Gold

This is the second kid’s room I’ve had the pleasure to create, my first being for my daughter.  My daughter is very much into rainbows, ponies and all things sparkly and girly.  So this time around, when I found out I was having a boy, I was excited to make a fun, simple and clean (hopefully it stays that way!) boys room.  I had a limited budget, so I scoured my home for furniture pieces that I could use.  The ikea crib was a hand me down from my sister who didn’t need it anymore.  The swivel/rocker chair was taken from my living room (bought originally from Crate and Barrel, I love that it doesn’t look like a typical nursery rocker).  For the furniture items I did buy, I chose not to buy any nursery specific items, so that my son could continue to use them in the future.  I added a lot of storage bins to hold all of the baby odds and ends, but they could also be used for pretty much anything!  I also love grays and blues so I chose those colors as my starting point and threw in some black, white and gold accents.  I stayed away from any specific theme, but I do have some fun safari animals thrown in there.  I learned from having my daughter that her tastes evolved and I’ve added things to her current room to reflect that.  I wanted to be able to do the same for my son, so most of the shelves and picture frames could easily be used for collectibles and prints of whatever he ends up being into as he grows up!
The elephant lamp and woven blue footstool were finds from Homegoods.  The black and white lumbar pillow and felt garlands are from Pottery Barn Kids.  The round bark mirror was a purchase from Pottery Barn a couple of years ago.  Prints are from Lucy Darling, Land of Nod, and Etsy.

I wanted to share our nursery because so many people have expressed how much they love it. I was inspired by bits and pieces of designs on Pinterest and have always enjoyed designing and crafting. We are currently expecting our first baby July 3rd and we are going to be surprised with the gender. With that being said, we had to do a gender neutral nursery that would still be vibrant and exciting. I’m not a an all white and beige kind of gal, or a yellow/green kind of gal either. I searched and searched for gender neutral themes and really came to love the tribal and Aztec look that would be both exciting for a boy or a girl and could easily be dressed up one way or the other once the baby comes to further define the gender look of the room.
My husband and I came to a compromise on painting two walls a medium/dark steel gray and leaving 2 of the opposite walls the mint green that they already were. We decided to make the two dark walls our main focal point and star of the show. We highlighted the dark walls with custom made light gray and mint green vinyl triangles. We also put in homemade natural wood shelves with a very faint gray stain and mounted with gold/brass painted pipe brackets. To coordinate, my husband also made matching book shelves from the same wood and stain and embellished with gold painted cup pulls for accent.
From there, we added in all gray solid wood furniture with a lightly rustic/worn-looking finish. We sought out an etsy seller to make custom bedding with all of the fabrics of my choosing to ensure an equality of gender-specific type of colors. We featured mint green, navy, a hint of peach and a little bit of gold yellow in the fabrics, along with grays of course.  To finish the room, we used white linen curtains, canvas white teepee that I hand embellished for some extra flair and added a fancy electric recliner with Bluetooth plugs made by Babyletto.
Hope you enjoy viewing the photos as much as I did designing it and working with my husband together on it.

I had a little too much fun decorating my first baby girl’s nursery. I knew the color palate and overall theme I wanted and was able to fulfil my vision by purchasing mostly all of the decor on etsy.

Our little doll is turning one! What better way to celebrate than to throw a dollhouse themed birthday party.
Using an array of pastel colours, lots of balloons and having the most magical birthday cake ever, a dollhouse, this first birthday is what every little girls’ dreams are made of!

When we found out we were expecting a little girl, I was so surprised! I always thought I would have a little boy. So when I began thinking about decorating the nursery, I was completely overwhelmed. I knew I wanted something simple, a bit modern and not too feminine as I’m not a girly girl by any means.
I wanted to stay away from the traditional color of pinks. Originally, I wanted an all white nursery but my husband vetoed the idea saying it look to sterile (the drawbacks of having an artistic husband!). We settled on mostly white furniture with an accent of walnut to contrast. When i stumbled across a local artist Kelli Kronberger and found her work I was totally inspired! I knew i had found the one piece that I wanted to work around to work around the entire room!
We already had the overdyed rug that I thought we could add in for an extra contrast and give a pop of color that we could work with.
I made the hanging wall art from a blogpost I found on Project Nursery and the rest of the decor on the shelves were either things i found locally or made from cards friends had given us. I’m obsessed with Jelly Cat so we had to include a few of our favorite plush for her to enjoy as she gets older!
The chandelier was a gift from a good friend who found it at a local vintage shop! We were in love and thought it brought the perfect amount of feminine chic to our little girls room!

Stay Golden!
I’m so excited to share our “Stay Golden” St. Patrick’s Day party with you! Have you ever heard the song “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, the other’s gold”? It’s an old song I learned in Girl Scouts years ago, and was the jumping off point for our theme this year. I think the premise suits our GNO’s perfectly since the littles that join us are always making new friends. And as you know, good friends are definitely pure gold!
 
After choosing our theme, I knew I had to have these gold letter balloons from Northstar Balloons to spell out “Stay Golden” for our backdrop. I fringe-cut tissue paper in small sections, and taped it directly to the wall, trimming the top in hot pink festooning for a little pop of color. Pretty smitten with the outcome.
 
I found the vintage bar cart at a local flea market, and after a little elbow grease, she was returned to all her glory.
 
