Owen's Nursery Bedding

A while back I had posted about ideas for Owen's nursery... boy have things changed! Aaron and I found some bedding on Babies R Us's website that we loved, but they didn't have it in stock and it wasn't in the store. I went to the manufacturer's webpage and still was unable to find it anywhere. It wasn't listed as discontinued but it may as well have been. I put myself on lists to be notified when it came back in stock, which was supposed to be in November, and still nothing. Seeing as we knew that Owen wasn't going to have an actual nursery until our February move, we weren't stressing about it.

Now, it's January and Owen's arrival could be any day now. We have our new apartment lined up and things are starting to come together quite swimmingly. About a month ago, I had pretty much given up on the pirate-themed bedding that we loved so much, and while walking through Jo Ann Fabrics to get some last minute Christmas ornaments on sale, I passed by rows of fabric for baby quilts and got the bright idea to MAKE Owen's bedding instead.

I'm not entirely sewing-savvy or at least enough to feel comfortable taking on this feat by myself (even though I made both my prom dresses back in the day among some other things), so I recruited my mom to help me. A couple weeks ago, I brought up the idea again and found out that they were having a fantastic New Year's sale so my mom and I found ourselves at Jo Ann's again, this time picking out monkey-themed fabric. I am not an avid coupon clipper, but I definitely love a great deal and I picked the PERFECT time to buy everything I needed. The pattern for his bedding, which was usually $16 was on sale... for 99 cents. Yup, 99 cents. I just saved myself $15. Then, all of the fabrics that we needed were on sale for 30% off! And then there was an additional 20% off your entire purchase available at checkout. SCORE!!

We bought enough fabric (which turned out to be more than enough as we have extras now for other nursery-related DIY projects) and the pattern to make his crib quilt, 3 crib sheets, & a dust ruffle (we don't use the fluffy bumpers as we have a baby-safe breathable bumper instead) for a grand total of $86!! The original pirate bedding, just a 4 piece set with a bumper we never would have used, was $160 alone not including the extras so we totally saved! And even better than the savings is knowing that his bedding is unique... no one else will ever have the exact same bedding and the fact that it was made especially for him by his grandma & mom is just something else equally as special.

So, last Saturday my hubby was gracious enough to watch the kids for me ALL DAY( I was over at my mom's for 12 hours) so I could go to my mom's house to work on his bedding. I cut out all of the fabric pieces while my mom pinned them and sewed them. I spent 5 hours alone just cutting out all the pieces on her living room floor...which is not easy when you are 37 weeks pregnant. My back was KILLING me by the end of the night! We didn't quite finish everything that night, but my mom was gracious enough to spend some time on Sunday & Monday finishing up what we didn't get through.

It turned out so nice and I'm super excited to put together his nursery when we move to our new place in mid February. Once we move, we still will have some painting to do along with A LOT of DIY projects (Not just for the nursery, but for the entire place as well), so I won't be able to post pictures of the finished nursery for at least another month, but for now here are the pictures of his bedding!!

Crib sheets:

Unfinished crib quilt (my mom tacked the layers together & added the finishing ribbon later):

FINISHED crib quilt:

Dust ruffle:

...and, for good measure, a picture of the crib that our friends are selling us for his nursery: