Bright Gender Neutral, Colorful Bug Themed Nursery

by Gretchen Fleener
(Bloomington, MN, USA)

Our bright gender neutral, colorful bug themed nursery came into being since I decided I didn't want to decorate my baby's nursery with pastel colors (read: boring). I decided to go with a bold color scheme that can be converted for use beyond the "newborn" age.


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We are expecting our baby on Christmas day, and his/her gender will be a surprise, so the fun bug theme was chosen because it will work with either gender. (add more butterflies, lace and ladybug theme nursery decor for a girl, add other insects for boys, etc).

I painted the bottom portion of each wall with a black and yellow bee stripes pattern, ladybug spots, and decorated a wall with ant farm tunnels. A purpleish blue stripe with some green grass above the pattern transitions into the light blue "sky" walls, where I painted a blue and white cloud nursery mural.

There are two big leaves we bought from IKEA, and two bug shaped wall lights also purchased from IKEA (you can see one on the 3rd pic that's turned off). I painted a dotted line behind the bug lights that we mounted on the walls to indicate a path that bugs might travel. The sun light fixture was also from IKEA.

I made a lot of my decorative items or I bought them used and painted them to match the nursery. I covered the lamp shade to the lamp on the dresser with bug print fabric and put a little plastic bug terrarium inside the clear glass base.

The dresser in the center picture was in awful shape in my dad's garage and then I painted it, replaced the drawer bottoms and the back of the dresser and installed some cool bug knobs online for the drawers.

The 3 bug hooks were bought at JoAnn Fabrics on a 50% off sale at a cost of $2.50 each. I painted them in bright colors rather than to keep the original brown color. I bought the waste basket for an inexpensive price at a garage sale and painted a bee on it. The little wicker unit with drawers to the left of the nursery rocking chair cost $6.99 at Saver's. I also painted it with bugs to match the nusery rug. I sewed the nursery curtains with bug fabric to match the lamp.

The ladybug clock on the wall was won on Ebay. It's really cute how the bug's eyes go back and forth. The bug quilt hanging on the wall above the chair was a homemade shower gift. I also got some white baskets at IKEA to slide under the crib for storage to hold toys and books.

The bug nursery rug was purchased online along with a good nursery rocker glider chair at Babies-r-Us. Practically everything else was the result of shopping garage sales ($30 crib, $40 changing table, and tons of bug toys and baby gear.

You can see before and after pictures of the baby dresser, wicker drawers and lamp in my blog, by going to my site and clicking to read the blog.