This special bedroom belongs to a 5-year old boy who loves sharks and Nemo!  The bedroom has a fantastic play-loft, so the ceilings are very high—perfect for an underwater scene.

This is the super-awesome play loft and a great ladder leading up to it.

One goal for this mural was to create a fun space without being too overwhelming.  We chose a soft blue base color, and kept the mural colors soothing and subdued, with areas of pop and focus.  We placed much of the sea life in the upper portion of the room, to draw your eye up, and so that the furniture would not cover the creatures and fun details.

These turtles and fish swim high above the bed.  Wavy horizontal lines of color create a sense of water, light and movement, and incorporate other shades of blues and greens.

Nemo is hiding under the sea anemone!

I also painted a mural for this little boy in his last bedroom, and you can check it out on my web site here.  Also an underwater scene, this mural was inspired by his last room, but with a bit more “big boy” style.

This was a most wonderful project for a lovely family, and I am so grateful to have had the chance to work with them again!

Just over a year ago I was painting the nursery for the expectant parents of two adorable baby twins.  Now nearing age two, they each have an adored lovey that is rarely far from sight.  I was touched when the father called me to arrange a portrait of the twin’s lovey’s for his wife!

This is a double lovey portrait, and also includes two “fluffy pillows”, special blankets and the name of each child and lovey.

I like to encourage parents to include other familiar items as a backdrop for the loveys.  The familiar textures, colors, patterns and personalities in the painting will illuminate memories for the children and the parents years from now.  You can check out other examples of lovey portraits are on my web site at http://www.cheekymonkeymurals.com/lovey.htm.

This little boy has a view of the Boston skyline both from his family’s roof deck, and from his crib! My clients wanted their son’s mural to be exciting for a three-year-old, but also appropriate as he gets older.

The fun challenge of this project was to capture some of the favorite icons of the Boston skyline, while also creating a whimsical and fun child’s room. During the design process, we worked to balance the hard-edged architectural lines with more playful elements like the water and the clouds.

We also used patterns of colorful windows on buildings to define the facades, and bring the silhouette forms to life. The colors and shapes of the mural pull from the window-pane rug, but they can also serve as a fairly neutral palette if the room décor changes in the future.

This was a great project, with a wonderful client, and I am grateful for the opportunity. Let me know what you think!

I am so happy with the way this turned out! 5 hand-cut stencils and 203 impressions later, I am finally finished!

I used Benjamin Moore “golden butter”, which is cheerful in the daylight, and has a wonderful elegant quality in the evening. It looks much lighter and more subtle at night!

I found this amazing tablecloth at Anthropologie right before the holidays and I don’t want to take it off! It was hand made in India and has beautiful cross-stitching and tassles.

I designed the stencil in Adobe Illustrator, and then cut the pattern myself using stencil film and a sharp x-acto knife. There are lots of irregularities in the individual impressions, but I like the hand-painted , more organic effect.

The dining room is painted a soft turquoise below the chair rail. I bought these great Moroccan pots at Mohr & McPherson years ago (I wish I had more!), and I am building on their color and design around the room.

The ceiling pattern was inspired by Moroccan tiles, but the outcome looks more like tin ceiling tiles to me, but I still really love the look. My house is over 100 years old, so a tin ceiling pattern fits too!

Still a lot to do here, but the ceiling wraps the room in warmth and gives a feeling of finish on a budget! What do you think?

I had the pleasure of painting a mural for little girl twins who share a room last month. They have very different personalities (both perfect and adorable), and they had great ideas for the way they wanted their murals to look.

We collaborated and came up with a plan that incorporates both of their criteria (Phoebe wanted a dolphin and things from the sea, and Julia wanted a flower garden) and joins them in the middle between their beds! I loved doing this, and while the space on the eves is small, it is just enough to capture their personalities without overshadowing their expression throughout the room!

Here is Julia with her flowers and birds. She wanted her name to appear with scrolling script letters, and a full range of brilliant colors, with blue being her favorite.

This is Phoebe, who wanted her name in bubble letters and lots of blue!

TIP: With shared rooms, it is so important to represent both children in the mural equally. In this case, both girls are prolific artists and wanted to preserve their wall space as a gallery for their artwork, so we kept the mural small, over their beds.

