Nursery ideas

Nursery Themes: I have our nursery ready and waiting. I chose to do the nursery with giraffes, lions, and hippos. I basicly stuck with the giraffe (one my favorite animals).We are expecting to adopt our baby from Guatemala. Carly will hopefully be coming home in April. I am so happy with the way the nursery came out. First I found the crib set that I really liked and I went from there. I found wallpaper and all the little extras to go a long with it. See the attached pictures for some ideas. Diane

Like i had said previously we wanted a little bugs theme, but didnt buy too much before we are matched, i feel kind of strange about it. I love going to babysrus and window shopping, but I'm afraid to buy, does anyone else feel that way?I don't want to go into an prepared room until i have something to prepare for. I did buy one pack of small diapers a few clothes and a car seat, just in case we get an unexpected call.The rest i figured we would deal with when the time came.

ya know i felt the 'scared to prepare' while doing IF treatment, we could Never make ourselves shop for baby stuff. would Never think of going into a baby store, it hurt too much. but since starting adoption, we allowed ourselves to believe it will happen. and we have had SO much fun shopping, and planning. somehow it just feels right now. we have soooo many clothes we've had to make ourselves stop buying. we have a few packs of diapers, my best friend bought us the 'transportation system', (the stroller/carriage/carrier/carseat), it is awesome. and we have the porta crib for next to our bed and the crib/bedroom set is in and waiting for us to pick up. we have a little remodeling to do, moving a door from on side of the room to another and then we can have the painter come in for the mural. i Love walking there and dreaming, looking at the crib and seeing my baby. folding blankets etc. i think for us it has been good to plan and 'do'. for SO many years we waited in fear and now we can actually Believe....This Will Happen! leannh

I can understanding not wanting to do a nursery til the baby is here. In some cultures it is considered bad luck to set things up in advance. It isn't a problem, either. Just put a bassinet next to your bed and you're set for the very beginning if you're adopting a newborn. Work on the nursery in your spare time (LOL!) and the baby will have it's place by the time he/she outgrows the bassinett. My nursery is a circus animal theme. I wanted it to be bright and cheerful and found a neat wallpaper border that's actually over 2' tall to wrap around the middle of the room (crib height). I embelleshed with some balloons on the wall and shelfs with stuffed animals (mostly given as gifts). Gender neutral, yet not entirely too baby. I recently found a great book - Bedrooms for Cool Kids. Really neat ideas that I will be using for my son's "big boy" room in the future. I highly recommend that book.

Thanks to everyone for giving such great nursery ideas!!! We are still kind of undecided. We have picked out a "Millenium" bedding set with little moons and stars on it and will expand from there. Probably add some teddy bears in there...i'm a collector myself. Best of Luck to everybody in their adoption plans and dreams!!! May God Bless us All!

For those of you undecided when you should do the nursery. I don't believe in superstitions.....I was hoping that working on the nursery would keep me busy and hopefully make the time go by faster. Plus I really wanted to have it done before our baby comes home so when she finally comes home I can spend all my time with her and not have to worry about trying to finish the nursery. I also didn't want to wait the last minute and be rushed. I took my time and it came out just as I pictured. It is perfect! I hope this helps! DD

hi I am adopting a 3 year old and we did his room in WHinnie the pooh.We painted his walls yellow and i handcrafted alot of his whinnie the pooh decorations i wanted some that noone else had so i made them.I also made him a whinnie the pooh stuffed bear i found the pattern online.Plus i have saved a TON of money bye doing this.Also we went bright due to my baby is special needs and is blind.

Leannh after reading your post I really had to respond because my husband and I have done the same thing. I have so many clothes, blankets, burp clothes, wash clothes, onesies, booties, you name it we have got it. I really stepped out tonight on radical faith believing our baby will come home this year. I bought my crib set for the nusery tonight- cuddly Noah- the Noah's ark theme with all the cute little animals. My next step is painting and setting up the nursery. This week my friend gave us a swing, a bouncer seat, and a walker- she has the same radical faith I have -believing God for our greatest miracle this year- our baby. We haven't been matched yet but we believe in Jesus name we will bring our baby home this year. May God Bless.

Lord forgive me but I went with some Martha Stewart (ugh) colors. Put a chair rail up and the bottom half I painted a kind of yellow with the top half a blue/green MS color. I am planning to stencil white dragonflies on the upper half. For bedding, I chose a bug theme that has a lot of different colors and a neutral rug. White/off-white furniture. I tried to steer away from the real cutesy stuff because although I love it, they come in colors that are too gender specific. Have fun!

