Baby Peanut

My friend Danyel and her husband Joe are expecting this October. They already have two dogs, named Woody (a golden lab) and Charlie (a giant Chocolate lab). So it made for a good laugh when they announced their daughter is going to be named Lucy. Anyone else catch the Peanuts theme?

Instead of making the cliche even more plain, they decided on a different theme for their nursery. There is a victorian, fleur de lief etc theme for their daughter's room. Dusty rose, milk chocolate brown and eggshell white for a color scheme. It seems like they have been planning this for more than a few months and knowing Danyel, she probably has.

I know that new mom's always enjoy getting their bigger items from their family and friends at the baby shower. Unfortunately, Danyel's shower is in the final month of my summer paycheck (or non-existent) season. So my creative and thrifty crafty brain had to come online and do some serious thinking.

My usual go to for new mom (and dad) friends is to make a baby blanket. And two out of three times, it has become the blanket for the child. The third one? The baby hasn't been born yet and I won't know until January. :) The other reason my go-to item is a baby blanket is because they can usually be done for about $15. So, off I went to the fabric store to find baby appropriate fleece and in the dusty rose, chocolate and white colors.

While on the way, I recalled that I hate trying to wrap the blanket when its finished. So I figured I would just find a creative way to gift wrap the package. My brain also went into the mode of, "what can I use to wrap the gift that can have a dual purpose?" Ah-ha! Perhaps baby Lucy could use a toy box of sorts.

So in the craft store I found an unfinished wooden crate, paints in the right colors, some Victorian, fleur de leif style stencils, wooden letters that spelled Lucy and for $15 I had custom gift wrap container.

Lastly, I went to Target and found a set of baby onesies, pants and diapers. Roughly $20 there....

So you can tell already that this project got a little out of hand on the expense side..

Originally, I was going to wrap the baby clothing items like the little cupcakes on Pinterest. Hence the box on the top of the wooden crate. However, that was an epic fail. I couldn't get them to fit correctly at all.

Anyway, I went to town and started painting. White for the main part of the crate, brown for the wooden letters and then pink for the victorian stencil work. 

My afternoon was thoroughly booked up with this painting. In between paint coats, I was working on the baby blanket.

I usually do a tie blanket for little kids because of the ability for the child to pull on something. Additionally the fabric for a tie blanket tends to be fleece. I found some ultra-soft cuddle fleece in the correct color scheme. However, the brown side I chose my of the bird look. I thought it might be nice to spice things up but tried to get as close to the Victorian style theme as I could.

By the end of the day, the box looked something like this:

As a final touch, I was going to hot glue the wooden letters to the outside of the crate but my hot glue gun has gone missing since the wedding. So I think Danyel will have to find a good use for the letters in Lucy's nursery.

How do you prepare gifts for a baby shower? Anything more or less elaborate? Have you found a way to do things cheaper?