Easy Nursery Decor Ideas

Here is my "baby's" nursery circa May 2007. My friend Stephanie took this amazing picture. There are a few easy and inexpensive things I did/made to decorate the nursery that I wanted to share. Sorry for the lame photography, but I took these on a whim.

Have you noticed that lots of calendars have 12 x 12 inch pages? This is a standard frame size, so you can easily decorate the nursery with art from a calendar. Look right after Christmas when they are marked down 75% off. These pages are from an "Il Piccolo Principe" (the Italian translation of The Little Prince) calendar that my sister-in-law bought for us in Rome on her honeymoon several years ago. The Little Prince is one of my favorite books, so the instant I saw this calendar, I knew it had to become nursery art someday. So, here are the fox, the prince and the sheep in 12 x 12 frames from Michael's (don't forget your coupon), hanging right over the dresser with changing pad. I have one of the prince with the rose on the other side of the room!

I got this little side table for next to the rocker at the Pottery Barn outlet. I got the little bunny porcelain box there, too. The lamp is from Pottery Barn Kids. I wanted to dress up the table since I knew it was mostly just decorative. I measured some cotton quilting fabric about 1.5 inches smaller than the table surface, plus seam allowance, sewed right sides together, trimmed excess, turned right-side out, pressed and slip-stitched the opening by hand. I actually glued on the grosgrain ribbon and little bows, but you could certainly put it on with fusible interfacing or Stitch Witchery or you could sew it on. The whole project cost probably $3. You can also spray it with Scotch Guard to make it easier to clean.

My child is now 35 inches tall, but I still haven't finished this little measuring stick. Oh well. It's an old board we found in the garage. Taped to get straight lines and painted with craft paint. I used Gorilla Glue to add pre-painted shapes from Michael's (get them on sale!). Or you could buy unpainted shapes and paint them any color you want. I am going to hang this about 24 inches off the ground and just mark my daughter's height right on it with pencil. This is a lot less stressful (and neater) than trying to make nice straight ruler lines all the way up the whole stick.


Last but not least, here is the latest project -- the hair clip board from the other day. I sanded an old wooden frame that was metallic gold, had my husband prime it with white spray paint and gave it about 2.5 coats of craft paint. I like the mottled look so I didn't add a third coat. I hung it up inside the closet. It's like a colorful little surprise when you open the door. By the way, if I could do it over again, I would have used a larger canvas. I didn't realize we had so many clips.