It was a fun challenge to meet the girls’ individual requirements and also create something that looked cohesive. To this end, I used a circle motif to hold their names on both sides of the wall, which creates symmetry. While the colors they requested were different, I did bring accent colors to both sides so that the overall palette is shared, but with emphasis on different colors for each girl.

I just love working with nice families and creative clients such as Julia and Phoebe. The outcome of the work is always better when I have partners like this! Thank you.

I am finally taking on a project I have envisioned for years in my own home!  My dining room is fairly traditional, and I felt it needed some zing.  I designed this stencil, inspired by Moroccan tile patterns, to gently catch your peripheral vision and draw the eye up.

My first ceiling stencil–I am challenged by gravity, as the stencil does not stay nearly as well as it does on a vertical wall!  Working for a client I would crank this out in 2-3 days, and have a sore neck for a month,  but at home I am doing 10-15 blocks a day, and leaving my dining room covered in drop clothes in between!  I think this is actually looking a bit like a tin ceiling, which also works in my 1905 house, so I continue.

This cobbler’s child has no shoes, so I am very happy to have a light month that allows me to actually do some work in my home! I can’t wait to see the finished room, and my family can’t wait to have the dining room back. I will post again as soon as it is finished so you can see the big reveal!

In the mean time, check out this great blog My Marakesh,  if you love all things Moroccan as I do.

A wonderfully creative client of mine envisioned this treetop hallway and stairway landing. She had photos of this great wallcovering from Anthology magazine and asked me to customize the design for her home. She ordered the felt birdhouse, and I love how it adds dimension and whimsy.

I am finding that the popularity of wallpaper has spurred an interest in hand-painted walls. While there are so many incredible wallpapers, they don’t always exist in the right colors, or need tweaking for a particular space. Let’s face it, nothing is as customized as your own original wall painting!

This basement playroom is for a little girl and her new baby sister coming any day now.

Inspired by the landscape and colorful architecture of India, we came up with this design to incorporate their travel memories into a vivid and fun playroom setting.  The basement has very low ceilings and no windows, so looking out into the open fields opened up the space tremendously.

Peacock feathers—opened or closed—what amazing pattern and rhythm!

My clients painted the base color of this wall a light orange, and the remaining walls flamingo pink and lime green.  The mural uses all of the colors of the room, and ties them together while maintaining a light and open feeling.

We continued the mural around the corner and up the stairwell, which really created a sense of space and dimension.

I love these colors and am grateful for the chance to work with the imagery of India.  Happy New Year!

My weekly blog post has become a monthly occurrence lately, and not for lack of subject matter! I am so happy to be so busy with painting projects, but struggling with keeping up on all of my documentation! Please stay tuned over the next few weeks as I start posting the new work.

This mural is in a new children’s furniture store called Grow With Me Kids, in Natick on Route 9. I was invited to paint the entry area of the store, and chose this fun, free-flowing style mural as a backdrop for a variety of furniture. The rest of the store is styled by Tom Capano of Fresh Look Designs in Topsfield.

In my many visits to children’s rooms and nurseries over the years, I have seen many wonderful bedroom sets and cribs. I really love the Young America line of furniture that they sell at this store, because it comes in a great variety of painted colors, and it is very well made. I also like that it is not from the same bigger stores, so all of the designs feel fresh and a little different!

In a soft mural like this one, I love to include some little areas of pop, like these bright red ladybugs.

Cosmos are one of my favorite flowers, and this is the first time I actually painted them. They are so free and whimsical, and the colors are intense.

They have a range of styles, from very classic to very modern, and as the name implies, styles that are appropriate for little ones up to teens and young adults.

Please stop by Grow With Me Kids and check out my mural and all of the beautiful furniture. I am actually on my way there to get a desk for my son who is turning six next week.

Happy Holidays!

Grow With Me – Kids Furniture
583 Worcester Road Natick, MA 01760
(508) 545-0420

I had the opportunity to paint two murals for a wonderful new children’s center in Natick, MA called Gardengate Academy. The owner, Gabi Maza, envisioned this reception area to welcome children and families to classes in art, dance, yoga, music and bilingual programs.

A long-time client of mine once asked for “marching ants” in her daughter’s room and I have incorporated them since in many garden murals.

