DIY Dr. Seuss Lorax Nursery Mural

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="The R House"][/caption]

In honor of  Dr. Seuss's birthday today I thought it a good idea to re-post Gwyneth's Dr. Seuss nursery from the archives. What did you choose for your child's nursery?

This post was published on January 3, 2011.

Dr. Seuss, The Lorax Nursery {Pt. 1}

Part 2

So I left off with the nursery when we had finally gotten the wallpaper off the walls and began painting our base colors. Nobody really understood what we were going for when we decided to base the nursery off of Dr. Seuss' book the Lorax.

How did we come to this decision?

We wanted a nursery that was gender neutral. Our plan is to move baby #1 out into the next bedroom when she gets older, giving her the luxury of choosing how to decorate her room while baby #2 gets moved right into the pre-designed gender neutral nursery. Makes sense, no?

So we went through our pool of ideas and settled on Dr. Seuss. Whimsical, not too feminine (Pooh Bear) or masculine (Mario Bros.) and fun. But what Dr. Seuss story? I originally thought Horton Hears a Who was the best choice, but Sir Sunderland disagreed due to (what he thinks) are the horrors of Jim Carey ruining the movie....

He then proposed The Lorax, a story of capitalism and environmentalism  with an adorable little character, the Lorax, who protects the trees. After reading the story, I was all but inspired but loved the trees and the little character. A compromise was made. We'll go with the awesome Dr. Seuss trees and add a cute little Lorax character in there somewhere.

It sounded simple enough.

• get a projector


• get a copy of the book


• project the pictures up on the wall


•  trace


• paint.

That was until we realized that neither of us has any artistic capabilities to speak of. I immediately tried to find an Etsy vendor to produce vinyl trees. In the end our original idea was the way to go as the vinyl wouldn't be up to par and twice the cost. Enter my 18 year old brother in law's girlfriend who piped up one evening during dinner that she had some sort of artistic talent. Boy did she regret that!

Wall #1 took  two  grueling days where we traced, painted and she outlined/shadowed. She was able to freehand the tree trunks and the grass on the bottom of the trees and boy did it make a difference.

It worked out well.  As the girls did the painting the boys got to work on building the furniture and finsihing things around the house. They built her crib, her changing table/dresser, both of her play yards (which aren't called play pens anymore), her swing and took care of some home maintenance that needed to get done.

Fastforward a month, four long days and more cost than I would like to mention.....our little Gwyneth has her nursery set and ready to go!

 

Doesn't the crib go great? My grandmother nearly had a heart attack when I said we were getting black furniture for the nursery.

It came out even better than I could've ever imagined and is exactly what we wanted. And look at how cute the Lorax came out! I would've never imagined it would be so exact and detailed.



Sure it was stressful, a whole lot of work, and I may have shed a few tears filled with anxiety if we'd ever get it done, but wow, it really is just what we wanted.

And you know the best part?

It took help from the whole family from my Dad, to our siblings, to the generosity of family members who gifted us her gorgeous furniture and everyone really stepped up to make it happen which fills my heart with joy.

 This is one lucky little girl who gets one cool/practical nursery!

Post-edit:

Present day.





 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Best Foyer Ever

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, my foyer. If you'd like to see the inspiration I drew from, check out this post.

Pin It

It was a cinch to do, I'm not sure why I drug my feet so much to get it done.

The paint was leftover from baby G's nursery. This took months for me to commit to. Would the blue actually look nice or like something I painted my wall with because I had the paint?

And then, one day I walked into baby G's nursery with my fabric for the hoops in hand. As I held it up to the wall I made up my mind. It would not only look nice, it would look awesome.

The embroidery hoop art was ridiculously simple. I looked at a tutorial one day (which I can't locate because it was before the days of the glorious Pinterest) and thought, duh, that was a silly tutorial. Simply put your fabric (uncut) into the hoop > trace around the inner circle with a pen > cut > put it in your hoop et voila > embroidery hoop art.

We hung them with thumb tacks after much deliberation of where the perfect spot would be. Word of advice, don't over think it. They're not permanent and can always be moved.

