Nursery Decor {Handmade Update}

I am totally sucking at sharing all the projects we have been tackling around the house. Sometimes it's hard, because it seems like the book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, except its more like, if you give a wife a paint brush...she will paint the wall and if you let her paint the walls, she will probably want to paint the trim a fresh white, and if she paints the trim, then she will probably want nice white chair rail. Anyhow, all that is to say, its all in progress right now! And this time around we are hoping to stay in this house for a while so I am trying this thing called patience, where I wait for the exact right pieces to come along and take my time pulling it all together.

With all of that said, I have done some tweaking to the nursery that I thought I would share. Remember how the nursery looked back in the spring when we brought little miss home? If not you can check it out here, here and here. Now, if you were paying close attention to those posts (and you probably weren't!) you will notice that there is a wall missing. It's not just because I am a bad blogger, I left that wall between little miss's closet and door out because while I had a cute coat hook and art print hanging there, it was just sort of blah. You can see it in its full blah-ness here:

And since I sit in the glider staring at that wall every time I nurse or read to or rock little miss, I have had lots of time to contemplate what to do with that space. Our ceilings are vaulted which is awesome, but it seemed like the space was just vast and overwhelming. But I wanted to do something that wouldn't look crazy on a wall with two doors and that would add a touch of whimsy. I thought about bunting, since it's so popular right now. Like these here:

Via

Via

Via

And while I love the bunting, I am not great at sewing just yet. Plus there is the problem of finding fabric. I have been hunting for fabric to sew a curtain panel for the little miss's room for months now with no luck of finding something that coordinates with her colors. So the idea of finding a half dozen coordinating fabric seemed over-whelming and not really how I wanted to spend my time...or money...which brings me to my solution.

Remember when I whipped up that red garland for the mantel for Christmas? Well, it got me thinking and after a few more days and nights rocking in the glider and staring at the big blank wall, I decided that I wanted to make a three dimensional floral felt garland in a gradient sort of color scheme that would fit in with the existing nursery colors but also pull in some colors that could help it transition as the little miss grows up.

I tapped into my existing felt stash and cut the flowers out in as many colors as possible that would coordinate and then hand-sewed them up with coordinating thread.

Then I lined up the flowers so that they graduated from one color family to the next like a rainbow. Then I strung them onto a really long string and affixed each one so they wouldn't slide or move or cluster while I hung them or over time. I really wanted to make sure they were well made and sturdy so they would last.

I hung it by tapping four small nails into the wall as close as I could get them to the ceiling. I then draped the garland over each nail, wrapping the string around the nail once or twice. And luckily when I draped it on the wall the colors fell just right to compliment the art already hung on the wall.

The stats go a little something like this. There are 33 different colors and a total of 66 flowers. The garland measures roughly 40 feet long because I wanted enough to create that drapey effect on the tall wall area above the doors. It took me about two weeks to pull the whole thing together, but it was well worth it.

I think it adds something to the wall that already had the print and hooks without making the room feel too crowded or overdone. And the cost to me was just the time of sewing all the little flowers together and stringing them. So a pretty cost effective project that added a lot of pop!

Now every time I sit in there to play or feed or rock little miss I can look up at my creation, my little crafty labor of love. And the little miss seems to like it too--she likes to look it up at it and smile and point. And she paid it the highest compliment when she first saw it and started bouncing up and down and smiling!

P.S. Did you see the little blue dress hang up on her hook? It was mine that I had my nine month baby pictures taken in when I was a baby and I have big plans to get some photos of the little miss in it this spring--I can't wait!