The Nursery Project

Menace Height Chart

This is a cool idea for a height chart. Every birthday you can make a mug shot of the child, making notes on how tall they are every year. You can also stick those mugshots on the sheet directly, making it a wall scrapbook of how the kid grows.

It even looks nice being left alone on the wall without children in front of it, especially if you've got a nice big empty wall in the nursery and don't know what to put on it. It's got laminated surface, so you can write on it  or reuse.

The Menace Height Chart is from Childhood Interior. It's 116 x 137 cm. £55.

My Nursery is Inspired by A Hotel Room

How sad is that to tell people that your nursery design is inspired by a hotel room? Well, not if the hotel in mind is the Fox Hotel of Copenhagen, Denmark. Hotel Fox hand designed each of its 61 rooms individually, letting the personality and quirks of th designer to shine through beyond the conventional hotel room aesthetics (how hilariously cool is that to put a monster shouting 'Sleep!' at your hotel guests?). I found the rooms such inspirations, even for children's room. Above featured are the ones I found most suitable for younger children. I love the humor of the one with the headless monster (might only be suitable for children who are over the there's-a-monster-under-my-bed phase). I love the simple idea of a bed made of only mattress and cloth tent (no need for toddler railing!). I'm infatuated by all the beautiful wall murals, which makes most of the room's atmosphere. I have to learn to do that...

Wallpaper Games by 5.5 Designers

While toddlers who cannot read and write wouldn't probably appreaciate the idea, I do think the Wallpaper Games from French 5.5 Designers is a great product for older children's room, especially those who are into puzzles and word games. It's a simple idea of a wallpaper with grids of letters, like your usual word search game. You can find words and circle them with your writing implement of choice. In time, the room grows its own character by the amount of words found. Markers of various colours would look really nice, but plain black ink might give the wall different identity.

The nerdy side of me totally loves the idea. The images were copied from their official site and the example words are in French, but I did take some time to actually use the close up image to play a little bit to see if I can find words in English, and I certainly found plenty. I even found quite some number of words in Dutch as well.

Too bad there's no way I could find out where they sell this and how much it costs. As much as I love their products, I really can't say the same about their website.

By the way, for those of you with no toddlers/children in the house, this wallpaper is fabulous in the toilet. Imagine replacing the clutter of magazine stash with the wallpaper and a cup filled with coloured markers instead.

Blik Prose: Personalise Your Wall Decal

Wall decal is all the rage now, and it's not difficult to see why. They are fun, easy to apply and add an instant character to an empty wall.

As a lover of the written words, I have my eyes on Blik Prose, a personalised wall decal, where you can choose what to put on your wall and order them. You can also determine the font, size and colours of the letters, and Blik will custom made them for you. Too bad there's no indication to how much they'll cost per letter/inch square. It sure beats stenciling every letter by yourself!

Might not seem like an obvious choice for a nursery, but I can imagine a few ideas. A favourite nursery rhyme or poem is a good start. Witty quotes from familiar storybook could also work. I'm not one who'd go for the sentimental like 'World's Best Little Princess' or that sort of patronising sentences, neither am I into motivational quotes (reminds me too much of an office). Here's an idea, once your child starts talking and saying all sort of cute, amusing, or downright hilarious sentences the way only toddlers can say, you can take note of those, and put some of the best up on the wall.

Onszelf Kids Wallpaper

Onszelf (means "ourselves" in Dutch) is a collaboration of two Dutch designers, Astrid Nieuwenburg and Claudia Drübe. They design wallpapers, fabrics, bed linens and a line of handbags. I particularly love their wallpaper collection for children as pictured above. I'm not sure I want this rustic French chateau kind of look for Peanut's room, but they're all the rage in Dutch nurseries lately (I have no idea what the style's officially called, though). I like the one with orange/gray butterflies, it's fresh and modern, even though a bit too babyish for my taste. The birds on the tree is lovely. I love the idea of a child's room with black/white/canary yellow colour scheme.

Onszelf website, only in Dutch.

WOW Wallpapers by Graham & Brown

WOW Wallpaper by Graham&Brown is definitely a wow. It consists of black and white empty frame patterns where you could put your own photos, drawings (draw directly onto the wall, how fun!), collages, dried flowers (or insects), and whatever else you can think of. Or leave them blank if you wish.

It might look dizzying when put on all full four surfaces of the room, but would make one section of the wall a definite focal point of the room. I'm not sure yet if it's such a good idea for a toddler's room though. If she sees mum's drawing and painting on her room wall, she might get the same idea... someplace else but the wallpaper.

Nonetheless, I'm keeping this on my list.