If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is the baby equivalent of "bed in a bag", nursery sets which come in the same cliche themes everywhere you look, and are so popular that you're going to have exactly the same nursery as at least ten of your friends. Who wants to be one of the masses? Not me, that's for sure. I usually get my uniqueness fix by buying high-end brands which look nothing like the standard-issue Wal Mart and Babies R Us gear, but this time, it was ridiculous. I could not swallow paying $500 for a crib bumper, which I could as easily make myself, so I made the decision to do it myself.
Themes are hot these days. Some love them, some hate them, but whatever side of the fence you fall on, you can still DIY and have something totally unique and perfect for you. I happen to kind of like themes, so the first job was to think of what theme I may like to do. I came to a conclusion on this the night before I found out if I was having a boy or a girl. With a little input from Thak, I'd decided on a fishing theme for a boy, and french toille for a girl.
After deciding a theme, look at the more high-end nursery decor sites for ideas on what styles are new and hot. (Stella Maternity has really great stuff and is popular with celebrities!) When you find out what style you want to do, and have your themes narrowed down to one for a boy and one for a girl, then you can figure out how many yards of what types of fabric you are going to need.
Measure your crib, and figure out the dimensions of your bumpers, then determine how tall you'd like them. Make a pattern in these dimensions out of newspaper, accounting for seams. It will be incredibly simple. If you are doing multiple fabrics (and you should!) your patterns should reflect that. Instead of one large pattern, you will have a few pieced together ones. Still, it's quite simple.
After that, you need to do the crib skirt. You already have the dimensions of your crib, so that will be easy. Figure out what type of pleating or gathering you want in that. If you're having a boy, a simple single pleat in the middle of the front will probably be the most you'd want. For a girl, your options are a lot more plentiful. Measure from the bottom of the crib mattress to determine how long the crib skirt needs to be, and then make your patterns accordingly, accounting for what fabrics you want to use for each portion of it.
After that, you will need to do window treatments, and whatever type of those you want will vary wildly. You can probably figure this out on your own, but if googling a pattern for details would be easy, too. The method of figuring this out is quite similar to the rest. You measure your window, and then figure out exactly what you want where, then create a pattern, and sew accordingly.
Beyond that, you can make any number of other things, and it is all personal taste. I made a changing pad in a fish print, which is absolutely lovely. It's also one of my better recycling efforts since the middle of it consists of an old crib pad and a mini-quilt that I knew I wouldn't use otherwise because it had a big stain on it. These things, folded and covered with a nice fish print fabric make a soft, comfy changing pad that's held up awesomely to 14 months of use. You can also make organizing bins (they are so handy!), wall decor, letters, and anything else that seems to you like it would be a good addition to your nursery.
The day after I got my patterns made, and decided to do a color-block and multi-print look, we found out that we were expecting a boy. Before we went home from the birth center, we made a detour by the fabric store, and looked for any fishing prints that coordinated. We ended up changing to a general maritime theme because I found a set of prints that went together quite nicely, and had the most lovely ice blue and brown color scheme. They included fishing net prints and sailboat prints. Then I found a fish print for accents, and a reddish brown that coordinated with all the prints to tie it all together.
This is the result! (One of them anyhow... I did the whole room, not just the crib.) Color blocks were very hot the season I made this. The only thing I would have changed in retrospect was to use more batting in the crib bumpers. (Make them as thick or thin as you want with quilt batting. Don't cheap out on it. Getting the right stuff makes a huge difference.) As you can see, I did a single pleat in the front of the crib skirt, and otherwise kept to a simpler block pattern on the skirt than on the bumpers. I thought it all tied in nicely. As for sheets, sometimes it's easy to tie in your prints with sheets that are readily available, but that wasn't the case for us. I would have loved an ice blue sheet with this scheme, but could not find the exact shade, so we went with a simple white sheet, and it still looked really nice. This is always an option, and I would say, when choosing your colors, try to make sure at least one color is readily available in crib sheets. White, khaki, and lemon yellow are some good ones that you can always find.
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