I am so excited to start this new blog series called “DIY – Dupe It Yourself” where I recreate things that I want to purchase but can’t justify the price! I have quite a long list of things I am hoping to recreate and I cant wait to take you along. In the future if you’re looking for a specific item that I have “DIY-ed” you can just search “Dupe It Yourself” on my blog and they will all pull up! My first project is a door mat inspired by this one from Anthropologie (seen below). It sells for $48. I love it so much but could not afford it! I was a little nervous to try this project because I felt like it had the potential to be a total fail, ha! Luckily my aunt and cousin were able to help me and I owe the success of this project to them. What you’ll need: plain door mat (the one I used is linked below) painters tape craft paint sponges foam brush BEFORE First thing we did was used the painters tape to cut out the letters. We made sure to round out the edges. I prefer Frog Tape brand. I find that is sticks better. Next, we used a foam brush to outline the “tape letters” with white paint. I cut the tip off of it so that it would be more stiff. It worked great! For the “O,” it would have been too difficult to shape it with tape so we cut it out of paper and then held it down with push pins. I made sure to do two coats of this white paint before removing the tape. Now it was time to cut out the fun shapes! We chose to do four different flower shapes in four different colors. These are the shapes we ended up using. We cut them out of paper first and then out of the sponge. Then we got to start stamping!! We poured the paint onto paper plates so it was easy to dip the sponges in. It worked best when you got the sponges full of a lot of paint! We also made sure that some of our flowers were going off of the rug, if that makes sense. After we had filled up the rug with the flower “stamps” we cut some of them in half so that we could put some closer to the letters. We also cut out leaf shapes and filled in with green leaves all in between the flowers. This part was the finishing touch it needed!! I forgot to take a photo of the leaf sponge, sorry!! DONE What do you think? I think it turned out great!! Mine cost $20 to make and I think I love it more than the inspo! I only had to pay for the rug since I had the other supplies on hand, and I am pretty sure you can find plain door mats even cheaper than what I paid. Don’t forget, I hangout on Instagram a lot and you can usually find video tutorials of my projects over there! Follow along @thebloomingnest See you next time!!

When my mom decided she wanted to make her playroom closet into a little nursery for the grandkids, I knew I wanted to help!! We wanted to make it feel cute and complete without doing or spending too much. I knew this would be the perfect place for a sponge accent wall like I had seen in my friend Jess’ home (www.carcabaroad.com). It’s like getting the look of wallpaper for a couple of dollars! Win!! We decided to leave the shelf in the closet and use it for baskets and decor so we chose to only do the sponge wall on the lower portion. I got my sister to help me! Supplies: sponges paint scissors paper plate or paint tray We started by cutting the shape that we wanted out of the sponge. This took us a couple of tries to get it right. I wanted a shape that resembled a simple flower. You can also choose to leave the sponge as is and use the side of it like Jess did in her daughters room (seen below). Jess Davis – www.carcabaroad.com Once we got the shape looking the way we liked, we poured some paint onto a paper plate. We used my very favorite paint color, Pigeon by Farrow and Ball. We decided to “eye ball” where to put each flower on the wall rather than measure or use a level, it worked great for us! But we were working in a small space. A large wall may be more difficult to keep straight. We just began placing the sponge on the wall in a pattern until we finished! Simple as that and the room was completely transformed. BEFORE AFTER

As we are preparing for our sweet baby girl to arrive I have been slowly gathering necessities to pack for our hospital stay. With our first, Lawson, I really didn’t use much from what I packed at all! The only thing we really wished we had more of was snacks! ha! I say that so that if you are a first time mom worried that you will forget something important, don’t!! The hospital seriously provides everything you need and more. But it is nice to have a few things to make your stay more comfortable. I asked my friends (followers) on Instagram what the one thing they were so happy they had packed in their hospital bag was and I got some amazing responses. I wrote down the top 10 most suggested things to share with you so you can reference back as you start to pack your bag! Don’t forget to follow me on instagram for more baby content! There are a lot of videos/product links saved in my highlights there (@thebloomingnest). My Follower’s top suggestions: Robe Chapstick Extra long phone charger Your own shampoo/conditioner etc. Snacks Flip flops for the shower Womens diapers (depends) Your own pillow/blanket Money for vending machine Boppy if you are having a c-section to hold around your waist Notice how all of the items are for mom and dad and not for baby! ha! The hospital seriously provides everything for baby, so you don’t have to worry about packing much. Below I am going to list exactly what is in my bag and link it up for you! For mama: comfy t-shirt dress (if you plan to nurse you will want one with buttons) large soft cardigan instead of a robe short pajama set “throw away” slippers flip flops for the shower nursing bras bathroom necessities: shampoo/conditioner, deodorant, contacts, glasses, body wash, toothbrush/paste, cleansing wipes blanket/pillow makeup/chapstick hair ties and a headband depends/granny panties long phone charger For baby: newborn size sleepers (magnetic or zip up) bottles if you have a preference bottle soap if not breastfeeding hatch baby noise maker Ollie swaddle bows for photos (YAY I am having a girl!!) Cute blanket for photos wubanub/pacifier

