Baby Saka's Nursery

Since the little mister could arrive any day now, I figure I should probably post some pictures of his nursery in its relatively pristine state. It's still not 100% done, and perhaps never will be, but - close enough!

The room isn't really themed. Perhaps if half-ikea, half-things-Saks-happen-to-like were a theme?  I tried to loosely base the room's color palette off of the cute fabric print I made the curtains out of - a kawaii cotton print from Hawaii.

All the places in the fabric are famous places in Japan! I just love this print so much, and it's quite colorful, but not garishly so.  For the curtains, I just made rectangular panels with a bar of chocolate colored fabric at the bottom. I was limited to the width of the fabric bolt, so the curtains, when fully closed, barely cover the entire window =_=.

I used the YHL curtain ring clip idea instead of curtain sleeves since I like the idea of just the fabric coming down instead of the entire curtain rod should some sneaky little boy decide to play tarzan in the future.   Also, I left out blackout shades for now.  I love how bright and cheerful the room is - and Sak thinks fore-going the shades will help baby establish a night/day cycle faster. We can always come back and add some later if needed.

Under the far side window is a bench made from an Ikea Kallax bookshelf, some mdf board, foam and bright blue fabric. There's many tutorials online for this, I think this is the one we used.

Konbu's favorite spot, caught mid-yawn.

The blue bins are also from Ikea, and Sak put vinyl stickers of the four playstation buttons onto them.  Hey, the kid needs to learn his shapes anyway, right? Right now the bins hold a combination of pumping supplies, extra sheets, blankets, etc.  The car road rug in front of the bench is from Ikea - quite cheap too, less than $20 I think.  I have a certain fascination with road rugs for some reason.  I think I secretly wanted one as a kid or something, and I may or may not have already tested out my family of Prius model cars on it already...

With another Hawaii fabric and the leftover curtain brown, I sewed some quick pillowcases for some throw pillows using the envelope method.

As for the art on either side of the far window - first, a pretty Leafeon print from this year's Fanime AA.

And on the other side, a Animal Crossing print from a past Fanime AA (slightly morbid - looks like granny's about to be attacked by a shark..), and a gorgeous watercolor Bible verse from Alvina! I was a little worried that I had asked for too lengthy a verse, but she did a great job and it looks awesome!

Next, the crib. Also from Ikea. It's a hensvik crib with a vyssa mattress that my parents lovingly picked up for me since I was taking too long on the whole deciding thing. Haha. Under the mattress is a crib skirt made from more of the curtain fabric (though I got realllly cheap and lazy - and only put skirt panels on two of the four sides. You can't see them anyway! It doesn't matter!).

Also under the mattress is the Angelcare movement monitor.  It's pretty interesting - monitors baby's breathing and alarms if no movement is found.  It's incredibly sensitive too - simply waving a blanket around above the crib will trigger the sensor!

The mattress is a little on the soft side though, which kinda scares me after all the reading we've done on how hard mattresses are the best for SIDS prevention.  Good thing we have the movement monitor? We also have a Snuza clip, which clips on baby's diaper against his tummy, and monitors movement that way.  If no breathing is detected it will buzz him awake, and if still no breathing it will then alarm.  My family thinks I'm being a bit paranoid with the double monitor thing, but eh. Anything for an extra small shred of peace-of-mind?

Anyway, there's an Ikea waterproof mattress pad on top, and then an Ikea sheet enclosing everything.  I had trouble fitting non-ikea sheets to this mattress, so I just picked up about 4 of the plain Ikea brand. It'll do.  The blanket (which will not go in the crib - never fear!) is homemade from my brother's girlfriend - a super soft fleecey thing with crocheted edges, lovely!  And the mobile is a gift from our church baby shower. Fun fact - my mom ended up putting a lot of the stuff on our registry because I didn't know what to register for, and pretty much all the things she put on were purchased. lol. She must have the good taste?

Though I'm still quite tempted to replace the little hanging animals with more otaku-friendly felties. If I can ever summon the energy required..

Next, another window and a swing my grandmother bought.  Not sure if we'll leave it in this room or not - if I move it to the living room later I will probably find another small shelf to put under the window.

Can you spot Sak's to-do project?  Electrical cord safety! Yip Yip

Also near the window peering down into the crib is our Costco Belkin video monitor that Sak mounted to the wall.  Originally a christmas gift used to spy on Konbu the cat while at work, it'll now serve for spying on baby.

Sister wants to add some stickers to it so it looks like GLaDOS, but there's something inherently creepy about that, eh?

Alright, reading corner section~

The glider came from a thrift store - brand new in the box from Target! I don't know if it's just our local Goodwill or not, but there tends to be a bunch of brand new, discontinued items from Target there all the time. Anyway, there's a comfy blanket that Sak's aunt gave us for Christmas a few years ago - embroidered with the family name and kanji.  And a faux sheepskin rug from Ikea. Because who doesn't love naked baby pictures on a fluffy sheepskin? So classic.

The side table also came from Goodwill, brand new in box.  I was hoping it'd be the nice dark brown color seen in the rest of the room, but it's pretty much black. Oh well. Added the little towel my mom embroidered when she first found out I was pregnant. Ties it to the room a little better I think!

There's a badtz-maru trashcan in the corner, pretty hidden.  The remote is for the new fan that Sak and my dad installed.  The old ceiling fan was off-kilter and extremely wobbly.  This one is nice, inexpensive one from Lowe's. It goes forward and back, and has a light dimmer (useful for late night rousings I'm thinking).

