Nursery Theme and Projects

     Well, I figured it was about time I decide on my nursery theme, colors, and get it together.   After much searching it took me a few months to decide on a theme. Since we do not have a clue on the gender and it has to be neutral, its really hard to find something I liked.  Honestly, I have to say that I am more happy that we are not finding out the gender because I feel it took the nursery to a whole new level.  After much thought I started to wonder why do we have gender specific colors for our babies?  Do women only wear pinks and purples and do men only wear blues and greens?  It just started to make me think of how babies are treated so different and held to a  different color level then we are as adults.  If they could speak what would they say?  Any way, I then started to wonder why I would spend so much on crib bedding when I don't even spend that much on bedding for myself?  Why is it that retailers think the word "Wedding" or "Babies" gives them the right to jack up prices?  Now I am not trying to be cheap, I just don't see the point of spending that much money on something the baby doesn't really care about.  Lets face it, its for the moms, dads, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and everyone else you are going to show the nursery off to.  So after much thought and much consideration I decided to make 80-90% of the nursery decor myself.  I have some fabulous ideas and I am so excited to get started. First the theme.  I decided to do a nursery theme and I was first  inspired by this set which was labeled as gender neutral but looks boyish to me.

I fell in love with the concept of the alphabet theme and how the crib blanket looked.  So I went to Joanns and I bought some fabric. Now I didn't buy fabric for the borders at this point, I just bought the front panel, the colors for the letters, and the backing.  The fabric choices are pictured below.

Once I was finished cutting out the letters and decided to cut the top fabric, I stopped and stared for a minute.  As  I looked at it I noticed how pretty it was and I wondered if I really needed to do a border. So I looked on the internet some more to see if I could find something to inspire my thought. Here is what I found below.

I decided just to make the top one color and place the letters on how I wanted. So I cut my 37" x 61"  ( I had to leave some extra fabric for the binding. The blanket will be 36 x 60 when finished.  After cutting I pinned all the letters on and I am pretty happy so far.  The w is missing since it broke when pinning.  I will make a new one over the weekend.  In addition the yellow letters are hard to see in this picture.

Once the letters are sewn on I will then add some appliques to some of the letters of the alphabet. For example a kite to go with the letter k.  Once the appliques are on, I will sew the backing and attach the binding.  I am really excited to see how it looks when its all finished. I also have many more projects in mind for the nursery and will update you on them as I go.