DIY Bookshelves & Crystal Baby Mobile!

I'm really behind on sharing some of the projects I have worked on for the kids rooms. Mainly these pallet bookshelves & a window project I've had done since we lived at our old house! The window will have to wait a little longer until we hang it & I can show the finished product.

For now, I can at least show you his super cute book shelves!

{Pallet Bookshelves}

We started out with some plain old pallets that Matt brought home from work.

He cut them to make 2 shelves & used a crowbar to take a few slats off & hammered them into place.

Then I cleaned up the wood & clear coated them to make them look nice, but still rustic. No stain, no paint...just natural. As you can see...we made these SO long ago...it's been a little over year since we finished these.

Finally, a few months later, Matt got around to hanging one...yeah...one. It was a lot bigger process than we thought because we had plaster walls behind this paneling at the old house. Matt broke off one of his bits in the wall in the process! Not good! You can see how little Greyson is here...he still looks like a little baby! He loves being front & center to help daddy =) 

We enjoyed our one bookshelf for awhile & then had to take it right back down to move...good thing we didn't put the other one up! 

Here is the finished product at our new house! We had to wait until the room was painted, & we still have some decor to add above the shelves, but for now, they are working, functioning bookshelves & Greyson loves them!

See how much he's grown since these were done?? We can be such procrastinators!

 One thing that didn't take me long to make was this baby mobile for the nursery. I made Greyson's mobile before he was born, so I knew I would make something this time too. On days when I had to wait on Matt to help with bigger projects...I focused on smaller things.

The nursery has been pretty easy to decorate & majorly cost effective...I haven't had to buy hardly anything! I'm using all the same furniture from Greyson's nursery & upgrading him to his "big boy" room. Plus most of the decor & other items I'm using I already owned...with the exception of 2 or 3 things & some little crafty accents I bought from my aunt =) So I figured one little DIY item couldn't hurt & I used lots of 40% off coupons to make it!

{DIY Crystal Baby Mobile}

I have seen several crystal mobiles on pinterest & since I like the chandelier vibe it gives off, I knew I wanted to make one of my own. 

I started with a wire wreath frame (about $2) & wedding crystals from Michaels. I already had burlap, craft paint & some embellishments at home so those were the only things I had to buy. I painted the green frame a cream color to match the room so when you look up at it, it's not so dark & unfinished looking.

 I bought the crystals 2 separate times to use my coupons so it made it way cheaper. I didn't feel like stringing individual crystals on fishing line or string like I have seen done before...too time consuming, so these wedding crystals are a great alternative! They are used to drape in floral arrangements etc & come in long strands so I just took them apart & attached them to the frame.

I love neutral colors & always had an idea of what I wanted to do in a nursery if I ever had a girl. Even when I ended up having a boy, I still used most of those same ideas like my cream & white furniture, rustic accents & decor. I have had lots of burlap on hand ever since & use it for so many things. It was a no brainer that I needed something to go around the wreath frame & since I already had other burlap accents in the room, I tied this in. To create a "ruffle" all I did was pull one strand of the burlap to make it bunch up...being careful not to break it on the other end. It worked out perfectly! I just attached it to the frame & then hung my crystal strands.

I used a thin twine string to hold it up giving it more of that rustic feel, but the crystals make it seem girly & elegant. I embellished it just a tiny bit with a burlap rosette & a little craft tag I got from my aunt. 

 Matt hung it up for me in a corner of the nursery with a simple hook. It is a little heavier than normal with all the crystals, so I wasn't really comfortable hanging it over the crib. Especially with longs strands that a tiny baby could get tangled up in! So this won't be serving much as an actual mobile over her crib. 

I placed it a little behind our chair so that she can still look at it & enjoy it while I feed or read to her. We still have a shelf to hang near the chair so it won't look so lonely up there =) & the only other thing we bought was ONE shade of gray paint! No, that is not a darker gray or tan color...it is the same color as the other wall!

 I have always loved the color gray (being so much into neutral...I should probably try to branch out more) & it was the color we painted our living room at our old house when Matt & I first got married. Matt rarely likes to buy a sample paint to test on walls before painting because it costs just about as much as 1 gallon! SO after we painted it, the room looked A LOT like this picture is showing here! It was definitely in the tan family. Gray is just one of those colors you have to be careful with...I have seen it look blue, lavender, & tan...just to name a few. 

To be more clear, here's a little sneak peek of our nursery accent wall. We tried to pick something light & went with the color called "Grayish". I love creams & tans next to it, but every now & then a picture like the one above will distort the color. Also, during the day it leans more towards lavender...like the photo below...but its ok because it IS a girls room! =) 

We wanted an accent wall so we could use part of the existing paint color. The previous owners had just painted this room the perfect shade of cream that matched all my nursery furniture!! I wanted to utilize it someway but didn't want to leave one whole wall cream, so we left the bathroom & closet all cream & accented this wall with a stencil. I love how it turned out! We had very willing painters tackle this for us & for beginners...they did an amazing job! 

We will eventually change the fan out to a white or cream one since that one is obviously overbearing...but you just gotta have a fan in your bedroom living in Alabama! So that will be the last thing we have to buy. 

I'm excited to finish this nursery, but again...you know us! I probably won't get around to sharing the final details until months later. I have a really neat cast iron bed that we bought the first year we were married...one part of the frame was broken that Matt STILL hasn't gotten around to fixing! We always thought about using it in a little guest room at our old house...now, it's the perfect bed for baby girl to grow into & since the room is so big, it definitely needs something else in there. I'm happy to say that the bed has finally made it to the shop after 7.5 years...now lets just see if it makes it back home in the next 2-6 months! =)