Also there's a small basket inside the side table which I'm using to hold some of the cute burp cloths my grandmother made! She appliqued so many cute things to standard cloth diapers - perfect for cleaning up nasty spit up lol.

On the wall behind the glider is some fun stuff - a trio of prints from Fanime artist alleys.

Animal crossing, Totoro catbus crossed with a MUNI bus (hilarious, but I'd like to think catbus is more reliable than muni >.>), and Pokemon's jirachi in starry night style.

A second water color Bible verse from Alvina.  This verse is one of my absolute favorite necessities - since I am scared of everything, all the time (hence, things like the double breathing monitors).  Having a Biblical reminder that I am not doing this on my own is incredibly reassuring.

((Thanks again, Alvina!))

This interesting thrift store frame turned into a perfect Pokemon capsule toy shadowbox.  I will put pictures of baby into the background later..once he has some non-ultrasound pictures lol.

Croagunk fell over (I cropped him out at the right).  Will need to glue him down properly.

And a last-minute alphabet I put together.  I cut out the letters from the baby shower cards we received!  Unfortunately, most of the cards were light pastels, so the end result is quite light-colored.

Originally I was buying a bunch of small canvases to paint each letter of the alphabet along with an anime/game animal that corresponded (like, A for anteater (from Princess Tutu), B for bird (Dera from Tamako Market), C for cat (Chi from Chi's Sweet Home), etc.).  But my sister gave up helping me, and I got too lazy to paint, so it never got very far.  Boo. Oh well.

Next, the bookshelf ledges! This is a staple in nearly every nursery pinterest picture - the photo ledges from Ikea.  I had to jump on that bandwagon completely.  It's a great way to show off a colorful book selection and not take up valuable floor space.

So far nearly all my books have been collected from thrift stores, and I'm sure we'll add to it as we go along. I'll probably need that extra mini bookshelf near the window later to hold more books, I'm thinking :P

Dude there is an entire series of Pokemon board books. I must collect them all.

Never too early.

My mom made a custom book from Shutterfly, the story of Konbu the cat! It's super cute and has lots of his baby kitty pictures.

Under the book ledges is another mini bookshelf (and shoe shelf, apparently), in the shape of a truck that my mom found while thrifting.

There is probably nothing cuter than useless baby shoes. SQUEE.

The closet, while functional, isn't too much to look at.

Still using part of it for my clothes overflow. :P

Awesome Evangelion "diaper bag" and extra changing pads hanging up on the door.

And homemade clothing rod organizers made with printed cardstock glued to thin cardboard/chipboard.

Onto the last wall!

The changing table is another Pinterest nursery special - the hemnes dresser from Ikea. It's nice and large and inexpensive - and baby Sak will be using it until he graduates high school I am hoping. Maybe I'll let him paint it with his favorite whatevers or something.

The toy shelf that goes all the way across the top of the room is also from Ikea. I still need to paint over the shiny silver screws though.  I put my plushies across the top - various gifts from Sak, my mom, Friend E, BIL, Sister, or Friend T over the years.  I love how I can still (somewhat) remember where each came from. It's so nice to finally be able to display them all in one place (at least until baby starts his own collection of toys and plushies).

The little yellow guy is a hepatitis plushie from an awareness day giveaway in SF. @_@

The Ryo-ohki backpack plush was a purchase from my very first anime convention - Ani-Magic in Lancaster, CA.

Back down, the pokemon family prints were from this year's Fanime AA. I love them sooo much, ugh so cute!

Sleeping baby cyndaquil just might be my favorite. Or that poor magikarp. lol.

On the dresser we have a hand-me-down changing pad from a lovely co-worker, which I topped with a cute kitchen towel from Daiso. Yes, totally not useful or practical, I know.  The changing pad is attached via super-strength velcro to the top of the dresser.

It really is super strength velcro. doesn't budge an inch!

The baskets are from Daiso, 2 for $1.50, and I spruced them up with ribbons that came on baby shower gifts.

Right now the baskets hold some newborn-sized diapers and more appliqued burp cloths. Also the snuza clip and my sister's homemade snorunt peepee teepee are hanging out here for now. I'll need to add some vaseline, aquaphor and probably Q-tips soon.

And at the end, a hand-me-down wipe warmer from my aunt, and a froggy humidifier we bought from Target back when we were both sick and dying from colds earlier this year.

Trubbish emblazoned diaper genie and a mini-sized laundry basket from Ikea at the foot of the dresser.

The dresser itself holds all manner of clothes in various sized Ikea skubb baskets. Nothing above 6 months sizing though.  I got insanely lucky/blessed to receive hand-me-downs from a family with twin boys - talk about a ton of clothes! That, coupled with weekly thrift shopping for interesting pieces, I don't think we'll have a clothes shortage anytime soon.

Just the hat/shoe drawer. Those red cowboy boots were from when I was a baby!

And that's about it! Just need the baby now, haha.  I wouldn't mind adding a bit more art to the room eventually, and maybe a big ruler for marking the kid's height as he grows.  I'm sure as time goes forward I'll need to think up more toy-storage solutions.  I can't imagine he won't have toys all over the place, considering his parents are toy-hoarders themselves.  There's a scary thought.

We also need to put in some safety features sooner rather than later - a deadbolt at the top of the door that leads to the deck, maybe alarms for when doors or windows are opened, something to keep window blind strings out of reach, earthquake sticky putty to make picture frames extra secure, and of course electrical cord and plug safety.

Anything I'm forgetting for Baby Sak's room? I can't wait for him to show up so we can see how he likes it! (And whether or not the giant Jigglypuffs staring at him while he tries to sleep skeeve him out lol.)