Frugal Farm Themed Nursery Decor

Hello everyone!

Just in case you happened to miss it somehow in my last post, our sweet baby girl was finally born last week.  She is so sweet and cuddly and we have all been enjoying her so very much!

Today I want to show you around her "nursery" and share how I gave her a cute little corner on a small budget.  I have less than $20 invested in her farm themed decor.  Side note - I find it humorous that with my first child I spent so much time picking out the perfect furniture, the perfect bedding, the perfect this and that.  I agonized over the smallest details and spent so much time (and money) on her room.  By the time this 3rd child has come along, she gets the hand me down, teething-scarred, 8 year old furniture, and a yard sale find bedding set, lol! 

 I put nursery in quotes because she doesn't actually have her own room to be a real nursery, her little spot in the world is in a corner of the master bedroom.  Keep in mind, this is the last room that has yet to be painted so the walls still have the original weird peachy pink color on them and still have the dark trim.

So let me "show you around" a bit first and then we'll get into a little more detail of things.

 

Some perspective - the dark area you see to the right is the doorway leading into the master bathroom, and this picture was taken at the end of the bed looking across to the crib.

So her little area is tucked in along this wall across from our bed.

 

The crib and changing table are hand-me-down from our first child so we didn't have to spend any money there, and the little white dresser came from my mom.  It was originally intended for something else, but it tucked in that spot just perfectly and gave us some extra storage space for her.

I love the combination of plaid, ticking stripes, and ric-rac trim!  One sheet is plaid, the other is ticking striped.

Now onto some details.  The bedding is Pottery Barn brand, but I certainly didn't pay PB prices for it.  I paid all of $5 for the whole set at a yard sale!  It was practically brand new and came with the bumper pad, bed skirt, and two sheets.  It has such a sweet style to it and of course I love red and white, and the farm theme is so cute.  I bought the set before I was even pregnant, not knowing if we would have a boy or a girl, but figuring it was neutral enough to be fine for either.  

I bought the two bolster pillows much later at a different yard sale for $1 each.  I couldn't really remember exactly what the bedding set looked like, but I knew it had red and white so I got them.  I was so pleased when I finally did get the set out again and realized the bedding also has red ric-rac trim on it like the pillows do!  They could have been sold together originally they look so cute together.

 

 After I got the bedding put on the bed the area above the crib looked so plain and I really wanted something cute, but also something that didn't cost much of anything.  The first thing I tried was printing out homemade art with the letters of her name and used Washi tape to attach them to the wall and surrounded them with an empty red frame I already had.  And I liked it just fine.  At first.  But then it seemed to need something more.  It seemed awfully lonely up there all by itself.  So then I got the idea of printing off coloring pages and letting each of the kids color a page for her wall.  I spray painted some thrifted frames with red spray paint I had left over from another project and added them to the wall.  But once I had them up there I didn't like the printed letters anymore.  I loved the coloring pages, but the other part just didn't seem to be the right fit anymore.  

I searched Hobby Lobby looking for inspiration, and even went through all of their posters and art work trying to find just the right thing, or at least an idea of something I could make at home.  But I came up with nothing and every day those letters drove me more and more crazy.

And then one Thursday morning I saw an ad for an estate sale that started that morning.  By then I was 41 weeks pregnant, but that didn't stop me.  I bundled up the kids and hustled them into the van and we went to check it out.  The home had a couple of sheds outside that were full of stuff for sale and in a dark dirty corner of one them, behind a box.....I spied it.  

The perfect piece. 

 

A large cross stitch style, pastoral scene done with yarn.  So sweet, so simplistic, so vintage, and so imperfectly perfect!  I asked the man in charge how much for it and a $2 price tag was just what my wallet ordered. 

 It was a bit dirty and scuffed up so I brought it home and gave the cloth part a light scrubbing with a bit of soap to clean it up and I gave the frame a light coat of fresh white craft paint to brighten it up.

 

It was the perfect size to fit inside the empty red frame that had already been hanging there so I glued the red frame to the white frame to give it some more impact and make it stand out more so that the white frame wouldn't get lost against the pale wall.

 

 Ahhhhh....MUCH better!!  Now I LOVE it!

 

I love the combination of an "art" piece and also having my kiddos artwork up there too.  

                                Colored by the 5 year old.                                                               The 8 year old's work.

 It makes it that much more special, and they're pretty proud to have their work displayed like this.  :)

 

 I also love how the style of the apple trees on the vintage piece so closely resembles the apple trees on the bedding set.  

 On the other wall is her changing table. 

 I tucked in a little spindle lamp that I've had for years and added a low wattage bulb to use for those middle of the night feedings and diaper changes.  The dresser has little cubbies with baskets that hold diapers and other sorts of baby paraphernalia.  Above the table is a mirror with hooks that I got a yard sale for $1.  It originally had a different style of hook, but 2 of the 3 were broken and I absolutely could not find matching ones anywhere.  So I ended up just getting a completely different style to replace them.  They were 50% off at Hobby Lobby so I think paid about $4 or so for the 3 hooks.

 

They're pretty handy to hold her quickly growing headband collection, as well as a handy spot to hold the little diaper disposal bags for easy access during changes.

 

 On top of the little white dresser sits a picture my grandma gave us years ago.  It's one of her favorite scenes and I thought it would be special to include it.

 

You may have noticed this piece sitting at the end of her crib.  My dad made it for my niece as a dress up center to store her dresses and shoes, but she had outgrown it so it got passed on to us.  It fits just perfectly at the end of her crib and makes a great little "closet" since she doesn't have one of her own.

 

And that, my friends, concludes our story on how I put together a simple farm themed "nursery" for under $20.