Coming up with orange bedroom ideas

If your child has a favorite color, it makes it so much easier to start decorating their room. Especially if that color is pink or blue. Just about every theme has some kind of stuff in those colors.

But I get asked about orange a bit. Your choices seem to be a bit narrower with a color like that. (Which I don’t get since it’s such a fun, happy color.) I got to thinking about orange bedroom ideas and just where to start in trying to create one.

An obvious one is sports bedding. From Tennessee, Clemson or Texas, there are quite a few choices at the college level. Add in the Tigers, Giants, Bengals and more at the professional level and you’ve got a few options. Unless that’s not your child’s team. Sports bedding is an easy route, but also harder since we’re loyal to specific teams.

So let’s think a bit. You could go with a fairly generic theme and just look for orange bedding with in that. I’m thinking polka dots, stripes, plaids. Heck, even something like cars or birds can be done in orange.

Then there are the things that are actually orange. Let’s say – fire, basketballs, tigers, giraffes, sunsets. Use any of those elements as your main one and now you could have a fireman room or basketball room or jungle room or beach room.

Brainstorm your own list and see what kinds of great ideas you can come up with!

(FYI – the huge orange thing in the picture is the Fatboy Junior bean bag chair in orange. Totally fun for any room.)

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange

3 tips for chalkboards in a kids bedroom

Well, I talked last week about chalkboards options for a kids bedroom. Then I realized, I didn’t share general tips for using chalkboards. Ooops!

So, let’s talk about that a bit.

In my book, there are three things you need to take into consideration before adding a chalkboard to the room. Oh, besides whether you have space. We did address that in the last one because using paint, wall decals and furniture are great ways to deal with the space issue. Here’s what else you should think about:

• Cleanliness – Chalk is messy and the chalkdust has to go somewhere. Will you be good about keeping it cleaned up? Do you want to be good about keeping it cleaned up? Dry erase boards are a little better in this regard, but still create some dust. Keep in mind your desire to clean as well as whether your child is impacted by dust.
• Multi-purpose – How can you get more out of a chalkboard than just chalk? If you’re painting a wall or piece of furniture with chalkboard paint, consider doing a coat of magnetic paint under the chalkboard color. Then you can use it as a play surface for magnets as well.
• Flexibility – Will you want a chalkboard in the room long term? If so, how easy is it to move or change the one you’ve chosen? Painting around the bottom of a wall – under a chair rail say – is great for a toddler, not so much for a teen. Consider painting the entire wall instead so your child will always be able to reach a chalk space. (Another good reason for magnetic paint. No holes to hang posters!) The wall decal options are also great here because you can move them higher up the wall as your child grows.

Happy chalking!

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange

Ideas for using chalkboards in a kids bedroom

It’s got to be that it’s time for school to start soon. But I have chalkboards on the brain lately.

A friend of mine had a chalkboard across one end of her bedroom as a child. (She’s a really young friend.) It was a great way to provide creative space for her without taking up floor room. In my painting business, I did a custom child’s table with a chalkboard top that was totally cute and functional.

So how could you add a chalkboard to your child’s bedroom easily? If it’s a small room, you might not want a dedicated easel taking up floor space. Which takes us to vertical and horizontal surfaces and three different ways to do it.

Paint it

Like the examples I mentioned at the beginning, you can use chalkboard paint on just about any surface. (I remember my dad painting plywood to make chalkboards back when I was a kid, so this isn’t a new idea.)

Great places for applying are a low section of the wall or on a flat piece of furniture. Just keep in mind (since these won’t be moveable) to put the paint in places where your child can easily reach. I just ran across the line of FolkArt chalkboard paints, which come in all kinds of colors to make it easier to coordinate with your child’s room. Or look into tintable dhalkboard paint to get the exact right color you want.

Stick it

Easier and less messy would be looking into the myriad of chalkboard wall decals available, like the chalkboard truck in the picture.

Wall decals are easy to apply and remove, so there’s less commitment. And they come in all kinds of shapes like elephants and puzzle pieces and well, square, even. Most of the time they come in black, although I’ve found a few that have a choice of purple, pink or blue. Or ones like the truck where you have a choice of 14 colors for the non-chalkboard parts.

Oh – and I love this, but they’ve come out with chalkboard contact paper in a six-foot roll. I’m not sure how well it would work on a wall, but it would be an easy and inexpensive way to put a chalkboard on a smooth furniture surface.