The inside of the building is warm and welcoming, with many garden animals and birds peeking out of the trees, drawing children in to explore the different classrooms and offerings……

…while the exterior has bold and colorful gears to signify the child’s mind working and playing in harmony. The façade still awaits its blue awning, a logo and lighting, but the mural is up and ready to go. I am looking forward to seeing it all come together very soon.

I had lots of friendly visitors stopping by to ask about this great new facility, and hope that the bright imagery will draw people in to see all that is offered.

Please visit their web site at www.GardengateAcademy.com to learn more about the offerings, or stop by Gardengate at 249B North Main Street, Natick, to see the great classrooms and meet the wonderful instructors.

Some moms just know what they want, and all I have to do is listen and paint. This long-time client has a true vision for each of her children’s rooms, and I loved working with her on this project. My client’s tiny office space was transformed into an adorable purple polka-dot fairy nursery just in time for little Ella to arrive.

Two fairies sprinkle good wishes over the crib and rocker (soon to be installed). A polka-dot border and accents of flowers, fairy dust and butterflies tie the room together without overpowering the small space.

I love that in this age of mega- everything, parents are still maximizing small spaces creatively. Nothing is more cozy and sweet than a lovingly prepared little nook for a new baby. I wish I had photos of the room fully furnished to show you, but hopefully you can feel the cuteness.

I have been tracking my nephew’s relationship with his loveys for the last four years and he finally convinced me that at least two of these characters really are here to stay.  I am always suspicious of a child’s true commitment to his loveys when there is more than one, but in fact, at age seven, Gus still brings all three wherever he goes.  It is especially fun to paint for family, too.

I am excited to write more about my summer projects and show you the exciting new murals in the pipeline for this fall.  I just finished two commercial spaces and I have two more coming up that will be very interesting to share with you, as well as some very adventurous children’s rooms—my favorite kind.

Getting back to school and cooler weather— I am just not ready! Thinking about being inside with my little boys all winter inspires me to do something drastic to make our basement into a great play space. If you are looking for playroom inspiration too, I highly recommend Apartment Therapy’s oh dee doh for children’s home design, and Project Nursery for lots of nursery and playroom ideas.

Here are some fun playrooms I have painted over the years—so many different ways to go!

Addie’s Antarctica & Safari Playroom

The penguins of Antarctica (above) and the elephants in the desert (below), are on opposite walls of the same playroom.  I used yellow skies and vivid colors for both scenes to tie them together visually.  This is one of my most favorite rooms!

Jackson’s Rock-Out Playroom

Music is at the core of this little boy’s playtime. In a great collaboration with Lysa Wilkins Interiors, I designed this mural full of whimsical musical instruments and trucks (few boys can live without them). Check out the chalkboard on the face of the drum! We also included a magnet board for hanging artwork.

The playroom has a great open play area. Inspired by piano keys, I created this charcoal and white pattern around the lower portion of the walls, with musical notes dancing around. I like the way it suggests music & rhythm while remaining simple and abstract.

Princess Castle Playspace

In a great basement playroom, this princess play space is tucked under the stairwell! This creative family had a castle wall partition built to create an enclosed area for dress-ups and pretending.

This castle is not just for little girls—knights and dragons beckon boys to play too.

Inside the play area is my favorite “princess and the pea” bed, with many layers of color and pattern.

Big Boy’s Study and Play Room

This bigger boy’s playroom doubles as a study room. This family lived in New York City and in San Francisco, so we created a play space in their Boston home to keep those memories alive!

To see more Cheeky Monkey playroom ideas please visit: http://www.cheekymonkeymurals.com/gallery_playrooms.htm! As always I love your feedback and ideas!

Kids just love nature!  A mural that brings the outdoors in, is a wonderful concept that is both simple and appealing at many stages of childhood.  This little boy loves the outdoors, and while his love for Legos, trains and trucks may pass, he will feel happy surrounded by this colorful tree and garden critters for years to come.  This window alcove is going to be backstage for the child’s theater and puppet stage.  With just a simple hanging curtain across the opening and a few costume hooks, he will have his own theater in the garden!

The tree is the focal point of this room, but we have incorporated the entire room by nestling bunnies, birds and dragonflies in surprise spots around the room.

