it.)

And there you have it. Our spare-time labor of love for the last two months. Now, we're just waiting for  our other "labor of love" to put in it. We are all so excited. The boys can hardly wait to see "Baby Claire" and talk of little else, as long as I am in sight, and my belly is suddenly community property for kisses, hugs, soft words, and rubbing. This poor little girl is in trouble; she's got three wonderfully doting and overprotective Big Brothers already. Heaven help the first boyfriend she tries to bring home...

Brooks and Baby Claire at 32 weeks, 2 days.