Nautical Nursery DIY Baby Mobile

For sweet Peyton's nautical nursery, I knew I wanted to make a baby mobile as I had done for her big sister Addy's room.  I learned while planning Addy's nursery that baby mobiles can get quite extensive, so I DIYed Addy's owl & bird themed mobile for her nursery.  I decided to do something similar for Peyton's nursery.  Here is what I came up with & made for baby Peyton's room.

So where did I start?  Well, I had found this awesome nautical hook on sale at Hobby Lobby & knew that I wanted to incorporate it.  

So I decided I would hang that from the ceiling. But then what?  I wasn't sure what I wanted to use as the base of the mobile.  I saw some cute ideas on Pinterest where they used life preservers, but I decided that just wasn't the look I wanted.  I saw this great ship wheel (also on sale at Hobby Lobby) & decided that I wanted it.  It had a great rustic look to it, but the coloring was a little off, so I used the same pink that I had used to paint the nursery walls 

  

I then went to work on what I wanted to hang from my mobile.  For Addy's mobile, I had cut the shapes out of foam & then scrapbooked over them to make owls, birds & butterflies.  It looks cute in Addy's room since it matches her mural, but it wasn't really the look I was going for here.  I had seen some cute nautical painted wooden shapes at Hobby Lobby & Michaels.  However, they (as many things that are nautical themed) were primary colors. 

So I decided that I would take the pink that I had painted the walls, the grey I had painted the furniture & a navy that I was going to paint a boat bookshelf & I painted over the primary colors with a tiny paintbrush.  Here is what they looked like after I had painted them.  Much more in the color families of the room.  : )

So after painting the wooden cutouts, I drilled a tiny hole into the tops & bottoms of the cutouts that didn't already have something to tie the string through.  I then tied the string at the top of the cutouts, ran it down the back of the cutouts & tied it again at the bottom.  I had made the string extra long so after I got through tying on one cutout, I could leave some space & redo the steps for the next cutout.  I tied four cutouts to some strings & three cutouts to others to give it some dimension.  Next I tied the strings to the outside of the spokes of the ship's wheel.  Here is a close-up of the cutouts.

To hang the mobile from the ceiling, I screwed an eyehook into the center of the top of the ship's wheel.  I then took the rope from the top of the nautical hook & put it through the eyehook & then looped it back onto the hook.  I then attached the nautical hook to a larger eyehook I put in the ceiling.

So here is the mobile hanging above the dresser.  It isn't motorized or anything snazzy like that, but I can give it a little turn & Peyton loves it just the same.  : )

Shelf for Nautical Nursery

So in our little one's Nautical Nursery, we figured out how to get our tall dresser from the hubby's childhood & our double dresser we found in the old garage to match our very beautiful-yet-not-common-colored crib.  I also had a shelf that my dad built me when I was younger & I really wanted to use it in the nursery.  Unfortunately, it was a dark stain that just wouldn't go in the nursery.  So what to do?  Well...

Here is the original shelf.  It's just a simple shelf, but since my dad made it, it has sentimental value.  My first thought was that I wanted to white-wash it & try & get a driftwood look.  

So I sanded it down & got ready to white-wash it.  I found an awesome tutorial on Pinterest & followed the instructions.  Yeah, it didn't work for me.

I just could not get it to get the driftwood look that I was hoping for.  SO I sanded it back down & started over.

I decided that I would paint it the same grey that I painted the tall dresser & the double dresser & then glaze it in the same way with the Valspar glaze.  If you want more info on the glazing process, click here.

So I didn't get the driftwood look that I was going for, but the shelf matches all of the other furniture now & it goes well with the accessories.  And I love that Peyton's room has a piece of my childhood with this shelf & Steve's with the tall dresser.  : )