The Cry Room: Nursery Reveal (times two)

Transforming Mark's old room into baby boy #2's nursery space has been quite the work-of-love and for one reason or another it's taken me what's seemed like forever to finally get it finished. But now that it's done I can't help but sit in there with my hands on my belly daydreaming about our baby boy. 

While we are just as excited and anxious for this boys arrival as we were for big brother, it's almost like the edge was taken off since this is round two which made the transformation a bit slower. We kept all the furniture in the room the same (one point for us for picking awesome, neutral, reusable pieces!) minus getting this boy his own new crib since Mark kept his. The layout and basic "design" of the room also stayed the same since it really just "worked" and we really loved how the space functioned. All of these reasons made it just about switching things out, finding new pieces and changing the color scheme for our second baby boy. 

Finding out we were adding to the boy-team a second time got my mind spinning on how to do a nursery that was specifically his. For this boy we picked lots of different shades of greens with bits of navy and gray. Boy colors without copying big brother's blue room. Lots of textures and touches of softness. And just as many special and personal items for this boy and our growing family. I am in love with how the room turned out and can't believe we'll get to bring him home to his own space so soon! 

Little brother has his own duck for his crib, one because it holds a special place in my heart for my dad and two because Mark cherishes his when he sleeps so we just had to get one. There's another blank white canvas on the wall that is ready for his green painted letter representing his first name. Going with the green color-scheme, baby brother has a custom made map that J built and I painted for his feature wall art above his crib and we continued the "map" theme with a large metal compass on the other side of the room. He has a canvas of his family and a print inspired by one of my favorite Disney movies, Dumbo. His book wall holds some of the books we've been reading to Mark the last year and a half along with a few we've picked up just for him. 

Your room is ready for you little one, whenever you want to make your appearance and join our family! 

The Cry Room: Little Man's Quilt (times two)

It was only fitting that baby brother get a quilt made with love just like big brother Mark did. I have such fond memories putting the blue quilt together, a little boy growing in my belly while I was working, that I had to do it again. Mark's quilt was used in my maternity pictures, his newborn pictures, his monthly updates and finally in his one year photo shoot and I love seeing it's bold pattern as a measure of how he's grown. I briefly contemplated making a quilt entirely different for baby boy #2 but when I thought about it, I much preferred to use the same pattern and simply change the color scheme. 

Since these boys are opposite season, I originally started working on this quilt over Christmas break. I had finished the top, quilted it to the batting and backing and it sat, until just last week, without the binding finished. What can I say, I've been busy! (And truthfully, dread binding most of all.) Just like the first quilt, the fabrics are all 100% quilting cotton with traditional weight batting in between. The front has 2 neutrals and 4 greens and is quilted along the borders of the darkest green triangles. The patterned fabric is the same on the front in green and the back in gray and since I was "short" a neutral color on the front I decided on a gray binding fabric instead of an additional green hue. 

These quilts have become one of my favorite baby items for each of my boys and now I can't wait to use this one in the coming months/years for our newest addition. 

 

 

You would think I'd have this pattern down now but I'm sure there are plenty of mistakes in my second quilt. Regardless there's just as much love for this sweet little boy and anticipation for his arrival. I'll be doing a full nursery post soon (enjoy the peak at his feature wall art until then!) but am thrilled to have this item checked off the list for his arrival.

And if you follow me on Instagram, be sure to check out #hollandboysquilts to see real life pictures of both quilts!

The Cry Room: Nursery Reveal

While I'm sure there will be changes we want to make after his arrival in under two months (holy cow!!), I can finally say that our little boy's nursery is complete! It might have taken me all summer and involved lots of help from J and my mom but this room has easily become my favorite place in the whole house and I am absolutely in love with it!

Here's a glimpse of what we started with, first when we visited the house before it was even ours and during the process of getting rid of the incredibly blue paint. When I found out I was pregnant I knew immediately that this would be the future nursery (largest spare room, closest to the master) and that the paint color needed to go! Regardless of gender I knew I wanted something more calming, something our little one could grow up in for years to come without having to worry about trends or changing the paint color again any time soon. This was also my reasoning behind keeping the "theme" of the room to a minimum. I wanted furniture pieces that could be used for either a boy or a girl, for future kiddos down the line and even in different rooms of the house.

Once we found out the little one in my belly was a boy I thought about what I wanted the finished product to be. Lots of different shades of blue mixed with pops of yellow and orange. Bright but not overwhelming. Fun and interactive without screaming baby. Pattern mixing and comfortable and filled with items that mean something to us and our family. And this is exactly what his nursery has become! I absolutely love sitting in here with my feet up dreaming about how our life is going to change so much.

I plan on doing a separate post entirely that has information about where we got everything in his room as well as tutorials for anything that was DIYed but for now I'll let the pictures do the talking and explain some of my favorite pieces in the room. 

The duck in his crib is a special memento to my dad and this fluffy one was gifted to our little boy at the baby shower by a long time family friend who knew about the tradition. The blank canvas in the wall collage will eventually have a large wooden letter glued to it, painted blue, that's the first letter in our little boy's name (no spoilers here!). J made the giant abacus above the crib completely from scratch and I absolutely love that he took the time to make something so labor intensive for our son. The pictures in the room include canvases of our little family so far (J & I in Mexico and Ollie in the yard), a little picture of the grandpa I hope has met our sweet boy already and baby pictures of the two of us. The book wall is by far my favorite and contains tons of the actual books I read when I was little. 

I am thrilled with the results and cannot wait until the room's littlest occupant makes his appearance! For now, Ollie's using it as his favorite new napping place.

The Cry Room: Little Man's Quilt

I'm sure I'll explain more when I do a complete nursery reveal later but it was quickly decided that little man's nursery was going to stray away from the "I'm an infant" themes and towards something more modern, focused on colors and patterns rather than jungle animals/trains/etc etc etc. Overall this has been a great decision and I am loving the progress we're making on his room but one of the hardest parts about skipping the baby theme has been bedding. I wandered through Babies R Us one day looking at all their bedding sets and there wasn't a single one, not one, I could have pictured myself buying. I had to come up with something else besides the bed-in-a-bag purchase. 

Then I came across this quilt tutorial and was officially hooked, boy colored however. Now that school is out for the summer I have plenty of time on my hands and have been itching to make my first quilt for some time now. And what better quilt to make given its smaller size and it's special recipient. The fabrics are all 100% quilting cotton and I used traditional weight batting in between the layers. The front is made from 3 neutrals and 3 blues and I quilted along the borders of all the navy triangles. The gray/white dot fabric from the front corresponds with the fitted crib sheet (that I also made) and also with the navy/white dot fabric that covers the entire back. The binding fabric is a different blue shade from the rest and all the supplies we're purchased from either Hobby Lobby or JoAnn Fabrics. 

In a matter of about three days of work our little boy now has a quilt for his bed that his momma made just for him and I couldn't be more thrilled with the results.

Are there mistakes in my first quilt? Heck yes! There are wrinkled seams and not a single triangle lines up between rows. Is it perfect? No way! The binding is a bit wonky and I didn't even iron it before taking pictures. But did I make it 100% myself, dreaming of wrapping our little boy in it as he kicked and squirmed to the sound of the sewing machine? Of course.

And I think that's what really matters now isn't it.