What did you do to decorate for your new baby without spending a lot of money?

Did you borrow items from friends or family?
Did you go to thrift stores or garage sales?
Did you find and check out the clearance racks?

or

Were you lucky enough that you received everything you needed for the first few months at a baby shower?

I borrowed almost everything from friends. What I didn't get from friends, I bought from garage sales/thrift stores. Babies use everything for such a short period of time, that I could never buy anything new if I didn't have to. The only thing we bought new was a dresser from Ikea and 2 gallons of paint for her room.

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SAHM to 2 girls (ages 7 & 2)

We did get a new crib (my mom bought it for us), but the other things were used. Her dresser was actually my old dresser from when I was little, that my sister was using and then decided she didn't want any more. We moved a bookcase from our basement to DD's room and we also had a small rocking chair that was mine from when I was little.

First you don't need all the baby bedding. Just a sheet! The rest will be stored (learn from my mistake...lol I just posted this in the regrets thread). We bought the cheapest crib ($125) that Wal-Mart had. I tried to find used to either buy or borrow but could not find one someone wasn't using. His "changing table" is a long dresser that was my parents almost 30 years ago. It's nice because all the diapers and clothes go in the drawers. I have everything there at the station. I just bought one of those changing pads that are for tops of dressers (actually it was a gift from MIL). I bought decorations for his room & no one ever saw them. I could have done with a lot less and it been nice but as perfect as I made it. I also just made curtains for DS's room from the $3 flat twin sheets from Wal-Mart. He has two big windows. I bought 4 for $12 and sewed them...so easy and the finished product looks like store bought curtains!

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Formerly Mommy2Ryan

We got lucky! I got a crib from a woman down the street that heard I was pregnant and was getting rid of hers. I got the bedding from my shower. The dresser was from my husbands grandfather who passed away a couple of years ago. We are all set.... We are just waiting on the baby!

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I agree with the bedding. It's pretty and all, but if they vomit or spit up alot, there goes that nice comforter and bedskirt. We never had a changing table(didn't have the room for it) i just had a plastic tote with handles that could be carried from room to room and the foldable changing pad that comes with diaper bags(i had an extra one) tucked into the tote with all the diaper changing supplies in it.
We bought a used crib (that passed safety regulations, that's important!), don't buy one that is 20 years old, find one that is newer. Bedding is so easy to find at rummage sales plus you will get alot at baby showers also. Paint is cheap, curtains can be found at Goodwill or thrift stores. Baby/toddler clothing is so small that you can get away with not having a full sized dresser right away. I just bought those plastic drawer units on wheels for the first 4 years until they needed something bigger for storage.

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"Go on, get outside, get the stink blown off ya!!"

we got the crib,( sheets, bumper pads and blankets too),high chair and car seat from friends whose last child just outgrew them all( and clothing galore)
dresser was from junk days( some sanding and varathane and new knobs and he still uses it)
playpen my mom gave me for baby shower
clothing that we needed was from yard sales.

decorations...i drew teddy bears on the walls and got craft paint from the dollar store and painted them in. neighbour across the way gave me all her teddy bears for my son to have on the dresser.

we did NOT use a change table...i put a pad on the floor and changed both kids there( cannot fall off the floor).

for ds1 the crib was new (gift from mom) and a dresser was new (gift from BIL - baby's godfather). We put a changing pad on top of the dresser so it could be used as a changing table. We bought Peter Cottontail bedding set on sale. Put the sheet and bumper on the crib. I took the comforter thingie and sewed two loops into the top of it, then hung it from the wall as a decoration. We were renting so we couldn't paint, I found this dressed up the room. I also made die-cuts on construction paper, of the alphabet, and laminated it at Kinko's, then stuck that around the room as a border. It's still in my kids room today, nearly 10 years later. I found an old book of peter rabbit at the thrift store, cut out the pictures I liked, and framed them in cheapie frames or stuff I already had.

His nursery looked like a million bucks but it really wasn't that expensive beyond the furniture. The "decoration" part was close to nothing.

Our theme was "antique", and the colors were lavendar and green. For the first nursery, the walls were white b/c we were renting. I got lavendar and lace fabrics on sale and made curtains for the window. I made her bedskirt and bumper pads out of a lavendar floral fabric that I'm in love with. The sheets were gifted. My mother gave me two very, very old framed pictures from her room when she was a baby that we hung above the crib. I had the big wooden rocker that my dad gave my mom when she was preggers with me, and I made a small green and lavendar quilt to hang over the back of it, with a matching pillow. My parents' neighbor gave us an antique-looking cross painted gold with a cherub's face in the middle. I have an old mirror of my grandmother's that has a lot of the mirror part worn off of it, in a big wooden frame that is roughed up (sounds ugly but it was perfect!) that hung over an old, smaller dresser that was also my grandmother's. My mom made her a small green and lavendar braided rug for the middle of the floor. I absolutely loved it!
Then we moved. Now her walls are green, and a few of the touches are still there, but it was a really bad paint job so we hung up all of her pretty quilts and blankets to cover the walls up. It's okay, but not really planned out and themed like the other one. But we'll be in our new house this weekend!!

Melody Rose Congrats on Moving into the House!!

Post Pics Please! That is an exciting time.