According to Denise and Alan Field’s Baby Bargains, the average American spends $1800 outfitting a nursery—that includes a crib, mattress, dresser, rocker, bedding, and décor.  I managed to spend just $245.  How did I do it?  Well, I did get a lot of stuff for free, thanks to the generosity of friends and family.  I also simply avoided buying all of the nursery “must-haves” on the market, such as a rocker.  My daughter’s room may not look like something you’d find in the pages of Architectural Digest, but it has a certain cozy appeal to it.

Homemade Nursery

Much of the eclectic charm comes from homemade creations.  My daughter received beautiful quilts and blankets from her grandmothers and great-grandmother.  They make great nursery decorations—I hung the quilt my cousin Lindsay made on the wall for all to admire.  My daughter will treasure all of these hand-sewn blankets as she grows up.  After all these years, I still have the baby blanket my grandma made for me when I was born.  Homemade items become keepsakes, making them greener than store-bought goods.

My friend Anne sewed much of the bedding and some matching decorations for her baby.  I was a bit less ambitious (and talented) with the sewing machine, but I did manage to turn one curtain into two curtains for the windows in my daughter’s room.  I even reused a curtain rod I happened to have in my basement. I made some storage boxes for my daughter’s toys and books by wrapping shoeboxes in used wrapping paper.  Surprisingly, she has not ripped these apart after almost a year of use.  I have to give myself eco-points for crafting these boxes out of foraged materials, but I am not sure I’ll win any design awards for these creations—nor have I created an heirloom Audrey will treasure forever.  Oh well.

I had better luck creating a mobile out of twigs, paper, buttons, and raffia:

Bird mobile

Sometimes making your own nursery decorations can save money.  The curtains I sewed, mobile I constructed, and decorative boxes I made were free, since I already owned the materials.  Be careful, though—often making things can end up costing more than buying pre-made items.  This is great if you are a talented craftster like my sister-in-law, who knit a beautiful sweater for Audrey, but not-so-great if you buy expensive materials and don’t quite realize your artistic vision.

This brings me to the focal point of our homemade nursery: the one-of-a-kind, gender-neutral, subtly striped, waterproof changing pad.  My husband brought a sewing machine into our marriage.  I never knew what he did with it and never once saw him use it.  But days after our daughter’s birth, he hunkered over that machine with mounds of carefully-chosen fabric and foam from a sporting-goods store.  He worked for hours.  Yes, it cost more than a store-bought pad.  Yes, it took a lot of time and energy.  No, I guess it’s not a particularly “green” creation.  But every time our daughter wets and/or soils her diaper, she thinks of her dear old dad.