This room has a slanted roofline ceiling that when painted blue, suggests the perfect sky.  Blue paint, puffy clouds and airplanes are all it takes to turn the ceiling into a sky full of activity.  TIP:  When your room has challenging architectural lines, don’t fret!  Think creatively about how a mural can transform the space into an imaginative world for your child.  For me, these rooms present great opportunities and can be much more interesting than a 12’ X 12’ wall!

This is a shared bedroom for a young brother and sister who love the Red Sox! I had fun working this composition into the challenging space surrounding the two beds–and broken by the window in between. In the end, it was fine to distort the scene to accommodate the space!

In order to appeal to both genders, I incorporated a wide range of colors—especially into the crowd (which is very hard to read in these photos). When I started, three of the walls were painted light blue, and the adjacent wall is a warm yellow, so I incorporated a lot of those two colors in the mural to tie the mural in with the rest of the room.

TIP: When the mural is going to stop mid-wall, I like to have the base color of the walls be a major color component of the mural. So when the mural ends and the plain-colored wall begins, the transition will be less dramatic. The mural can also go from very detailed to more simplified towards the edges, to create an easy transition to plain walls.

I often am asked to paint Fenway Park within a budget, and with all of its incredible detail, it is necessary to simplify the elements of the park to their essence. In this project I let myself leave the “correct” proportions behind in favor of the best composition for the room, and I like the results a lot! While a hard-core fan may pick up on the fact that the stands or the scoreboard are out of proportion, a child will be thrilled to be able to read the score!

What I love about Fenway is all of the opportunities to include references to the child in the mural. Here we replaced the Volvo sign and the Sports Authority sign with each child’s name, and the Jumbo-Tron features the two children and their cat, Magnus! With all of the billboards and signs, the possibilities for personalization are endless, and it is great fun for the kids!

This is definitely one of my favorite Fenway Park projects! Thank you to this adorable family!

This week I painted a fun choo-choo train mural for an adorable boy named Malcolm. The train track wraps all the way around the room, to create a patterned border and to activate all of the walls.   On the main wall the festive choo-choo train toots along, creating a nice focal point over the crib and future bed.

The train is the main event in this mural, but there is a biplane and a train station as well as clouds, stars and moon that create balance and accent surrounding walls.  The tracks are high enough that they won’t be blocked by furniture, but also leave room for photos and pictures to be hung without distraction.

TIP: I painted the track border using tape for the horizontal lines and a hand-made stencil for the vertical strips.  If you ever want to do this yourself, one tip I have from painting the tracks is to wait until the entire border is up to start the clean-up work, because often those glaring imperfections you see when doing an individual section disappear when you have 100 tracks painted together.  It really does pay to get the full picture before focusing in on the details!

This is a great example of a mural that is rich in detail and exciting for a child, while also working within a modest budget!

I recently commissioned a very special photo book by Anna Asphar of Picture Life Books that artfully documents the young lives of my mother and her sister.  I am so thrilled with the book, and am eagerly waiting for it to be published so that I can feature the outcome on my blog.  Anna arranged hundreds of photos and wrote beautifully about the folklore and facts of their lives, to make this priceless memento.  As a small compliment to the storyline, I created this family tree to illustrate the family lineage.

Fortunately, my grandparents did an incredible job of keeping and documenting their families’ ancestry back to the 1700s, so I had lots to work with and very few gaps to fill in.  The imagery for this tree is based on Indian textiles and henna designs.  I am currently doing a family tree painting for an Indian family, and I am seeing the influence in lots of my work right now!

I can’t wait to show everyone this incredible book! Check out Anna’s work at Picture Life Books and stay tuned!

Monkey murals are still among my most favorite, and this purple room was the perfect backdrop for some very cute monkeys in tutus! Don’t get me wrong, I love having two boys, but projects like this allow me to fully indulge in the making a girly nursery—What a joy!

This mural accents three walls—on the main wall where the rocker will be (shown above) is this arching lilac tree with swinging monkeys wearing tutus. I created a stylized lilac tree that would bring in more of the purples that my client loves, filling out the branches without too much green.

Over the crib is another lilac branch, with a playful monkey eager to interact. I love to create opportunities for a child to interact with the mural characters. Here, the monkey over the crib sprinkles flowers, and butterflies dip down within baby’s reach. Likewise, in the big tree, you can see the lower monkey is just within reach for a toddler, and this baby will no doubt have fun getting face-to-face with her monkey one day!

