Fully Operational Fandom: The Ultimate Star Wars Nursery

StarWars.com: The Cloud City mural is gorgeous. How did you complete the project -- did you sketch it out first and how long did it take you to complete?

Tim Murphy: When we really thought we were having a boy, I had done some concept drawings for a Hoth mural (Empire is my favorite movie in the saga), but now we wanted to steer clear of those blue tints because so many blue nursery accessories are geared towards boys. I wanted a pink nursery, but my wife made it clear that pink was off limits -- but there could be pink accents. I made a drawing of a green mural based on Dagobah, but we very quickly decided that "swamp" was the wrong way to go for a baby's room! In the meantime, we decided on teal and gray for the rest of the nursery. I went back to basics and tried to narrow down the most beautiful Star Wars locations. We pretty quickly settled on Cloud City since it satisfied all of our hopes -- iconic Star Wars without a lot of explosions and fighting, using The Empire Strikes Back, and maybe even an opportunity to throw some pink in there! I started looking up paintings of clouds and different ways to paint a lot of different sunsets and sunrises. Then, I did a digital rendering on my computer. Once my wife was happy with it, I started painting! The clouds took about three hours. Then it took another hour or two to paint Cloud City and the Millennium Falcon.

StarWars.com: I saw Mark Hamill took note of the mural on Twitter. Did you freak out when that happened?

Tim Murphy: Once the mural was finished, I decided to share it on Twitter. Someone who saw it retweeted it and added David Prowse's Twitter handle to it (I didn't have enough space to include him in the original tweet.) David Prowse retweeted it, and it just ballooned from there. Within a day or two both Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher both "liked" it -- it was so surreal! I told my friends and family I'm basically a Skywalker now.

StarWars.com: Your nursery has other Star Wars touches; I especially love the mobile. How did you decide which characters to include and what sorts of materials did you use?

Tim Murphy: Being artists, my wife and I often make and give homemade Christmas gifts to each other. This year I had it in my head to make her a Star Wars mobile for the nursery. I made little characters out of felt and puffy paint and stuffed them with cotton. I decided to do one character from each movie and at the same time try to fit as many iconic females as I could. Amidala represented The Phantom Menace, Yoda with his lightsaber is there for Attack of the Clones, Vader is Revenge of the Sith, Leia is there for A New Hope, Chewie represents The Empire Strikes Back (you can tell it's Empire because he has Threepio on his back!), and the black-suited Jedi Luke is there for Return of the Jedi. And then we included Rey -- the strong, butt-kicking, female character! I was SO excited to put that lightsaber in her hand after we saw The Force Awakens (I was still working on the mobile when it came out).

StarWars.com: Tell me about the other Star Wars decorations in the nursery.

Tim Murphy: Ever since we settled on a Star Wars nursery, our friends and families have had a lot of fun getting into it! The "Jedi Princess" banner is from one of the baby showers. We've gotten all sorts of Star Wars books and blankets and hats and onesies! The baby's name is Evelyn -- the letters on the wall were another Christmas gift I painted for my wife. We've received a few Star Wars-themed teddy bears and a collection of itty bittys from Hallmark. I was really happy to include some of the action figures I had when I was a kid, and we have a lightsaber lamp on the wall!

Amy Ratcliffe is a writer obsessed with Star Wars, Disney, and coffee. Follow her on Twitter at @amy_geek.