We haven't been matched yet, but that has not stopped us from "mentally" planning everything in that room! HA! If we have a girl, we are thinking of a garden theme. With lavendar walls, white furniture, and using silk flowers lined accross the tops of the walls to act as a border. If we have a boy, we would like an ocean theme, since we will be adopting from the Islands. Light blue walls, lots of sea shells, ect. I, too, am having a hard time buying anything - I don't know I think I would feel guilty buying for a baby we have not been matched with yet. Not that the urge isn't there - believe me! It's all I can do to not go into Babies R Us and go wild! But, for me, if I were to start buying now, it might make the waiting process harder. Annie

ISW, I agree 100% with you. I chose to not use frilly stuff in ours. I used soft yellow, soft green with some earth tones. I really didn't care for all the "gender specific colors". Maybe it had something to do with myself growing up with a pink room!

As i wrote before i was a little hesitant about setting up the room. But i had our 13 yr old son put together the bassinet, he loved doing it himself, it was nice to feel hopeful. I EVEN registered at Babiesrus...can't give a due date, but i figured why not? The other nurses i work with said they wanted to give me a shower, so i started to look. 3 years ago two other nurses in the unit adopted within 6 months of each other, it was fun to go to the showers,with the babies right there getting passed around the room.

We used Classic Pooh, and didn't completely finish the nursery until we had our son home. Then we accented in light blue. That's what was so great about the classic pooh; you could put almost any color with it to make it pop. This time were going to use the classic pooh again and accent in pink. We're trying to decide what to do about the walls. With our son we left them a neutral color and worked with a border.

Hello all, What my dh and I did was paint the nursery and put up some wainscot with white, pale yellow and pale green for our colors and we used the Noah's Ark theme. I bought all of the bedding and decorations but kept them in a box. We did not set up anything in the room because I did not want to look at it daily. I would just get to depressed because we were not matched at the time. The only things that I did by for the baby were bottles and that was it. I think the most annoying part of buying the bedding and such was I was at Target and when I went to check out the lady at the register asked if I wanted a gift receipt and I told her no that it was for me. She looked puzzeled and stated "you don't look pregnant" and I told her we were going to adopt and she said to save my receipts so that I can return the stuff just in case we did not get a baby. I was so ticked off that I told her "we will get a baby" and left without another word. (ugh!) Anyway back to the original story - we were matched and the bm made her decision within a couple of days and we had to go pick up our son who was already born. We had to run around and get a car seat and some of the basics. It was actually exciting doing it like that:p Good luck to everyone!

Just thought I would put my decorating ideas in too. We own and operate a shoe repair shop and will be bringing our baby (babies) to work with us, so I have prepared two nurseries! The first one I started was the one at home about 8 years ago when I got pregnant the first time (We lost four pregnancies). I decided on a Teddie Bear and balloons theme in primary colors and have collected quite a few bears that 'do' things... giggle, read stories, ask math questions, sing jingle bells, sound like mother's heartbeat, etc. I have a teddie bear wall clock whose tail swings and the Winnie the Pooh perpertual wall calendar where you change the plates each month to show Winnie doing something seasonally appropriate. I also found soft sculptured rainbows, clouds, and balloons to hang on the walls and painted the walls a soft blue called "Atmosphere" which I thought was very appropriate. And a rug for the floor that has the four primary colored balloons set into it. It took me about 6 years to find all the items I have and I put each item in place when I purchased it. Most of them were found at garage sales or thrift shops and I have had a blast decorating this room at really very little cost compared to what you would think I spent when you look at the finished product. I wanted something different for work but was still in love with the primary colors and other soft sculpture stuff so I changed out the Teddie Bear for a Clown. Same song, different verse. I figured Teddie Bears are for cuddling when you sleep, Clowns are for playing with while you are awake. I have everything to decorate with, including the same model crib, sitting at work in the space designated as the nursery, I haven't put anything but the crib up yet. I was hoping my husband would help me fix it all up when we get 'The Call' so he could be involved in preparing for the baby too. If anyone would like to take a look at the nursery I have at home for some decorating ideas, feel free to click on my profile button below, then go to my homepage listed there. I have pics of all four walls of the nursery at home on a web page I am using for my "Dear Birthparents" letter networking. Good luck to everyone. To each, his or her own, on buying and decorating before or after your little one comes home. Some of you find hope in shopping and decorating, some of you may be too uncomfortable with this and need to wait so you don't increase your anxiety level. Go with whatever is right for you and don't let anyone else tell you that it is the wrong thing to do.