Making Room for Baby - Part I

As I've mentioned before, Jon and I decided to renew our one-bedroom apartment lease even with the arrival of our baby boy this December... which means a shared room situation for at least a couple of months. Of course I'm taking this as an excuse for projects and getting creative with fitting baby Nathan into our lives and small apartment. Although we still have a few months to go, I'm a believer that it's never to early to start planning and getting things ready ahead of time, rather than waiting til the last minute.

I started off with the measurements of a simple IKEA crib and figuring out that shifting our dresser over  about a foot (and we have plenty of room to do so) makes room for a crib in the corner of our room where my tall mirror currently stands. I'm also going to plop a changing pad on top of the dresser to turn it into a changing table, and aligning the bed and nightstands with the dresser means plenty of room for a simple rocking chair in the other corner.

With the excitement of finding out we're having a boy and finally giving our child a name, I dedicated some of my time at home last week with some decor projects. Since we're in a shared room, I thought a nautical theme would be appropriate in order to not turn the room completely into a baby room. Also, our room is mostly grey and white, so I thought navy blue would mix well. Baby Nathan isn't getting his own room, but I still wanted to at least dedicate his little corner to him.

I started with some inspiration from Pinterest and then went to Michael's for supplies and the creativity sprung from there.

(Pinterest photo used for inspiration)

Materials used: Large letters (for initials), Small wooden letters (to spell name),
2 Wooden frames, Blue acrylic paint (permanent), paintbrushes,
Scrapbook paper, Sheet protectors (not photographed), Boat Kit (only $1!)

Since I was dealing with permanent paint, I did all the painting in the
balcony and covered the table with some butcher paper to protect it.

Painted the small letters and frames blue, making sure all sides and
edges that would show were painted evenly.

Cut background paper to fit perfectly inside frames and cut and pasted my
own nautical design. Placed small letters to fit on large letters.

Glued letters on with wood glue. Wrapped paper design in sheet
protectors (frames didn't come with glass) and cut to fit inside frames.
Taped back of paper design to the frame for extra support (although
they fit pretty snug on their own).

Building the boat kit.

Painted everything but the sails blue.

Finished boat with sails glued.

I'm pretty proud of the finished product. Saved money by making instead of buying decor and I think the fact that I made it myself makes it that much more special. Hopefully Nathan will like boats and the decor can carry over into a little boy's room. :)

The next project I'm going to tackle is the re-organization and arrangement of storage space in the closet and eventually the rest of the room. I'm sure I'll be posting some before and after pics during the next couple weeks!

~Angie