My client wanted to create a delicate nursery, with a touch of whimsy, and a palette that was almost completely purple and white. For wall color she chose Benjamin Moore French Lilac, which makes a wonderful backdrop for the white furniture and the striking Lulu crib set from Serena and Lily.

And finally, over the changing table is “Baby C’s” monogram, that compliments all of the colors of the room and provides something to capture the baby’s attention. Murals are great for new babies and toddlers who can’t resist pulling things off the wall! There is no risk of anything falling, and you can wash those fingerprints right off!

I wish I could show you photos of the room completely arranged, but as often is the case, the rest of the furnishings and window treatments won’t be in for a few more weeks! Thank you for this adorable, spring-inspired project!

This is the outcome of Charlie’s underwater sea life bathroom!  I really love the way it turned out, and it was a great collaboration with Charlie’s family and Kate Maloney of KMI Designs in Cambridge.

Check out the incredible tiles they chose for the floor and bathtub!

The colors of this mural needed to be subdued, soft and relaxing, to compliment the natural colors of the tile and marble.  I painted vertical sections of soft blues and greens that give the effect of streams of  water lit from above.  The neutral water tones allow the vibrant colors of the fish and coral to shimmer!

And of course, this is a young boy’s bathroom, so it has to be fun too!  An important balance had to be struck between a youthful, fun mural, and one that would grow with Charlie into his pre-teen years.   This was achieved by using natural colors and a fairly realistic painting style for the sea-life, with a fresh contemporary style for the water background.

This octopus actually exists in nature!   I learned a lot about fish on this project, which is one of the fun perks of painting murals for young experts like Charlie.

Thank you for this great opportunity!

Spring is here and babies are popping up everywhere!   I love this time of year, and it is so nice to paint baby nurseries for happy and excited parents and their little ones.  This is Ciera’s “big girl” room, which she is moving into to make room for her new baby sister or brother.

Her parents wanted to give Ciera a new room that would gracefully ease the transition of her sibling’s arrival without costing a fortune.  A simple tree with birds and butterflies perched overhead is just enough transform Ciera’s cute pastel room into a very special haven.

We decided to make a very simple and gestural tree, and focus the painted details on a few colorful birds and Ciera’s name.   The entire wall is activated by the movement of the tree.  Butterflies and pink polka dots are scattered across the wall to add pattern and whimsy without lots of time-consuming details that can drive up the price.

I really enjoy the opportunity and challenge of making a mural that meets my client’s budgetary needs and exceeds their visual expectations!  Good luck to this cute family!

Center Panel

A few weeks ago I shared my sketches for this project in my blog, and this is the finished product.  I was commissioned by the Belmont Day School as a part of a fundraiser to support the school, and the piece was auctioned off at the event.  I chose to do the painting on three panels for several reasons—I did not want to make a painting that was SO large that its appeal would be limited to just families with huge rooms.  I also wanted to create piece that could hang as a grouping or could stand alone as three individual pieces.  The painting reads as a fractured panorama—showing three views of the park, but with some overlap and changes in perspective from one panel to the next.  I like the way the spaces seem to match up at first glance and then do not when you look closer.

Left Panel

The best part of this project, and what makes it so unique, is that there are about 15 different school images hidden in the painting!  So you will find the school’s six values, the mascot (which is a lamb) the logo, as well as multiple members of the staff and the head of school throughout the painting.  Not to mention all of the great Red Sox icons!

Right Panel

The winning bidder generously donated the painting back to the school so that it can be enjoyed by the students every day!  That makes me so happy!  It was truly a joy to work with so many dedicated and passionate parents who love their kids and their school enough to put hours of time and effort into making their school experience extra special.

Ryan is a three year old boy who loves trucks and vehicles of all kinds. His Mom and Dad wanted to give him a special mural full of the hustle and bustle of working vehicles.

The roadways were a great organizing pattern on the light blue wall. I painted them in soft grey, dividing up the wall in interesting shapes, while also providing an environment for the cars. We agreed to have the vehicles in an abstract kind of space rather than a realistic space…..so you see the roads from the top view and the vehicles mostly from a side view. I think it works!