Here is what I love most about this "art." The possibilities are endless for customizing it for the holidays. You know all that holiday fabric you see and wonder what on earth people do with it? There are only so many quilts people can make! Well here you go. And you only need 1/4 yard at most, so it's on the cheap.

I can also add to it. There is always a bucket of embroidery hoops at any and every thrift store I've ever been to. I can take my time and find the right size for the right spot. Meanwhile, it still looks pretty good as is.

Now, I will admit that just the blue wall, looked like it was just a.blue.wall. It needed something more. Something like a staircase behind it lined with blue accents to bring it all together? Perhaps!

You can find my awesome foyer reveal floating around these linky parties this week. Go check 'em out, you never know what tutorial or recipe you might find.

The Best Foyer Ever

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, my foyer. If you'd like to see the inspiration I drew from, check out this post.

Pin It

It was a cinch to do, I'm not sure why I drug my feet so much to get it done.

The paint was leftover from baby G's nursery. This took months for me to commit to. Would the blue actually look nice or like something I painted my wall with because I had the paint?

And then, one day I walked into baby G's nursery with my fabric for the hoops in hand. As I held it up to the wall I made up my mind. It would not only look nice, it would look awesome.

The embroidery hoop art was ridiculously simple. I looked at a tutorial one day (which I can't locate because it was before the days of the glorious Pinterest) and thought, duh, that was a silly tutorial. Simply put your fabric (uncut) into the hoop > trace around the inner circle with a pen > cut > put it in your hoop et voila > embroidery hoop art.

We hung them with thumb tacks after much deliberation of where the perfect spot would be. Word of advice, don't over think it. They're not permanent and can always be moved.

Here is what I love most about this "art." The possibilities are endless for customizing it for the holidays. You know all that holiday fabric you see and wonder what on earth people do with it? There are only so many quilts people can make! Well here you go. And you only need 1/4 yard at most, so it's on the cheap.

I can also add to it. There is always a bucket of embroidery hoops at any and every thrift store I've ever been to. I can take my time and find the right size for the right spot. Meanwhile, it still looks pretty good as is.

Now, I will admit that just the blue wall, looked like it was just a.blue.wall. It needed something more. Something like a staircase behind it lined with blue accents to bring it all together? Perhaps!

You can find my awesome foyer reveal floating around these linky parties this week. Go check 'em out, you never know what tutorial or recipe you might find.

DIY Dr. Seuss, The Lorax Nursery {Pt. 2}

Dr. Seuss, The Lorax Nursery {Pt. 1}

Part 2

So I left off with the nursery when we had finally gotten the wallpaper off the walls and began painting our base colors. Nobody really understood what we were going for when we decided to base the nursery off of Dr. Seuss' book the Lorax.

How did we come to this decision?

We wanted a nursery that was gender neutral. Our plan is to move baby #1 out into the next bedroom when she gets older, giving her the luxury of choosing how to decorate her room while baby #2 gets moved right into the pre-designed gender neutral nursery. Makes sense, no?

So we went through our pool of ideas and settled on Dr. Seuss. Whimsical, not too feminine (Pooh Bear) or masculine (Mario Bros.) and fun. But what Dr. Seuss story? I originally thought Horton Hears a Who was the best choice, but Sir Sunderland disagreed due to (what he thinks) are the horrors of Jim Carey ruining the movie....

He then proposed The Lorax, a story of capitalism and environmentalism  with an adorable little character, the Lorax, who protects the trees. After reading the story, I was all but inspired but loved the trees and the little character. A compromise was made. We'll go with the awesome Dr. Seuss trees and add a cute little Lorax character in there somewhere.

It sounded simple enough.

• get a projector


• get a copy of the book


• project the pictures up on the wall


•  trace


• paint.

That was until we realized that neither of us has any artistic capabilities to speak of. I immediately tried to find an Etsy vendor to produce vinyl trees. In the end our original idea was the way to go as the vinyl wouldn't be up to par and twice the cost. Enter my 18 year old brother in law's girlfriend who piped up one evening during dinner that she had some sort of artistic talent. Boy did she regret that!

