The Beginnings of a Rustic Nursery

So I don't think I've actually announced on here yet, but we're expecting again! We are due in the middle of May with another little boy and we couldn't be more excited. This time around I am leaning toward a rustic/camping/woodland type theme, but I haven't gotten very much done on it yet (eek! I need to get in gear!). I thought I would throw together a few of my inspiration pictures as well as the first project I did for the room, which just happened to be free! So let's get started.

I have been drawn to bold wall colors a lot lately, I think originally because of this room from Young House Love.

 

So when I started trolling Pinterest for boy nursery ideas the ones with the bold blue wall color really hit the spot for me. Here are a few of my inspiration rooms from there. 

originally from here

If you know who the photo credit belongs to for this please let me know!

I also found this awesome tutorial for no sew burlap curtains that I thought would be great with the room, and save us a load of money on curtains since those things are so stinkin' expensive. 

I would also like to add a rag rug to the room. I hope I get around to making it, because I think it could be really cool, I get to pick the exact colors I want, and it doesn't sound that difficult according to this tutorial.

The last piece of inspiration is an awesome mood board from Land of Nod. I love pretty much everything in this mood board, but I know I won't be able to buy/recreate it all, but I will do what I can!

 

This brings me to my little free project that I whipped up yesterday. I love, love, love that mountain painting at the top, but unfortunately it is no longer available. So I decided to try my hand at a little painting of my own. I already had an 8x10 canvas and some acrylic craft paint on hand, so I figured what was the harm in giving it a shot? The summer after my first year in college I worked at a camp out in Colorado. It was absolutely beautiful out there, and I have loved Colorado ever since. There is one picture from that summer that I really love, I have the print out, but I can't find the original file on my computer to post for you, so here is a picture of the picture, along with a few of my painting supplies.

I thought I would try to recreate the picture on a canvas for my newest little guy. I started with the sky using a light blue Martha Stewart craft paint that I had on hand. 

I also had quite the helper, when he wasn't trying to eat the paint brush that is.

I wasn't crazy about how light the sky was in the beginning, but the great thing about painting is if you don't like something you can just paint over it. So I just mixed some primary blue in with the Martha Stewart blue and some white and got a few different colors going in the sky and I was much happier with it. Next I mixed together some paint to make the color for my mountain and used a very thin brush to make the outline of where I wanted my mountains to be, then just painted them in a little and started on my grass and trees.

I just kept mixing and painting and mixing and painting until I liked the way things looked, and if I didn't like the way something was turning out I painted over it.

I added some snow to the mountain tops along with some clouds in the sky and trees in the lower areas (I channeled my inner Bob Ross) and was about to call it a day, when I realized my mountains looked very plain. They were the only thing that I hadn't done any contrasting colors on at all, they were all just the solid tanish gray color. So I quickly added in a few darker streaks and was so much happier with the way it looked. It's amazing how something so simple like that can really make or break the whole thing. It really is all in the details I guess.

And here it is next to the inspiration picture. It's definitely not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out, and the place has special meaning to me too, which makes me love it even more.