We based the colors of the mural on his bedding, and I looked to make the trucks “pop” while not making the mural too busy with too many competing colors and images.

At three, Ryan does not read yet, but his name is incorporated throughout the mural, on vehicles, in the clouds, and even his initial “R” in the roadway. This is a fun way for him to get involved in looking for hidden surprises around the mural! His grandparents, parents, sister and pets are all referenced in fun ways throughout the mural.

I loved working with this family, and nothing is more rewarding than pleasing a little child, and seeing his face light up when he sees his new room. Thank you for this great opportunity!

My clients often ask how we can achieve their goals for their child’s mural without breaking the bank.  There are many ways you enliven an entire room and give a very finished look, with just a few simple accents.  This sea mural is a great example.  Completed in one day, the mural is contained on one small slanting wall, and it is all you need to welcome baby to the world.

In this beach scene,  just a few crabs, a bucket and a beach ball, create a fresh beach theme for the room!  You can see how the angle of the water are enough to suggest movement and space on the wall.

Just like a well-written paper,  the process of simplifying a mural design to the most concise and beautiful imagery can lead to a wonderful, and even superior outcome!  A mural doesn’t have to have a lot of painting to make a really special and unique room.

This safari border is one of my favorites—using a simple vine around the top of the walls and a few really fun animals, the nursery comes to life in a very economical way!  Placing butterflies and dragonflies around the room activate the lower section of the walls, and still allow for pictures to be hung.

For clients who want to keep it simple, I often recommend a single “vignette” over the bed or dresser to create a focal point in the room.  Here, a little girl’s monogram is included on her octopus, and a simple striped border wraps around the entire room.  On the opposite wall, her twin brother has his own whale with a monogram as well.  Simple and fun!

In this child’s bath I created a border that runs at eye level, rather than across the top of the walls.  By placing it lower, we can activate the full wall while only painting a small section!  It is also great to have the border closer to the child’s height.

More simple mural solutions to come!   Stay tuned!

I am collaborating with a favorite client and Kate Maloney, of Kate Maloney Interiors, on a very special bathroom mural.  My client’s eight-year old son, Charlie,  is an avid fisherman, and he wants to have the feeling of being underwater with cool sea life swimming all around his bathroom.  His mom also wants to be sure the mural will remain appealing into the teen years.  This is the first set of sketches I prepared:

I like to prepare both computer sketches and hand-drawn sketches with colored pencil, to help my clients see different aspects of the design.  The computer sketches are wonderful for experimenting with different color combinations and compositions without starting from scratch for each version.  The hand-drawn sketches are best for showing detail and illustrating a style that will be used.

Charlie had great ideas and provided me with a picture book with the sea-life he wanted included in his mural.  His specific requests informed my second round of designs which were the hand-drawn sketches above.  Kate Maloney and my client chose beautiful fixtures and tile for the bath, creating a perfect stage for an underwater scene.  The square glass tiles line the bath and shower, and the dark blue circle tiles are on the floor.  I love what they chose, and can’t wait to build on these elements in the mural.

Please stay tuned to see the outcome this spring!

I was recently asked to paint a mural (on canvas) of Fenway Park for the Belmont Day School’s fundraiser this April 2011.  I am thrilled to be asked, and so happy to make something for such a wonderful school in my own town.

In my design sketches (shown) I struggled with which view of Fenway Park to use,  when there are so many iconic perspectives.  Do I paint the players, and feature the World Series?   But then how can I leave out the amazing and memorable Boston skyline?  And what about the details of the scoreboard and documenting that crazy-suspenseful game that everyone will remember?

Since this painting should have wide appeal at the auction, I decided to do a triptych with three views, that could hang as one unit, or separately.  My clients at Belmont Day School asked to have several school symbols included in the painting, such as the six core values, the school crest, their logo, and their mascot as well as  other fun personal touches.  For me, this is what makes a painting for a child everlasting.  I am a sucker for nostalgia and childhood memories, and I think these details transform kid’s wall art into a keepsake that will never hit the curb when the kids go to high school!

Stay tuned, to see the outcome of this Fenway Park triptych when it is completed in a few weeks!  And I always love your feedback and comments…..What do you think of the triptych idea versus choosing one scene?

