2 months ago I became a mother… (edit… it’s been 9 months now and I can’t believe I’ve survived so far! ;D) It’s been surreal and beautiful and I’m so thankful for my little one. She came to us healthy and strong and we have loved seeing her grow and progress over the last few months. Her darling personality is really starting to flourish and I can’t wait to see more.

As I prepared to be a mother I quickly learned that nesting is real! I was determined to get as much organized and ready for her arrival as I could. I thought that organizing everything ahead of time would make it easier to manage when she was here (hahaha) and I had a lot of creative design ideas that I wanted to make happen for her nursery, so I buckled down and got started.

Leaning on the skills I learned in my marketing career, I made a list and prioritized what was most important to me, then took about an hour or two every day to work on them, which enabled me to juggle these projects and a full-time marketing contract. Even with that strategy I was working on projects down to the day I went to the hospital for her delivery! However, the strategy worked! I ended up having a lot of fun getting creative and I was able to make quite a few unique hand-made design details for my daughters nursery. I wanted to share them here in the hopes that they can provide some inspiration for other mothers. I hope some day she will appreciate the love I put into each detail, although for now I’m happy to just see her gassy smiles.

So without further ado, here are the creative ideas I made for my daughters nursury:

Hand-Painted Design for our Baby Shower Invitation & her Baby Announcement

I created custom card designs for our baby shower invitations and baby announcements and printed them out using Canva and also Shutterfly (using their blank card design).

My inspiration:

I found an adorable rug for her nursery with a field of flowers and a whimsical style and rainbow color palette. Once I found this, that was it, her nursery theme was whimsical rainbow flower fields.

The Painting:

To create the cards I decided to paint a loose watercolor painting of a field of flowers that had a similar color palette and playful feel as to the rug. I love using the wet-on-wet watercolor technique which enables me to create an expressive and loose, painterly design. So I got started with developing a happy and playful color pallete of pastel rainbows leaning into oranges, yellows and pinks. I soaked my paper first and painted the entire piece while the paper was wet so I could create a soft and childlike vibe.

Once I was happy with my painting, I scanned the painting and I used Canva to design my cards placing the painting as the background. I lightened the colors and softened the opacity to focus on the content of the cards. I was really happy with how they turned out. What do you think?

Hand-Painted Design Printed on Fabric for Nursery Chair

A few months into my pregnancy my mom found a very nice wooden nursing glider chair and she suggested that she could re-upholster the cushions for me. While I had considered purchasing a cushioned, electric recliner, this project excited me as I could give her something really special and unique from both myself and my mom that she could treasure. It also saved us quite a bit, the fabric cost me about $200 to purchase vs. about $1500-$2000 for a new chair and we were able to use that savings to upgrade our stroller and highchair purchases. So when I painted the watercolor painting for my card designs, I already had this project in mind as well and I used the same painting to create my fabric. For this piece I knew I wanted a large print and I used photoshop to enlarge the image size and lighten the color palette and lessen the opacity since the painting was very vibrant and I wanted the chair to to have a more delicate and whimsical vibe. I used Spoonflower to print the custom upholstery fabric. Once I got the fabric, my mother created the patterns and sewed covers for the cushions for me.

I love how it turned out. I’ve really enjoyed the personalized nature of this beautiful nursing glider as I’ve used it and I’m so happy we did this and I hope my daughter appreciates the uniqueness of the chair once she grows older, at 9 months now she’s already been staring at the print and scratching at it.

Hand-Painted Glass Lamp Cover

When I first moved to Raleigh, I bought this cool brass lamp with a clear glass cover, at least I thought it was cool at the time. However, I never used it as the light was so garish with the clear cover that it wasn’t relaxing. Rather than just getting rid of it I had been looking for a new lamp shade to fix that problem but after seeing some cute (but expensive) flower lamps for nursery decor online I decided to repurpose the lamp for her nursery by painting the cover using enamel based paint. I took inspiration from the same rug, using similar color pallete and a more simple, childish floral design with a cream base to make the cover more opaque. Now it brings a lovely warm glow to to her room and she has looked at it often with curiosity. I love telling her that I made that for her… it will be even more fun when she actually understands what I’m saying.

Flower Paintings Depicting the State Flowers for Mom, Dad & Baby

I had been thinking a lot about what to do for the walls in her room. I had quite a few ideas in mind, painting a mural, painting a design and turning it into custom wallpaper. All of those sounded like very fun projects, however, we rent and those both were going to cost a lot of money or time. For now, I wanted something we could potentially take with us to our next home and something that I could actually accomplish while pregnant. So I decided to paint 3 flower paintings symbolizing each of our home states as a personal touch for the wall art in her room. This was still meaningful for our family and keeping in line with the floral theme.

This triptych of state flower paintings represents each of our home states, California Poppies for Mommy, Illinois Violets for Daddy and North Carolina Dogwood Flowers for my daughter. I have fallen in love with using the wet-on-wet watercolor technique and watercolor sticks to create a soft and whimsical floral aesthetic and so that’s the approach I took to painting these florals. I painted them in 1 sitting after soaking the 300 lbs watercolor paper for 15 minutes, I used watercolor paints for the more flowy parts and I used watercolor sticks to create the darker and more controlled lines. Because the paper was still wet it deepened the color pigment when using the sticks and I still got a slightly softer edge to the lines.

California Poppies - wet on wet-forweb.jpg

Hand-made Wood Flower & Felt Bunny Mobile

I was inspired to make wood flower and felt bunny mobile for my daughters room when I was going through my things and decluttering. I had these wood flowers I had purchased for my wedding thinking we would use them in the decor, but now they were just sitting collecting dust. I asked my mom if she wanted them and she suggested I used them in the nursery, that’s when it hit me that I could use them to create this adorable baby mobile. I bought the felt bunnies and felt balls from a few Etsy shops then laid out the design and hand strung them. I love how it turned out.

Hanging Hooks Plaque - Painted New Design - Still a Work in Progress

This is still a work in progress, but I’m repainting a wood hanging hook wall plaque using acrylic paint.

I got this wooden wall hanging plaque while I worked at Shutterfly as a free product sample, but the design was a sample with an example family name, I took it home intending to paint it and make it my own. So I had already painted this once before and it hung in my bedroom for about a year, but I had taken it down when I moved in with my husband. Now it will have a new theme and inspirational quote for my daughters nursery. When it’s finished there will be a variety of different color flowers on the rolling hills and I’m a big Dr Suess fan and I particularly love that book and how it encourages exploration soI’m going to add the phrase “Oh the Places You’ll Go…” to inspire her someday.

I’ll update this one once it’s done, but since I’ve had her it’s been tough to find time to get the acrylics back out. Fingers crossed I’ll get it done before she’s a big toddler.

I hope these ideas inspire you to get creative and think about how you could repurpose some of your items or just inspire you to get the paints out and start creating. There’s so much we can do if we devote just a bit of time each day to exploring our curiosities. That said, please remember that there are times in our life to rest and times to pursue. So don’t get too hard on yourself if you just need to rest and let things sink in for a bit, I have to remind myself of that daily, especially right now when my time it truly taken up with the daily care of an infant. I also know that at some point making the time to start new habits (or restart them) for the things you care about will always pay off down the road. Sometimes it can be as little as 15 minutes of painting or working on a project to get you going again.

Personalized Design Ideas for Your Babies Arrival and Nursery