We kept the desserts simple and will serve cupcakes topped with St. Pat’s inspired candy bark, and gorgeous shamrock cookies. Can you even with the gold glitter on the back side of the cookies?! Yep – they are double-sided cookies! Say Anything Bakery really outdid herself!
 
To add a little extra shimmer to our “Pots ‘o Gold” caramel popcorn, I added a bit of gold disco dust. Love how they look in the little pots from Oriental Trading and the “Lucky” tags designed by Jen T. by Design.
 
The Rolos, Sixlets, and Hershey’s Kisses were the perfect additions to our mini candy bar.
 
The pink and green “tree” table centerpieces were created by Bethany of Sweet Georgia Sweet and coordinated perfectly with the other décor items.
 
In between the trees was a whimsical “pot of gold” using mini golden balloon as the gold coins, and more shamrock cookies.
 
Aren’t these shamrock wands the cutest?! They’re actually wooden shamrock ornaments painted gold, and then attached to ribbon wands, which we painted hot pink! The littles will add mini pom poms to them in any color they’d like (although I just used pink for the samples to match our theme).
 
My friend’s sweet daughter was the perfect model for the day with her Irish bloodline and red hair! If the littles who attend our GNO next weekend have half as much fun as she did, then the night will be a big hit!
 
Here’s a little more eye candy for ya! Hope you have a Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and don’t forget, Stay Golden Friends!
 
xo…
 
Credits:
Party Styling: Made of Sugar and Spice
Photography: Moments by Maredith
https://www.momentsbymaredith.com/
Graphic Design: Jen T. By Design
https://www.jentbydesign.com
 
Cookies: @SayAnythingBakery
https://www.instagram.com/sayanythingbakery/
Table Centerpieces: Sweet Georgia Sweet
https://www.etsy.com/shop/SweetGeorgiaSweet?section_id=13751048
Wooden Shamrock Ornaments, Green Ribbon Wands, Black Candy Buckets, Apothecary Glass Jar Set: Oriental Trading
http://www.orientaltrading.com/holidays/st–patricks-day-a1-550659.fltr?cm_re=Version_A-_-Zone1_panel2-_-link
Stay Golden Balloons: Northstar Balloons
http://www.northstarballoons.com/
 
Tissue Paper: Paper Mart
http://www.papermart.com/premium-colored-tissue-paper/id=7827#7827

I had a plan in my head (probably since Lilah’s last birthday party) of exactly what fun, abstract theme I wanted to do for her next party. But as she’s gotten older and more opinionated, it became very clear to me that even though she couldn’t yet tell me what theme she wanted, if I didn’t do Minnie Mouse, I’d never be able to forgive myself. Minnie is her idol!! I wanted to put my own twist on it but I still wanted it to scream Minnie, which I think it did! I used a lot of flowers because she and I both love flowers and of course we did pink and polka dots too!
I created the Minnie backdrop out of foam board and glued faux flowers on it. The white flowers represented her white polka dots. Then I cut gold polka dots for the wall from removable vinyl. On the table, I used a floral paper runner so the kids could color on it which doubled as an activity. I melted pink crayons into a Mickey Mouse mould to create Mickey shaped crayons. The balloon garland I created draped down the center of the table and touched the floor where I had more balloons lose for the kids to play with.
My favorite part might have been the Minnie Mouse curtains I made. My daughter loved them! I just bought pink polka dot fabric from the fabric store and draped them over a tension bar and tied them with a ribbon. A 5 minute project that I thought really added an extra special touch. I wanted it to feel like her own little pink clubhouse.
We had a Photo Booth backdrop that I made with paper fans by hot gluing them to a foam insulation board. I used various quotes around the party in different ways that I borrowed from her favorite show, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse; like, Oh Toodles (which I changed to Oh Two-dles) and Thanks for Stoppin by! I tried to incorporate Mickey and Minnie in every way that I could. I even had Mickey shaped ice cubes!!
We had a Minnie Mouse character come by to entertain the kids and I can proudly say, this is a day, my daughter won’t soon forget! She loved it!!

As a wife to a military man I know that we won’t be in one spot very long but I like to make all of the houses we’ve lived in feel like “our home” even the short term rental we were in for just over 6 months. I wanted to make our baby girl’s nursery warm and inviting and I wanted to work with what we had, which was blah military base housing! I know that doing an all neutral room can be risky but as I decorator I willing to take on the challenge, bringing in tons of texture and some metallics my sweet girl’s nursery went from military drab to totally fab. You can see more of Sloane’s nursery and all of our adventures at Love The Tompkins
I didn’t want to spend tons of money on a room that we were moving out of in a few short months so everything in the room is pretty much a DIY. I faux painted the crib to give it a weathered grey Restoration hardware look. I used curtains from a previous house across one of the walls in the bedroom. The wall had two windows and instead of using two separate rods I used a long rod and let the curtains hang all the way across the wall. This made  the room feel cozy. The dresser was given to me by my mom and I used Rub n’ Buff and white paint to give it a stripped paint treatment. The cane rocker was gifted to me by my bestie.
When I finally finished Sloane’s nursery it was Christmas time and I thought that the addition of a vintage aluminum Christmas tree tucked beside her crib was just the sparkle her room needed; I almost couldn’t bare to take it down.