I have two boys, and while they humor my color glut quite well, they won’t be seen in pink or purple. I can’t blame them, but I admit I love a reason to indulge in the lovely girl’s clothing in the world. The Seam Collection www.seamcollection.com is at the top of my list for such vicarious wanderings. A Belmont mother, Cindy Estes, is the designer and creator of this totally whimsical and vibrant line of clothing for girls. You can see why her colors and spirited patterns inspire me!

Cindy artfully seams together layers of rich fabrics and patterns, creating clothing that is both playful and elegant at once. The detail and craftsmanship of her shirred tops, layered hemlines, ruffles and fine fabrics remind me of clothing from my childhood–or maybe from my mother’s time—but timeless and dreamy like something you find in Alice and Wonderland . Her mission is, in fact, to create clothing that a child will love to wear and her parents will love as much or more, which I agree is the secret to loving and lasting children’s design.

Make a visit to the Seam Collection at www.seamcollection.com . Let me know what you think!

Melanie Anderson, owner and designer of Koochi-Ku, makes these incredible, colorful and cozy coats for children.  Her designs are vivid and whimsical, and the first time I saw them all I could think about was whether I could squeeze into a boy’s size 7 barn coat!  Her fabrics are absolute eye candy, and the wools are rugged and practical for kids to wear multiple seasons.  You won’t have to offer any bribes to get your kids out the door with these in the closet!

All of her designs are made of 100% boiled wool, and the kid’s coats are reversible!!  You can choose the wonderful and unique patterns one day, and switch to the reverse for a more subdued, beautiful tweed pattern the next.

I especially love the girl’s A-Line coats with faux fur collars and cuffs in rich fuchsias, greens and pinks!  Not only does Koochi-Ku make these darling children’s jackets and scarves, but she also offers women’s designs including coats, scarves, handbags, and now beautiful products for your home like throw pillows and wool blankets.

Melanie sells her Koochi-ku creations through many arts and craft shows, and boutiques in the Boston area and nationally.  Check out the Koochi-ku web site at www.koochiku.com to find out all of her locations.

Leave a comment.

This is Alex, a well-loved stuffed monkey belonging to a five-year old boy in California.   His aunt commissioned his portrait as gift for her nephew Evan’s fifth birthday.  Alex (the monkey) is shown sitting on Evan’s bed with his favorite sippy cup, tools and his fire hat, gazing out at us with stitched eyes that surely hold many of Evan’s secrets.  I get emotional every time I think about how special it would be to receive this gift as a child.   As an adult, seeing elements from my childhood room awakens many fond memories, and I love the idea that one day Evan will have this familiar scene to transport him back to his life as a five-year old.   How nice to revisit the fanciful life of childhood now and then!

Why do Colors POP??

You have probably heard people talk about colors that “pop”.  This is how we describe the way colors become alive –even electric—when they are juxtaposed against other colors in just the right way.  I want to talk a little about what exactly makes colors pop, and how to achieve this dynamic in new ways in your child’s room décor.

You all know some basic color theory whether you realize it or not:  complimentary colors (red & green, orange & blue, yellow & purple, etc.) vibrate when put together–they compliment and bring out the energy in each other.   Remember that from grade school?  Well that is what is going on when things start popping in your room décor!  The pop is achieved in color when colors and patterns set each other off, and draw your eye to areas of focus in your room.

Get the POP Without the Primaries

The combination of muted and pure colors that are complimentary will create wonderful color energy. These colors can be magical, but used straight out of the tube as pure color in a child’s room, they can get old fast, and you start to feel like you live in a Fisher Price store display or a day care center.  That is why I love to use “off-primary” colors to get the pop–without color overload that can tire your eyes over time.

In your child’s room or nursery, you don’t have to have a wide range of color or a bright palette to achieve this.   The key is to choose some muted or neutral colors that have hints of color in them, along with complimentary or pure colors.  (Pair a soft green-grey with a vibrant red, or a lighter blue and an orange-yellow.)  If you juxtapose milky or muted colors with pure colors, the pure colors will pop, especially when the milky colors contain complimentary colors in their mix.  I refer to colors with white in them as  “milky” and not pastels, because often colors with white added  can be quite rich.

Take a look at some of these examples where the walls are milky or muted,  and contain a primary color as their base.  Look for how the more vibrant colors pop and carry your eye around the mural.

