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Confession time. I am a creator.

Some of my fondest memories are running around with a film camera taking pictures as a little girl; interior designing my mom’s old dollhouse a hundred times over; wedding planning for my Barbies; crafting a yacht and house for my dolls with a boxcutter, old boxes and packing tape (balcony, working doors, and stairs included); making my own paper dolls and designing them clothes; styling and photographing the salad I’d been told to make instead of making it. You name it, I probably made it as a child.

That creativity still runs in my veins today, and those moments and more have translated into the things that I still love to do as an adult. So it makes sense that I’ve never actually been able to fully commit to one creative outlet or work. Ever. I’ve always labeled myself as one thing or the other, changing the label to fit the season that I’m in. But starting now that’s over. Why should I be or do one thing when I’m good at so many things? Shifting between multiple things instead of doing the same thing over and over should prevent burn out anyway, right? Right!

I’ve had a lot of time to think and dream during my year long hiatus from freelance (spent focusing on and engaging with my daughter Chloé). And now more than ever I know that I know that I know that I was made to create. So starting today I’m going to be available to do all the creative things I love. Interior design and styling, food photography and styling, love and lifestyle photography, lifestyle blogging, and more as the urge to create in new ways comes. If you are interested in following along on my creative journey, please check out my updated website and sign up for my email list on the homepage. If you want me to create something for you, please get in touch via DM or the let’s talk button on the homepage. If you’re interested in your home or a room in it being a part of the interior design portfolio I’m assembling, be sure to enter my upcoming Instagram giveaway. As always, thanks for coming along for my wild creative journey.

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This one's been a long time coming. When Mark and I first moved into this town home 3 years ago, we planned that this room would be a nursery one day. But after two years of struggling to get pregnant and losing our first pregnancy (read more about that here), it at times felt like this room would never fulfill it's original intent. Thank God that He had other plans and always fulfills His promises, because here we are today with our sweet Chloé girl in residence right where she belongs.

The design plan (mood board shown below) for this room definitely went through some evolution, as they tend to do. Between retailers being sold out of items I wanted by the time I was actually purchasing, and discovering that no rocking chair could fit in the room without taking up half the space (let alone fit through the doorway, hah!) there was definitely some reworking to be done.

Quite honestly though, I love the current and ever evolving result just fine though. Things are constantly being added or switched out any ways, because that's what happens when you're a stylist / interior design aficionado - nothing is ever truly finished.

Mark is quite the tech guy and both of us love getting smart things for our home and the nursery is no exception to that. The changing pad we chose from Hatch Nursery is also a scale, and was perfect for making sure that Chloé was gaining enough weight when she was born, and for tracking how much she eats (you can weigh before and after a feed and it calculates how many ounces were eaten) to make sure she's getting enough for her weight.

Her baby monitor is pretty rad too. It's called Nanit and is basically the Tesla of baby monitors, and gets a perfect and unobstructed bird's eye view from above the crib while tracking her sleep patterns and how well she slept. It also has shielding so that no radiation / wifi signal is raining down on her as she sleeps, and a built in night light that you can easily turn on and off through the app. Nanit's also the most secure baby monitor and is pretty much unhackable so that no one can spy on your little or talk to them while they're in their crib (I read way too many creepy stories about that happening, yikes!). It's showed us that Chloé is able to fall asleep on her own (we lay her in her crib awake and she goes right to sleep with no crying - little super baby!), and plays back a time lapse of her sleep for you in the morning. But my favorite part is that there isn't any extra screen or speaker that you have to carry around with you. It all shows up on your phone in the app, and the audio even plays when your phone is locked!

We got the Owlet Smart Sock 2, and though I know some people might think it's excessive, it seriously gives us so much peace of mind and helps me sleep so much more soundly. It monitors Chloé's heart rate and oxygen levels while she sleeps, and will set off alarms on our phones and on the base station in our room if anything were to be amiss. I extra love it because she had decelerations in her heart rate during my contractions / surges (hypnobirthing speak, haha) - it would literally completely drop off the heart rate monitor - and it's just good to know that everything is okay and I don't need to go in and check if she's breathing. Not that anything stops me from going in to smooch her while she's sleeping though, hah!

Last techie thing! It's not pictured here, but we got the temperature faucet guard thingy from 4moms. It's great because it tells you what the safe temp range is for baby's bath, and alerts you if it goes out of it. Taking the guesswork out of if the bath was too hot or not was such a relief for me, because as someone who likes my showers crazy hot (at least according to my husband), and who's fingers are desensitized to heat from deboning too many boiling hot chickens during the chicken soup making process, I didn't trust my own body to tell me if the bath was too hot or just right. It also will protect Chloe's head from getting banged on the faucet when she is old enough to sit and play in the bath without a bath support. Two in one is a win win in my book!

Our neighborhood is pretty loud at night with rambunctious teens and loud college kids cavorting about, so we needed something to play white noise / womb sounds on. We thought about a sound machine, but we wanted to be able to play music on it too. Initially we were going to get one of the new Sonos speakers that has Apple Airplay, but realized that we'd be using our phones to airplay and we needed them to view / hear the Nanit and wouldn't be able to do both. So we ended up going with the new Apple HomePod since it just signs in to your Apple Music account and plays from that, no phone required. I honestly thought having Siri to play and control everything was unnecessary, but there is nothing more helpful than being able to say, "Hey Siri, play womb sounds on repeat" when I'm feeding Chloé at night and my hands are full, or "Hey Siri, pause" when I've been playing music for her in the morning and am running out the door with my hands once again full. It's the little things that become the biggest sometimes.

The mattress we picked out is pretty crazy too. I was all about organic / non toxic mattresses, and then I came across the Newton Wovenaire Mattress. It's better than organic because even organic mattresses need non organic and toxic glues to hold the pieces together, but this mattress is made of a food grade polymer and is completely washable and hypoallergenic. When you unzip the cover from it, it looks like its made of loosely coiled clear spaghetti! And the coolest part of all? Even if your face is completely smashed against in you can actually breathe through the mattress (we tested it and it's legit)! So no worrying about your little one breathing in toxins, or dust, or suffocating against a mattress that won't breathe. Newton is just coming out with a breathable but still waterproof crib mattress pad too, which we helped fund via Kickstarter, and which will be extra helpful when Chloé is potty training.

Chloé's Kalon Studios Caravan Crib is literally my dream crib, and it converts to five or six different combinations, ending in a little couch situation for when she's outgrown the toddler bed. I'm all about longevity so I was pretty stoked on that! We also chose a normal dresser over a changing table / dresser combo for the same reason. I wanted something that could still be used when she wasn't in diaper any longer... All about that longevity over here! Everything else in the room is pretty much just chosen to go with the crib, since it was my favorite piece and the one thing I really had my heart set on.

There are still some things I'm working on finding / getting. Such as a rug I like that's not too pricy and hopefully cleans easy - because baby mess and spit up, shelves and picture frames, and other little odds and ends. But the room really came together and I just love spending time in there with her. So without further ado, here is my sweet girl's room in all it's current glory.

Items, or stores where they were purchased are linked at the bottom.
All opinions are my own, and this post is not sponsored.