Baby-themed spaces top the list of what I most enjoy creating and giving. Babies nurseries are by far the most requested and gifted miniature room themes that I create.
Whether it's replicating a life-size space, or creating a fictitious place, in these rooms in particular, showing the small details and signs of activity always proves to be a great deal of fun. I get lost in all the tiny points of interest that bring these precious little spaces to life and make them look and feel so real.
When my friend Andrea shared the news that she was having a baby girl, I was on Cloud 9 as I began to think about creating the ultimate little pink nursery. Having recently completed a few very sweet nurseries for little girls whose mommies didn't favor pink, I was anxious to blow the lid off any expectations that anyone could have of "baby pink" with layers and levels of pink that not even I had seen before.
As the weeks counted down to Bianca's due date, I would ask Andrea LOTS of questions about what her choices would be for a dream nursery for her daughter, and then I would spend a few days obsessing about including each and every one.
'Bianca's Nursery' was an ideal project to try out some new techniques I had been noodling on, and to ultimately get lost in them as the project evolved. It was the first time that I would use a display case that is open on four sides to create a room.
While this was quite a challenge, it was also a fantastic opportunity to give a room that would be packed with tiny items full access to natural light. I knew I didn't want the glass side panels to be completely void of some amount of wall since I had already planned to use those walls to hang photos and one of my signature nursery items, the Pottery Barn style bookcase. After experimenting with a few different widths, I landed on side wall panels that were about 1/3 of the width of the glass panels. A soft buttery cream would be the ideal color for these walls that would complement the pops, splashes and gentle folds of the eight shades of pink I could already see in the space.
I spent nearly an hour trying different arrangements for the items on the changing table, and in the end I used only 1/3 of what I had, attempting to strike a balance between having the table look "full and in use" yet not unrealistically crowded.
I also spent about thirty minutes swapping three different chairs in and out of the room. A low profile soft pink chair was lovely, and a little slimmer than the cream chair covered with roses but I felt it added just a little too much pink to the room. I came close to going with a cream chair that was just a shade darker than the walls, but it was satin and I felt it was too formal for the space... not to mention how impractical a satin chair would be in a baby's nursery.
The crib bumper and blankets also took me down the rabbit hole as I literally spent days cutting fabric samples and trying different thicknesses, textures and patterns.
I ended up making the bumper two times because even though I predicted the outcome, I tried to take a short cut by using glue instead of sewing the edges.
As I was about 90% finished with this project when I became frustrated after having found what I thought was the perfect colors for one of the blankets, only to realize the pattern of the material itself was too large and too coarse... it wouldn't look truly to scale in the room. My husband attempted to talk me off ledge as he once again reminded me that the person that is the recipient of one of my miniatures isn't going to be looking at, examining it and critiquing it the way that I do. "It's ok, Honey, just pick one... she'll think it's great because it will be."
In the end, the nursery had the look and feel that I had envisioned, and it felt like a great little space for a baby girl. Andrea's mother was floored when she saw that I had used the adorable pictures from Bianca's birth announcement as large candid photos on the wall above the crib. This is now my favorite style of room box to use because with all the open sides the lighting in the space is outstanding, and it gives the appearance of a room flanked by large windows and a skylight.