This post is not sponsored in any way. The stroller was purchased with our own money, and these are my original thoughts. When I was pregnant with our first, I felt so overwhelmed by the amount of products we needed to register for, that I didn’t do enough research on what stroller would be best for me! I ended up just getting the first stroller that the lady working at Buy Buy Baby suggested (Baby Jogger City Mini GT). This stroller was great and had a lot of good features, BUT there were a lot of things about it that didn’t fit well with my lifestyle. Now that we are expecting baby number 2 in just a few weeks, I decided it was worth the money to buy a stroller that would really fit my needs as a work-at-home mama! Things I was looking for in a new stroller: Lightweight Narrow width for shopping trips 😉 Easy to fold up Lots of storage underneath After doing research and talking to my Instagram followers (friends), I knew Uppababy was the answer! Next, I had to decide which stroller best fit our family. This was the hardest decision. Uppababy also makes a stroller, called the Vista, that is larger and has the option for two seats! I went back and forth on this decision so many times, but ultimately decided that I would rather have the smaller/lighter stroller with one seat since Lawson is going to be 3 when baby sister arrives, and he is a big boy! Most of the time he walks with me when we go shopping now anyways. The biggest deciding factor for this was when I compared the width of the Vista to my current Baby Jogger. It was just as wide, and I was really wanting something more compact. BUT, if you are reading this trying to decided which stroller to buy for your growing family, and you plan to have kids close together, the Vista is the way to go!! I would have gotten it FOR SURE if we were planning to have more children in the future. I’ve been using our new Cruz with my 2 year old for a couple of weeks now, and I love it so so much! It is super easy to fold up and store in my trunk (I can even do it 9 months pregnant). I love how much space there is for storage underneath; I can fit my large diaper backpack AND shopping bags!! I love how easy it is to set the brakes and to flip the seat around so Lawson can face me. We plan to buy the Uppababy Mesa carseat for when baby sister is here, and it attaches to the stroller base without adaptors. It is so easy! I love how convenient this stroller is and I wish I had done my research in the past so we could have been using it from the very beginning. Shop The Post Below

If you’ve been around long enough you have probably heard me mention that I breastfed my almost 3 year old, Lawson, until he was 17 months old. With baby sister coming next month I am starting to prepare for how I plan to feed her. Thanks to Walmart’s amazing baby selection I am all ready to go when she gets here! This time around, since my hands are already full with her big brother, I plan to pump and feed bottles of breastmilk and formula from the very beginning. This is all new territory for me since I am only familiar with breastfeeding. Lawson NEVER took a bottle!! I am going to share all of the essentials that I purchased from Walmart so that we have everything prepared before she arrives. Scroll below to shop my picks! Shop Walmart’s baby selection at amazing prices HERE! This post is in collaboration with Walmart – all products were purchased by me and I am sharing my honest thoughts. This post also contains affiliate links – thank you so much for supporting The Blooming Nest!

I’ve been dreaming of a cozy, neutral rug for our living room as the holidays approach, and RugsUSA.com never lets me down! Right now they are having a huge black friday sale! Up to 75% off site wide!! I found the perfect rug for our space that I know will look great as the seasons change. Rugs USA is one of my favorite places to buy rugs because of their amazing selection and prices! I chose this beautiful Felted Wool rug because of the variations of neutral it has throughout. It has beige, cream and gray woven through it, so it’s bound to match any decor that I change in and out! I love the texture it brings! I’ve rounded up a few of my favorite rugs from their site for you to check out below!

EEEEK!!! What do you think?! I have been dreaming of designing a baby girl nursery of my own for so long and I cannot wait to make her space special, feminine and peaceful!! I’m sure some things will change, but this is a general idea of the vision that I have for her space. I know that the beautiful rug from the Rifle Paper Co x Loloi Collection is going to be the star of the show. (You can shop the collection HERE ). The rug is backordered until October, and I cannot wait to get it in. I am picturing an oversized print of some sort behind the crib, and I’m thinking this may be something I will DIY. We will see! So much to do, and I am just praying I have the energy to do it all. I just wanted to share this peek of what I’ve been designing and dreaming of, and I rounded up all of the links for y’all in case you’re working on a little girl nursery of your own. I can’t wait to see my vision come to life, but mostly I can’t wait to have our little girl in our arms.

Our laundry room got a huge makeover this past month thanks to the help of The Home Depot! We are sharing all of the details on how you can get this same look in your laundry room over on The Home Depot Blog! Head over there to see how we added cabinets, shiplap and floating shelves to make our space beautiful and functional!

