Penguins, Penguins, Penguins!

Thank goodness for etsy.com, where I can find tons of great penguin stuff that I love.  It was hard choosing wall decals, but for the time being, I am done with wall decals...unless I find something I must have. 

Anyway, over Memorial Day weekend, I painted the bottom half of the wall.

And then applied the first part of the wall decal

I consulted AJ about the layout of two remaining penguins, and he suggested to put them on the left side.  So I ordered another wall decal for the right side.

I want to put a penguin clock up and possibly hang a quilt on the lefthand side to take up some of the arctic sky, but for now, I'm done....until I search etsy.com again and find something else that I want to add!

I also have a crib bed skirt on order that I want to use iron on embellishments (from etsy.com) to have a custom penguin bed skirt! 

Nursery Progress

This is the nursery as the guest room:

It had to be rearranged to fit the nursery furniture and became a little crowded and messy on its way to become a nursery:

Then a neutral paint was applied (Olympic Pony Tail) and the paintings and pictures were rehung, the bed was cleaned up, the dresser and hutch wad assembled/anchored, and I could get to the closest to clean out all of the junk we had stored in it.

The penguins were brought out of the attic and from my nightstand in the master bedroom to adorn the top of the hutch:

Then I assembled the crib (very easy I might add), and I laid out the penguin decals...though more are in the mail because AJ had some other suggestions:

Then the Arctic sky (Olympic Grey Goose) was painted:

I just painted the grey on Monday, so it needs to dry a while before I paint the water - I don't want the painters tape to take off the grey paint.  I also need to touch up corners where the painter's tape failed me and spots that are thin or AJ banged up when moving furniture.  I am excited with how things are progressing, especially since the room was a complete mess for at least 3 weeks, and now I have baby clothes put away, some decor put in place, and the room organized near it's finished arrangement.

The Penguin Nursery...Finding Inspiration to Begin

Here's the current state of the nursery...really in need of decision making and work. :)

I'm not a big fan of the real cartoony looking penguins for the nursery.  I love all penguins, and even the cartoon ones, but I wanted more real life penguins for the nursery.  So finding decorations that fit the design intent has proved to be time consuming.  Lots of internet searches...but etsy.com has proved to be extremely helpful for finding ideas.

So today, I bit the bullet and finally made a decision.  I know, a double toggle light switch plate doesn't seem like a huge step, but it is!  It's my inspiration to begin the nursery and start laying out what I want to do.  I am excited about my purchase and can't wait to see what the plate looks like in person and hope it works out.  If not, I'm only out ten bucks, so no big deal.  I also found someone on Etsy that has single plate designs that is willing to make double toggle designs, but I found out this information after I bought the plate switch on eBay.

I found several real life wall murals, but I'm not sure how well they would fit in the nursery, so I searched more for black and white penguin penguins or outlines of penguins.  Some of the ones I am considering are below:

This first one could be centered over the crib with a wall painted grey (bottom) and blue (top) separated by ice/iceberg. 

 The second one could be on the left side of the crib as if the penguins are peaking over into Baby's A crib.  Not sure of the color scheme.  Maybe a light arctic blue over the entire wall.

The third choice could have the two penguins on either side of the crib with their heads peaking/looking in at the crib.  I think the walls would be painted a light sky blue.

Just some thoughts, but I want to draw it out on paper before I make any decisions.  There's dimensions and layouts to consider since the crib will sit on the wall with the door, which means the wall is shorter. 

Here's the wall, with the crib in it's approximate location.

Nursery Ideas

I absolutely love penguins - I collect stuff penguins, I have gone to a behind the scenes visit at the Columbia zoo, and I have visited numerous penguin exhibits along with watching plenty of penguin movies.
Soooo...over the next few months, I hope to convince AJ that we should do a penguin (or at least arctic) themed nursery. Therefore, I have been searching online for ideas and bedding, which is more difficult than I expected.  However, I did find this on http://www.tot2teenonline.com/, and I do love it.  I feel it's gender neutral and classy, and the paint color isn't bold - it's light and soothing, at least in my opinion!

I also found it available at Toys R Us, guess I will have to comparison shop!

From allposters.com, I found a neat wall deal that might fit in - though a tad more "cartoony" than the arctic babies above.  Guess I will have to keep searching the internet and stores!  But I do like what I have found so far.

I did show AJ the pictures, and he thought the idea was great for a girl, but not a boy!  Then I showed him that Toys R Us lists this nursery theme under boys.  I told we don't need everything shown, and you can arrange things differently to put a different spin on it.  At least he was open to the idea of penguins/arctic nursery!