Welcome and Now What?

So this is my first official post as Manic Mama Miles...and it's Monday...which I think is appropriate.  Now I will have the song "Just Another Manic Monday" in my brain for the rest of the day, but that's okay.  I guess you would say I am new to the real blogging world.  I have had a blog for my family & friends where I post mostly pictures of my super cute toddler, with the occasional party pic/decorating pic thrown in.  Most of my friends have either had to sit with me as I crafted or have seen/heard all the party details, so I don't go into too much detail about the prep on that blog.  I absolutely love blogs, especially where people tell me how they made everything look so cute, so I decided to start one too.  I cannot promise that my stuff will be as cute as the stuff that is on all of the other blogs I love so much, but I will certainly try to do my best.

I started trying to branch out & become creative when we found out we were pregnant with our first daughter Addy.  I grew up with all boys & was so excited that I was going to have a girl & get to decorate with girl things & have girl parties & all that jazz.  I immediately started looking for a theme for her room...and realized that I did not like a lot of things.  Maybe it was the pregnancy, I don't know, but most of the baby stores made me go "yuck".  I wanted Addy's room to be cute and one that another girl at her daycare wouldn't have one just like.  I LOVED the stuff at Pottery Barn Kids & Etsy & lots of the other higher end nursery/kids stores, but that was not an option on my budget.  I am a state employee, so many times my wants & my capabilities are not one & the same.  So I knew I had to get creative & do some budgeting.  We did agree to spend money on the bedding because I couldn't find anything I loved more than the Pottery Barn Kids Hayley pattern.  I mean, how cute is it? 

http://www.potterybarnkids.com/products/hayley-nursery-bedding-set/?pkey=e%7Cheyley%7C8%7Cbest%7C0%7C1%7C24%7C%7C2&cm_src=PRODUCTSEARCH||NoFacet-_-NoFacet-_-NoMerchRules

We conned (I mean asked nicely) our parents into getting us the crib & the changing table & we decided we would figure out the rest.  Once we had figured out bedding, we at least had a theme to go with.  My first project was to enlist the help of my best friend Liz who can draw & paint.  I can craft, but I am not an artist.  Liz, thankfully, is very artistic.  I knew I wanted something behind Addy's crib, but none of the owl wall decals had the "look" I was going for.  Luckily, Liz can draw a tree & I can cut scrapbook paper...so that's what we did. 

*Disclaimer 1 - I take way too many pictures with my phone & sometimes the quality sucks.  It never really dawned on me in my super pregnant state that I might want to actually show some of these pictures to someone one day. 

We found shapes of birds & an owl that we liked to draw inspiration from & used scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby to cut out the leaves, birds & the owl.  The eyes were all done with a paint pen, which may be one of my favorite inventions ever.  We used what I call "spray paint glue" or I guess what normal people call spray adhesive & almost 3 years later, it's still sticking & has not damaged the walls at all. 

After the tree was finished, I enlisted Liz to put Addy's name in the tree.  She freestyled it by hand as I stood by totally jealous of her abilities.  It's really random that we decided to use her formal name, since we have never actually called her Addison, but I guess we didn't really know we would stick with calling her "Addy" until we met her.  Anyway, this is how the mural turned out.  I think painting anything on the wall instantly makes a room more unique.  I have seen some cute wall decals that were really done well, but if you can paint/have someone who can paint around you, I think it gives the room a little something extra. 

Tomorrow, more scrapbook paper birds & owls in the form of a Baby Mobile.  I know, who knew scrapbook paper could be so exciting. : )  And you see that glider up above?  Yeah, that used to be a hunter green 1980s mess.  We'll get to that later too.