Wall #1 took  two  grueling days where we traced, painted and she outlined/shadowed. She was able to freehand the tree trunks and the grass on the bottom of the trees and boy did it make a difference.

It worked out well.  As the girls did the painting the boys got to work on building the furniture and finsihing things around the house. They built her crib, her changing table/dresser, both of her play yards (which aren't called play pens anymore), her swing and took care of some home maintenance that needed to get done.

Fastforward a month, four long days and more cost than I would like to mention.....our little Gwyneth has her nursery set and ready to go!

 

Doesn't the crib go great? My grandmother nearly had a heart attack when I said we were getting black furniture for the nursery.

It came out even better than I could've ever imagined and is exactly what we wanted. And look at how cute the Lorax came out! I would've never imagine it would be so exact and detailed.

Sure it was stressful, a whole lot of work, and I may have shed a few tears filled with anxiety if we'd ever get it done, but wow, it really is just what we wanted.

 

And you know the best part?

It took help from the whole family from my Dad, to our siblings, to the generosity of family members who gifted us her gorgeous furniture and everyone really stepped up to make it happen which fills my heart with joy.

 This is one lucky little girl who gets one cool/practical nursery! 

Post-edit:

 

Dr. Seuss Nursery in 2 Parts

Part 2

So I left off with the nursery when we had finally gotten the wallpaper off the walls and began painting our base colors. Nobody really understood what we were going for when we decided to base the nursery off of Dr. Seuss' book the Lorax.

How did we come to this decision?

We wanted a nursery that was gender neutral. Our plan is to move baby #1 out into the next bedroom when she gets older, giving her the luxury of choosing how to decorate her room while baby #2 gets moved right into the pre-designed gender neutral nursery. Makes sense, no?

So we went through our pool of ideas and settled on Dr. Seuss. Whimsical, not too feminine (Pooh Bear) or masculine (Mario Bros.) and fun. But what Dr. Seuss story? I originally thought Horton Hears a Who was the best choice, but Sir Sunderland disagreed due to (what he thinks) are the horrors of Jim Carey ruining the movie....

He then proposed the Lorax, a story of capitalism and environmentalism  with an adorable little character, the Lorax, who protects the trees. After reading the story, I was all but inspired but loved the trees and the little character. A compromise was made. We'll go with the awesome Dr. Seuss trees and add a cute little Lorax character in there somewhere.

It sounded simple enough. We'd get a projector, get a copy of the book, project the pictures up on the wall, trace and paint.

That was until we realized that neither of us has any artistic capabilities to speak of. I immediately tried to find an Etsy vendor to produce vinyl trees. In the end our original idea was the way to go as the vinyl wouldn't be up to par and twice the cost. Enter my 18 year old brother in law's girlfriend who piped up one evening during dinner that she had some sort of artistic talent. Boy did she regret that!

 

Wall #1 took  two  grueling days where we traced, painted and she outlined/shadowed. She was able to freehand the tree trunks and the grass on the bottom of the trees and boy did it make a difference.

It worked out well.  As the girls did the painting the boys got to work on building the furniture and finsihing things around the house. They built her crib, her changing table/dresser, both of her play yards (which aren't called play pens anymore), her swing and took care of some home maintenance that needed to get done.

Fastforward a month, four long days and more cost than I would like to mention.....our little Gwyneth has her nursery set and ready to go!

 

Doesn't the crib go great? My grandmother nearly had a heart attack when I said we were getting black furniture for the nursery.

 It came out even better than I could've ever imagined and is exactly what we wanted. And look at how cute the Lorax came out! I would've never imagine it would be so exact and detailed.

 Check out our new rocking chair we got, courtesy of Jake's Grandma's Grandma. This thing is an antique handed down through the generations, a lovely addition to Gwynn's nursery.

Sure it was stressful, a whole lot of work, and I may have shed a few tears filled with anxiety if we'd ever get it done, but wow, it really is just what we wanted. 

And you know the best part?  

It took help from the whole family from my Dad, to our siblings, to the generosity of family members who gifted us her gorgeous furniture and everyone really stepped up to make it happen which fills my heart with joy. 

 

This is one lucky little girl who gets one cool/practical nursery!