The Squishes Room

We are moving into a new home and are planning on having the Squishes share a room.  Of course, there is a huge chance of this being largely problematic, but I am determined that eventually they will happily share.  Sure I'll just snap my fingers and voila right?  Hardly.

The issue of sharing aside, I have made a promise to myself that I will have a cohesive design for their room.  In our last home the baby's room started out well...not too babyish (I'm not well known for my love of pastels) but still fun with an orange and brown bird theme.  I used Joel Dewberry's Aviary line in Bark for the crib bumper, skirt, and sheets to create the color theme.

  

Some of the room's design elements included a silhouette bird mobile by Spin Designs, a bright hand-painted bird drawing my husband and I found in Mexico, a black and white ink drawing by my best friend featuring a Peacock riding an Elephant, and a bird house nightlight (courtesy of my very creative and crafty in-laws).  I also hung gold birdcage decals with bird silhouettes over my daughter's crib to tie it all together.  

Unfortunately, as the largest bedroom in the apartment it soon became the catch all for miscellaneous things we had nowhere else to store.  I am committed to making sure that doesn't happen again.  Instead, I am starting with a plan and a few key projects to help avoid such a calamity.

As a starting off point I found this great example of a girl's room I liked from Photographer Ashley Ann.  Ideally I'd like to use some of her ideas and combine them with my own design elements from our first baby room.




Colors
The first baby room started off with orange and brown.  Then, as my toddler grew more vocal, more elements of pink were added.  Therefore, I am going to continue the pink, orange, and brown theme in our new home.  I intend to keep the colors bright and fun by using textiles as accents such as Anna Maria Horner's Loulouthi line.

Photographs
I always have our home littered with photos (my dad psychoanalyzes this but I largely ignore his conclusions).  I really love the mini gallery-esque way that Ashley used framed photos in the room and I am going to try to emulate that.  I already have a lot of the vintage baroque type of frames that I've used in my living room and I can just repurpose them in the girls' room instead.

Ceiling Pompoms
Of course anyone who enjoys Ashley's design can plainly see that the ceiling pompoms are a must!  I found a few DIY links on how to make these fluffy accessories and will be adding that to my list of To Dos for this room.  I'd also like to use some paper garland seen here but haven't decided how to tackle that yet.



Textiles
I've already began gathering the fabric to make the girls coordinating quilts to have over their cribs and later their beds.  The Spinning Stars Quilts in the Loulouthi fabric line will hopefully be underway as soon as I receive the fabric.  I'd also like to make a cushion for the antique wooden rocking chair that we customarily keep in their room, curtains, a few throw pillows, and a cover for the changing table.  In addition to the Loulouthi line I also have some Amy Butler Midwest Modern and Anna Maria Horner Innocent Crush fabric that I can incorporate as well.  All modern, bright, but feminine fabrics.

Because the Loulouthi line is so bright and varied in color, I think the fabrics will blend well with Joel Dewberry's Aviary line.  Luckily the fabrics I chose from the Aviary line were mostly the abstract oranges so it should blend in nicely with both Anna Maria Horner and Amy Butler collections.

- rebecca lynne