Nursery!

 I love my chevron curtains.

 Becca did a great job on the crib bedding.

 Still need to fill my frames.

I think baby has more books than I do!  She better like storytime!

Bird Cages

You probably have to read my previous post for this to make sense.  Anyways, I just found these in a google search and am pumped that I can pretty much get 3 for $37..  If anyone sees any other cheap bird cages, let me know.  I don't know about you but my crafting skills are sketchy at best.  I don't know if I can make 3 for this price.  We might be spray painting them so it doesn't matter what color they are to start with.

Nursery Shopping

Yesterday Chris' mom went with me to buy stuff for the nursery.  We did some serious damage, and when I say damage, I mean Chris was suffering from sticker shock when I told him how much I spent in one day.  The hardest thing about planning the nursery was for me to actually decide what I wanted.  I like a lot of things so nailing down an actual theme/style was hard.  I've been looking at nursery furniture since before I was pregnant so deciding what I wanted was really hard too.  Here's some of the things I bought yesterday.

I got the following items from Ikea.  After looking at Babies R Us, I realized that the furniture was expensive and looked cheap.  I could have forked out more money to get quality furniture but who knows how long it's going to last with kids anyways.  I'm also weary of buying furniture online because I'm paranoid of receiving broken items or having it look different than expected.

This is actually made for shoes but we figured it could be used for other things like toys or books.

This shelf is usually used in the living room when you're connecting two bookcases together to form an entertainment center.  I'm using it above the dresser for extra storage.

Dresser/Changing table.

Originally the plan was to buy white furniture but I decided on this color because when I put my paint swatches up against the furniture, it really made a huge difference.   The pink really pops out against the grey/brown finish on the furniture but with the white finish, it looked washed out.

Pale Lace (Don't know if you can tell, but this is pink.)

Creamy Mushroom (beige)

I'm probably doing 3 walls beige and one wall pink.  I'll use pastel purple and sage green for accent colors.

I also bought a rocker/recliner and a lamp with a  sage green base/cream shade.  After  looking at reviews for glider rockers online, I thought I was going to go crazy.  It seemed like even the highly rated gliders had some pretty horrible reviews.  You can pretty much spend as much as you want too.  When I showed Chris one for $400 I thought he was going to die.  I had to explain to him that there are ones for over $1000.  I decided to just get a regular rocker/recliner that people put in their living room instead.  It seemed like a lot of people were telling me that I didn't need a chair and that I wouldn't end up using it.  I just know that if someone has to get up with the baby, all the dogs are going to be up too so it might be easier to just go in the nursery and shut the door so everyone can get back to sleep.  If it doesn't work out, I'll just move it into the living room.  It's not the prettiest chair out there but it was comfortable and I figured I wouldn't have to buy an ottoman to put my feet up.  It was also on sale for the holiday weekend so I saved $200.

I think this is the one I got, it's more narrow than the usual living room recliner.

The only furniture I need to buy now is the crib.  I can either go with the crib from Ikea that matches the furniture I bought or I can just find a white crib.  I can't decide yet so any opinions would be appreciated.

Ikea crib.  The pros are that it matches and will be super cheap.  Also it wouldn't be much of a loss if it didn't make it to baby #2.  The cons would be that it looks super cheap and a standard crib mattress might not fit properly so I might have to buy an Ikea mattress too.

We also went to multiple stores looking for bird cages, bird houses and other accessories.  I thought this idea was cute with the three bird cages hanging from the ceiling.  The only problem is, the bird cages I saw were over $30 each.  You do the math.  We're going to try and figure out a way to make our own bird cages.  It's not like they have to actually hold a bird and it would be better anyways if they weren't as heavy.

I also thought something like this would be cute to hang things like  hair accessories on.

Well what do you think so far?

Nursery

I've been trying to plan my nursery and here's what I have so far.  I'm undecided on the paint color and I also want to find an upholstered glider rocker.  Any ideas on color?  If I can't decide, I might just do a light beige but some ideas are light shades of blue, pink, purple, or yellow.  The changing table below is the Ikea Expedit bookcase turned horizontal.

Changing Table

Crib Set

Wall Art

Wall Art

Curtain Fabric

Dresser

Impact by Tiffinie Helmer

This is a romance novella written by one of the gals at work. I work with a lot of writers and it's exciting to see someone I know get published. She's got more coming out this year. I didn't know what to expect when I started reading this but I knew I was in for some romance. It's kind of funny reading love scenes written by someone you know. ha ha. I can't wait to read her next book.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Here's another dystopian Teen novel. In case you haven't noticed, Hunger Games did for dystopia as Twilight did for vampires. It's everywhere now.

Imagine a society that has deemed love a disease and the root of all the problems in the world. When a person turns 18, they receive the cure for Delirium which prevents them from having a passion for anything. The main character Lena has been counting the days until she receives the cure. She saw what love did to her mother and doesn't want it to ruin her life too. That is until she meets and falls in love with Alex.

You see Lena falling in love a million miles away but there are some things that did surprise me and the book ends in a way that leaves you wanting to see what happens next.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan

The best way to describe this book is by calling it a dystopian version of The Scarlet Letter. In the future, disease has made many women infertile and the government has been taken over by religion. The main character Hannah is convicted of the crime of abortion and is sentenced to time in jail and several years of being a Chrome. Instead of putting people in jail for long periods of time, their skin is dyed according to their crime. There is no way for a Chrome to hide from their crimes and they often become targets for violence. Similarities to The Scarlet Letter end when Hannah is rescued by a group of rebels. The book had an interesting concept but ultimately left me disappointed.

Crossed by Ally Condie

3.5 stars

The teen love triangle thing is getting old. In the first book, Cassia is with Xander by pines for Ky. In this book Cassia runs away to find Ky but starts to pine after Xander. Seriously?

The Death Cure by James Dashner

1984 by George Orwell

3.5 stars