Cheao ways to decorate the nursery?

[offonajolly]

Hello Ladies, I'm 21 weeks today and my mind has turned to thoughts of decorating and nesting. We have a spare room that was previously used as a nursey (we moved in earlier this year) and as we plan to do building work next year I don't want to spend a fortune but still want to make it look nice...

How have you decorated your nursery without breaking the bank?

I understand where you're coming from! We are looking to sell up in a couple of years so didn't want to go too OTT with decorating the nursery.

We lined the walls with a decentish textured paper (insulates against sound and adds a bit of warmth and protection) then painted a nice soft green colour. The paper was about £42 and the paint about £20.

We got a nice teddy bear canvas for about £15, and will be decorating some papier mache letters in bright colours to put on the walls once DC arrives and we settle on a name! We're also keeping an eye on ebay for friendly canvases/prints which you can get really cheaply.

Re carpet, there is one in place which is ok, so we're going to hire a carpet washer and do it that way, maybe get an inexpensive colourful rug.

It's definitely possible to decorate without breaking the bank. Do you have colours in mind yet? Any themes you want to go with?

Our nursery was quite small so it was cheap to decorate. We painted all of it dark blue, including the ceilings, and then added glow in the dark stars (use extra glue on the ceiling and don't put directly over cot). We also found some glow in the dark wall paper which was expensive but we only needed two rolls. I know most people do wishy-washy and pale nursery colours, but I liked the idea of DD sleeping under the stars every night.

Well what we have at the moment is a chimney breast covered in little yellow duck wallpaper which I think it sweet and then just a banner which goes around the outside - nothing very fancy - paper mache letters is a nice idea...I think perhaps I need to go to an arts and crafts shop and buy some stensils or something to paint shapes onto the wall with...we know we're having a little girl (the previous owners had a little boy) but I'm not too fussed on going all out pink so that's not a prob... how do you paper mache?

ooo that sounds nice sleeping under the stars....might have a look for some of those...

We used wall stickers from Amazon and kept the base colour neutral. Thought it would be the best way to get around the inevitable begging for Dinosaurs, Thomas, Jungle etc. that will come when ds gets to toddler age ;0

harriet that is the exact one we have!

You can buy ready-made letters, numbers and shapes from HobbyCraft which you can then paint or patch with funky paper etc... Not that expensive, but cute and you can be quite creative.

See here: hobbycraft papier mache bits

Love the stars idea btw...

We hardly did anything to create a nursery. My logical was they would only be sleeping in there as all socialising would be done downstairs.
We painted the room white and bought a chest of drawers and a nice wall unit from IKEA. The wall unit was great for displaying all the teddies and china they were given.
I recovered my old Moses baskets in white lace with yellow elephants and bought a cheap stand from Argos.
When my babies were born somebody gave us a lovely canvas from JoJo Mama Bebe.
From Tx Max I bought some nice white baskets lined with blue gingham check which I out nappies and things in one and used the other for a toy basket.
Didn't bother with a changing station, just used the floor or the spare bed.
Oh and for there first Christmas we were given mobiles.

We have a ds too but we didn't find out in advance so had that with the Sleepy Owl range from Dunelm so there is every colour imaginable in there. It looks babyish rather than girly all together iyswim - the bedding is a lot of green and orange.

Our nursery is all white with one wall with alphabet wallpaper and bright curtains.
We made a feature wall. We used cheap canvases and covered them with fabric off-cuts and 1/2 metres.
We got some of the really small lack shelves and put cuddly toys/trinkets on them. They were each given a framed name and a wooden initial as a Christening present so they are up there. We also bought a load of cheap white frames in different sizes from Ikea and Wilkinsons,

Some have photos in,
we bought cards to go in others the hungry caterpillar ones and some from a craft fair,
The rest we filled with off cuts from the wallpaper we used on the chimney breast.
Now the boys are growing up we replace some of the wallpaper ones with the craft they do at toddlers, handprints, their tiny socks from when they were newborn.

We also bought a load of £1.50 wooden spice racks from Ikea, painted them in the colours of the rainbow and put them on the wall to store books in.
The boys can find the books easily as they are displayed with the covers facing out rather than the spine and the books liven up the white wall space.

gosh lots of good ideas there - and inexpensive too :) these nurseries all sound lovely. I know I can't do too much but I want to make that effort to make it special if you see what I mean...thanks ladies!

notso your spice rack idea is genius - ds has loads of books but I can't find a bookcase that I like. Thank you!

For pictures on the wall get some cheap frames, go to a charity shop and buy some children's books with pictures you like - I've framed pics from Roaring Rockets but could be anything (Guess how much I love you, something duck themed - Farmer Duck?). Or greetings cards or postcards. Sometimes getting a few smaller frames and putting them as a set on the wall with different but themed (or not) pictures in them can be quite effective.

Other thing is to decoupage a canvas with similar charity shop books/magazines/etc

If you like sewing, you can buy some a plain set of curtains and then applique (or fabric glue!) a design on the bottom.

Look on pinterest too - loads of lovely things. Ikea is always great for really cheap things to brighten up a room and good storage solutions for kids. Their showrooms also can give you quite a few ideas. They have very reasonable small rugs which can really brighten up a room. Actually I get ideas (usually not actually put into practice!) from looking at the Aspace catalogue for decor and then just seeing how I could do it myself from bits and bobs at home.

If your library has a copy, have a look at homemade home for children by sania pell. Lovely ideas in there for thrifty crafty items.

A cheap roller blind for blackout and cheap curtains for decoration.

These would match your wallpaper and they do even cheaper nice ones too.
www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/40172264/

Thank you EnglishGirl

notso- that sounds gorgeous! We had a very plain nursery but have done up our dc's "big boy/girl" rooms. Dd's is pink pink and more pink (her favourite!) we used wall stickers and I made some bunting from cheap bits of fabric. don't care what people may say- I love my pretty bunting!

We dont have a nursery as only in a 1 bed.

However we made a 'corner' in our room. We have the two cot beds along one wall with a 4 cube tall ikea expedit unit one side of each bed for storage. Then the space in the middle is the 'snug'. We also got the ikea spice racks and attaced two to the ends of the beds, then the space has a large sheepskin rug, cushions behind to lean on and the books in racks

So it's kinda along one wall: unit, bed, snug, bed, unit... If that makes sense.

Everything is white wood, with blue and red gingham as colours on cushions/ duvet etc. they also have bunting on wall.

Everything is portable so for moving/ converting it can go too

Removable wall stickers. They're fairly cheap, take about 30 minutes to put up (and if you get it wrong you can carefully remove and reposition), you can remove them when your child grows out of them or if you move house. We got jungle themed ones and painting cats. DS (2yo) loves them!

A lick of paint, and you can buy vinyl stick on wall, stickers from somewhere like ebay. That's what we're doing for our nursery. They've got some REALLY detailed ones, but we're going to paint the nursery soft pink (as it's a girl) and using different sized butterflies in white and silver. Wanted a "classy" nursery, rather than tigger, hello kitty etc. And it will last - kids always going in and out of trends when they get older, one minute they like one cartoon, then the following week they'll hate it. xxx

Thanks Blackholes I am working on some bunting to match the boys curtains. I think it looks lovely in children's rooms.

cocoplops that picture book idea is great, I might pinch it!

Word of warning with the wall stickers. Hopefully the adhesive has improved considerably but, 10 years ago we bought a house and the nursery was decorated with a tractor vinyl border. It had only been on a year when we redecorated that room and it was impossible to remove without damaging the wall and we had to have the room reskimmed.