Violet's Nursery

Since I live for surprises I was absolutely sure I wanted to wait until the day our baby was born to find out whether our little treasure was a boy or a girl! This did pose a few challenges though...mainly with baby clothing and nursery decor. So I decided I wanted a very gender neutral nursery and once our baby arrived I could add in girly or masculine details later. All I knew is I wanted a room fit for a little prince or princess!



I had a budget of $1000 and I believe I came in with money to spare spending a total of $800 on the room including paint and supplies.



Besides the crib and ikea arm chair and a few other things, I made the sheet music artwork, the chalkboard wall plaque, and the rocking horse. The change table is an old cheap dresser I refinished and repurposed.



The diaper supply shelf




Just a few toys to get her started ;)


My old bear.... "Bear"


Ready for our little munchkin to dream the night away!









Dresser turned change table


My favorite chandelier makes a reappearance


I just ordered this for Violet. It's custom made on gorgeous French linen. If you want one of your own you can find her on Etsy just search for the seller BurgundyDelights


This is our snuggle spot. We've already read many a story and sang plenty of lullabies here.


Violet LOVES looking at her woodland creatures that hang out at our snuggle spot. They are all watercolors from various Etsy shops.

I apologize for the poor quality of the photos. I was tired and pregnant when I took all but the last 3 with my iPhone. I am going to dust off my Canon Rebel and take some good quality photos soon and I'll do an updated post. Her room has actually changed quite a bit since I took these photos anyway. My step-grandma Joanne custom made Violet the most beautiful crib skirt and bumpers and so I can't wait to take some more recent photos of her crib.

~Rebecca XO

Iron and rust removal!

One new challenge I've had with a baby...even more so than with my pets...is constant stain removal! Especially on diaper change pad sheets and her bottom crib sheet! Not surprisingly all her nursery linens are white and usually my trusty bleach does the trick...but not always!

Violet never ate baby food/pablums/fortified cereals. She just would NOT go for the mush! So we had to start her on finger food from 6 months on. The lucky part was she was eager and able to feed herself! The unlucky part is babies need the extra iron and vitamins in the fortified baby cereals to ensure proper growth and development. So the doctor recommended some vitamin supplements including Fer-in-sol so she could get the vital iron she needs!

Herein lies my new stain fighting problem and exciting solution! Even though her iron supplement drops are clear, they can react with certain things and quickly turn into a nasty brown stain. So the other day I gave Violet her supplement while on her change pad. Without realizing (because it's clear) I must have dropped some on the change pad sheet. Well when I went to launder it it reacted with the laundry detergent and bleach I use and turned into a huge big brown stain. What was a tiny drop of iron supplement was now a brown stain the size of a side plate.


So after googling a while for ideas I decided to try saturating the stain in lemon juice and wait a few minutes and sprinkle salt on top. And it worked!!! The stain that I thought was going nowhere after bleaching it 3 times (which only made it worse) is now completely removed after 5 minutes of a lemon juice and salt solution! Amazing! And this also will work for rust stains too:)

DIY Sheet Music Art

Since we kept the gender of our baby a surprise we wanted to have gender neutral art for our baby's nursery. My whole pregnancy I was drooling over the Restoration Hardware nurseries when I saw an idea that caught my eye! Framed sheet music! I thought this was perfect for a boy or girl nursery.
So off I went on a sheet music hunting adventure to one of our local antique malls. And low and behold I didn't have to search long. I found a whole station filled with antique music books. I flipped through a few until I found a book of perfectly aged Violin sheet music, complete with perfect songs like 'Cradle Song' and 'Nocturne'.

Next I headed to Michaels craft store where I found some very cheap frames on sale. I think they were around $5 each. I picked up some antique bronze spray paint as well so I could get the frames as close as possible to the look of the ones on the RH website. I had noted the size of the frames too off the RH website so I could get the same scale as well (20.5"x24.5").

The ones on the RH site were $1195 for the set of 6 framed prints of 18th century sheet music art. All in, I paid less than $75 total for all 6 of my DIY version.

Baby Violet Madison

Hi all! It's almost been a year since I made a blog entry but that is because our lives have been forever changed by our little munchkin Violet! She arrived September 29 and was healthy and beautiful and 7lbs and 20 inches long! The first thing I noticed about our little beauty was her dimples and her beautiful eyes which I couldn't stop staring at!



In LOVE with this girl


She's 9 months now and just the most happy little baby I could have ever wished for! Being a mom has been a pretty big adjustment for me I'd say. Living in Edmonton with no help from family has been challenging. I wish we could 'go to grandmas' or hang out with 'aunty Jessie' a lot more often than we can.



I think I'll do a separate post specifically about Violets birth story so that if she wants to read it one day it will all be right here!
I also can't wait to post photos of her nursery!
Ciao!