Muted blues and yellows in the tree trunk create beautiful relationships while still being soft overall.  The coral bird and berries pop as areas of focus, and are important to making the mural sing.  The coral acts as the orange compliment to the blues in the tree!

These gray-blue walls needed some punch, while maintaining the geometric & tailored look of the bedding.  You can see how just a few bright vehicles really cheer up the walls and speak to the colors in the bedding.

Sea foam green walls are soft and serene in the background, and allow the pure colored fish to vibrate.  We stayed away from straight primary colors, and achieved the dynamic relationships by using the color vibrations that happen between the red-oranges and the range of greens—pairing pure and milky or muted colors.

This underwater scene is a great example of pure colors popping off of muted blue-grays and warm sandy browns.

Look how the yellow fish change when they are against the purple-gray wall and when they are against the sand!

Pinkish red and tangerine orange are some of my most favorite off-primary colors.  Companies like Land of Nod have wonderful accessories in these colors, and they work so well with this mural! Check out the muted green walls and how all the colors of the rainbow pop off of them.  Notice the boy theme that is painted in a wide range of fresh, off primary colors used to appeal to boys and girls.

Here the walls are more vibrant green, but the charcoal and white are neutrals, so they create a great rhythm and pop without competing.  This room was designed by Lysa Wilkins Interiors!

What do you think about these rooms?  Do you like a combination of vibrant and neutral, or do you prefer a full plunge into brights or pastels?

I love genealogy and digging into the stories of past generations, but it is always a challenge to grasp the “who’s who” for very long before I am back to asking my mother again.  This inspired me to create a family tree that would capture our families in an animated, whimsical and fun painting that my two boys could enjoy.   I wanted a tree that I could point to it when telling a story of a grandparent and not see their eyes glaze over.  This was a kind of “fun” challenge since, like almost everyone I know, we have we have a variety of divorces and remarriages, so our tree would have to be free-flowing and easy to climb!

Here is our family tree, The Johnsons, made up of my husband, AJ, and me, and my two sons Camden age 7 and Owen age 5.  The four of us are the birds in the nest, and over us reach the branches of our family.  All of the grandparents are also birds, while aunts, uncles, cousins and great grandparents are all on Gingko leaves.  I used decoupaged papers for the names and birthdates, and patterned papers for other accents.   I hung this over my 5-year old son’s bed, and he loves it!

As I did this I was flooded with more ideas for how to portray a family with children’s themes and imagery.  In fact, my most recent family tree client has a wonderful, rich heritage from Mexico, full of imagery that was so exciting for me since I am just crazy for Mexico!

The husband and wife are represented by their own trees, which intertwine to create one large tree with both sides of their families represented.  Birds represent the main characters, and mangos and butterflies hold the names of extended family going back four generations.  The symbolism is rich, with mango trees, Monarch butterflies and calla lilies reminiscent of Mexico City for this family.  I just love the symbolism, and think it adds so much to the story this tells!  I can’t wait to do more!

A long-time client of mine recently purchased a Cheeky Monkey Lovey Portrait through the Room To Grow  auction fundraiser.  She has three adorable children, and wanted to include their three loveys together in a portrait for Christmas.  Here they are:  Squeak Dog, Pila and Blanky.

Completed lovey portrait 16″ x 16″

Design sketch

Photograph of loveys that I took at our first meeting

I always take lots of pictures of the loveys so that I can combine the elements in my design sketches, before starting to paint. Here I nestled the children’s initials in the fur each lovey and in the knit blanky so that they could be discovered gradually as you look. The finished product I love. It is more subdued and realistic than my portraits have been up until now!

Here are a couple of other recent, fun ones! Deborah DePeter of Bryant Park Designs did a wonderful step-by-step blog series of the lovey portrait I did for her daughter of her two “Nonnies”.

These two loveys belong to a brother and sister who share a room—Jerome and Eyore.  It is interesting, I have had several requests for multiple childrens’ lovies to be grouped in one portrait lately!  Making these paintings is so much fun for me.  I love the idea of capturing and preserving a point in time in a child’s life with the images of familiar, well-loved friends and the colors and surroundings of their room.  One day the grown-up child will glance at this and be transported back by all of the memories the paintings will provoke.