52 Mantels: Red & Aqua Nursery {Guest Post by Five Days...5 Ways!}

January 25, 2013

Today Abbie from Five Days...5 Ways and I have swapped blogs to share our daughter's nurseries. My daughter's aqua, pink & orange nursery will be on her site today and her red & aqua nursery is here. Fun, huh?! Check out her adorable DIY nursery!

_________

Hi there, 52 Mantels readers! I’m just tickled pink that Emily is letting my stop by and say howdy (yes, I am a fellow Texan) to all y’all wonderful folks!

Okay, so I don’t actually talk quite that Texan (although I do dearly love my “y’alls”). But, since I do live in Texas, I feel a little bit of pressure to live up to that whole “everything is bigger” business we’re known for.

Which is, apparently, why I decided to crank out a set of identical twin girls in September of 2012 to go with my two boys and a girl (ages 6 1/2, 5, and 2) that I already had.

{If you want to read their home birth story, you can here; I promise it’s light on the blood and guts}

Here we all are looking entirely too photogenic and happy for the mayhem I’m sure had taken place only moments before this shot was taken (see my left hand there? I look like I’m trying to throw gang signs, but I’m guessing it’s actually on the downswing from a child’s wardrobe adjustment and/or ear-pinch). You can see more of our family photo shoots here and here if that sort of thing interests you.

Umm…what else? Well, I blog about a little bit of everything at Five days…5 ways.

Each day even has a theme: Move-it Monday: Fitness and projects, Try-it Tuesday: Tutorials, Wardrobe Wednesday: Fashion, 5 Things Thursday: 5 random tidbits, and Feature Friday: where I feature YOU at our weekly linky party of creativity!

Speaking of creativity, very little gets my juices flowing like a blank slate of a room…like this one.

3 years ago, my husband built our house from scratch with his own two bare, extremely talented hands (and no, he’s not a professional contractor), so practically every room in our house looked like this. But, this particular space was designated for our now-2-year-old daughter Adelaide (whom we affectionately call, “Della” or, “Ladybug”).

And after much sweat, many hot-glue burns, and a whole heap of DIY projects, it ended up looking like this:

I went with a red/aqua color scheme and spray-painted practically everything in sight to achieve it—including, but not limited to….

…her chandelier

her lamp and dresser knobs…

…and her initial plaques.

I also made her bedding and curtains from Alexander Henry’s gorgeous Starling fabric (in natural).

A few other DIY endeavors included her framed butterfly art:

…her butterfly mobile:

and that cute little ottoman:

…which sits at the foot of, by far, my favorite element of the entire room:

And that would be the swivel rocker I scored on Craigslist for $25 and then had recovered (I was going to give it a shot, but piping scares me!).

If you’d like to see even more details and pictures of Della’s nursery, you can pop on over to the blog and take a gander, but as much as I’d love to, I could not invite you over to see it in person…

And that is because it no longer exists. In fact, writing this post has been a bit of a jaunt down memory lane, since we added onto our house in the spring of 2012 and converted Della’s room into a hallway.

Most of her big girl room is already in place (man, do those finishing touches trip me up!), and the design board for it looks a little something like this:

Similar color scheme, with a little bit more sophistication for this oh-so-grown-up two-year-old:

{The truth? she’s still sleeping in the twins’ crib while they snooze away in their cozy little bassinets at night}.

Speaking of the twins, if you’re itching to see what their nursery looks like, here’s a sneak peak:

I’ll be doing the full reveal this upcoming Monday, so be sure to check back then.

Until then, please stop on by and toodle around for a while. I suggest starting with the “Our House” page for more room reveals and maybe even taking a second to enter our $50 Target Gift Card Giveaway that ends tonight!

Can’t wait to meet you all (er…I mean, y’all!)

Thanks again, Emily, for the chance to stop by! It’s such a huge treat to get to be blogger-friends with such a talented girl as yourself! : )

______

Don't you just LOVE Della's sweet red and aqua nursery?? Thanks so much for sharing, Abbie! Don't forget to go check out my daughter's nursery over at Five Days...5 Ways today.