Our laundry room recently got a huge makeover! It went from boring and builder grade to unique and beautiful! My favorite part of the makeover is the waves peel and stick wallpaper we chose from Rocky Mountain Decals. The quality of their paper blew me away and was so easy to work with! They have a really great and unique selection of paper that you can’t find anywhere else. I love the waves paper we went with because it goes great with the “laundry room” theme. Here are a couple things that I love about Rocky Mountain Decals’ wallpaper compared to others I have used: I love that their paper is high quality and sturdy!! The wallpaper comes numbered and pre-cut so you know exactly what order to place it on your wall. (notice the numbers at the top in the photo below) I really feel like this wallpaper was exactly what my laundry room needed to feel unique! It is definitely not boring anymore! BEFORE AFTER Be sure to check out all of Rocky Mountain Decals‘ beautiful selection of wallpaper and decals!! Thank you RMD for working with us on this project!

*This post contains affiliate links and is in collaboration with Walmart I love adding fresh touches to our home for each season! I was so excited to work with Walmart to add some Spring touches to our living room… and all on a budget!! Walmart just launched a new home decor and furnishing line called “Flower Home” with celebrity Drew Barrymore! Everything in the collection is so fun and colorful, and you can’t beat the prices! PLUS, they offer free shipping over $35! I purchased a few things from the new line to put in our living room, and I really love the way it came together. You can check out the new line here! The quality of this brass and wicker lamp really blew me away! I love the height of it as well, because a lot of times I find floor lamps to be too short in our home. This is by far my favorite piece I purchased from the Flower Home line. I love the pop of pink and fun that this throw pillow brings to my otherwise neutral living room. It came already stuffed, and the price was great! I purchased all four options of the tree prints, because I couldn’t decide which one I liked best. They are so beautiful and add so much character! I really think these would look good in any style of home. Shop the products I picked out below!

Image source I love that wallpaper is back in style. It is such a fun way to make your home unique and bring in fun prints and colors! Wallpaper on the market today is not your grandmas’ wallpaper. Its easy to apply and easy to remove! Image source We applied real wallpaper to our dining area for the first time almost two years ago and it was surprisingly easy. We removed it a little over a year later because I love to change things up and I was SHOCKED at how effortlessly it peeled from the wall. (Black and white floral wallpaper linked below) But even easier than that is peel and stick! You can stick it on the wall, reposition it, and whenever you’re ready to take it down, it comes off in one easy peel!! It’s amazing. We applied peel and stick for the first time in Lawson’s reading nook. (shiplap wallpaper linked below) Ive rounded up a few of my favorite wallpaper picks! There are so many amazing options available. I will probably end up using one of these when we do our laundry room makeover! Click on each image below to shop!

“Your house always looks so picked up and clean!” “How do you keep your house clean with a toddler?” “Where do you keep all the toys?!” This is a question I get often and one I am excited to answer! I’m going to take you on a little tour around the house and show you all the places that I hide the toys. My number one rule when it comes to toy storage and home organization in general is “if it doesn’t have a place, either create one or get rid of it!” The other big rule that I started implementing when Lawson was really young was that we clean up one toy before we get out another. This quickly became habit for him and to this day he naturally starts picking up when he is done with a toy and ready to play with something else. This helps me stay sane and helps him play so much better. I think kids can sometimes get overwhelmed with large amounts of toys all mixed together, and it can sometimes cause them not to play/imagine as well. Let’s start in Lawson’s room… We recently purchased this Ikea Tarva dresser so that we would have more storage in his room. His clothes and diapers only take up 3 of the drawers so I use the bottom two, which are accessible to him, for his nicer/more expensive toys. We keep Lawson’s books in his closet on these Ikea shelves. I love these shelves because they keep the books nice and neat rather than all falling over and out of a regular bookshelf. I painted them in the color Pigeon by Farrow and Ball. We keep his smaller books in baskets that he can reach and read whenever he wishes! Just like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, if we ever end up with too many books and they won’t fit in these baskets/shelves, I will either see if some need to be packed away with his baby items or taken to Goodwill. Stuffed animals go in the basket on the right and also in one of his dresser drawers. Toy closet… This closet was originally a linen closet. After living in our house for a couple of months I realized that this closet off of our family room would function much better as a toy closet (plus linen closets are always a mess and so hard to keep straight!). We have a large armoire in our bedroom, that was actually a side-of-the-road find, and I moved all of our linens and extra pillows to it! This was such a great decision for us because now we have an organized toy closet with different baskets he can’t pull out. Being a stay-at-home mom, it is so important to have organized toys because bored kids at home all day is no fun at all. Living Room… We keep trucks and balls (#boymom) out in the living room because they are the things he plays with most! These baskets are my favorite because they are super sturdy and really cute! We’ve used them for toys since he was a little baby. We have a few more toys kept in our media cabinet as well that he can access easily. I love this media cabinet because it has such great storage for things that you don’t want to see out. Toys can be such a hard thing to find places for because there are so many of them and they aren’t pretty to look at! I really hope this was helpful in showing you ways to store and hide ALL THE TOYS.