Note that you do need a smooth surface for decals. If you have rough textured walls, head back up to the paint idea. You can paint an elephant, right?

Buy it

Last option would be to just buy a chalkboard, just not an easel style. You can get furniture with chalkboard sections already included, like the kids storage unit with chalkboard pictured here. Just a great way to do double duty.

It’s less interesting and cool, but there are options for getting framed chalkboards to hang on the wall. Some of these have the advantage of a tray for chalk and eraser and certainly great flexibility to move around the room as needed.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange

Painting Idea: Football Field Wall

It’s easy when you do a sports-themed bedroom to just paint the walls blue and put some clouds. After all, most sports are played outdoors and it fits with the theme.

But I ran across a picture in the customer gallery over at Fathead.com the other day that had just the coolest wall. The kid had an Indianapolis Colts bedroom going on, but instead of painting the wall blue or white, it was painted to look like a football field. So something kind of like this:

Just a rough idea – my white lines are probably too thick – but you get the picture. He then had art and decals hung over it and it worked really well. (Sorry, I can’t put his picture here. Copyright and all that jazz, ya know.)

This is really one of the easiest kinds of paint jobs to do. Paint the wall white, measure out the yard markers and tape a straight line down. The paint everything green, pull off the paint and viola! Two tips here :

1. When using tape to mark off stripes of any kind, there is a risk of seepage. The is when the paint doesn’t lay completely flat and the top coat – the green in this case – seeps under. You can fix that by painting over the tape with the basecoat color – the white here – then applying the top coat. That way, the white seeps under and you end up with a nice crisp line once the tape is removed. Very good idea if you have any kind of texture on the wall.
2. The numbers could be done several different ways. You could get some number stickers and use them the same way as the straight tape – stick to wall, paint green over, remove sticker. You could also get white number stickers and just put them on after the green paint has dried. Or, you could try stenciling them on. I’d lean toward getting white numbers just because you’ll have to do the stencil several times to ensure a crisp white over the green.

What do you think? Something you’d try? Have another great football wall idea? Love to hear it!

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange

Tips for a white girls bedroom idea

So, I’ve been working on a few ideas for a white girl’s bedroom. (Hate the way that sounds, it’s a white bedroom for a girl, not a bedroom for a white girl. You know that, right?) Several ideas, actually.

There’s no one right way to do a white room, but there are definitely some general guidelines I’ve figured out as I’ve gone through this process. No matter which style of white room you’re planning on, here are a few tips to help you reach success.

1. Neatness counts. But it’s not the messy of chocolate on the comforter you need to worry about. Think storage and lots of it. With a white room, any kind of clutter is going to throw the look off. (Got a messy child? Rethink your choice of theme.)
2. White or white? Not all whites are created equal. Decide early if you want a mix of white shades or a straight, pure white.
3. Accent. It might be a white bedroom, but you can still toss in an accent color. It serves to set off the white and keep the room from feeling sterile. It can be a soft color like baby pink or a bold shade like lime. Just remember it’s the second banana.
4. Details count. Again, we want to avoid a sterile feel so details help break things up and keep the room from being too one-note. White is the one color that you can completely overdo. Layer up everything; you can’t add too much detail and texture.
5. Match with metallics. If you don’t want to bring in an accent color, try adding in some metals. Silver is great with sleek and modern looks, copper or gold with warm and soft.
6. Create a focal point. When everything’s the same color, it’s hard to know where to look. Whether through texture or scale or color, give them a place to look first. A wow bed is a good choice and it doesn’t have to be white. It can be metal or dark as contrast or just over-sized.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange

But I’m not artistic …

I used to get this all the time back when I was running my painting business. People I knew were perfectly creative, capable and clever just started to freak out at the idea of drawing on the walls. (Hang over from childhood? Hmmm.)

No matter how artistic or creative or designer-y you feel, you can make great art happen in your child’s room. Here’s how:

1) Let others do the art. Professional designers did the graphics that cover the bedspread, adorn the rugs and make up the posters. They did all the work for you already! Keep the things you have to do yourself plain and let their artwork spice things up for you.

2) Let a professional do it. If you really, really, really, really want that mural of Pooh’s tree in The Hundred Acre Wood but are feeling really, really, really, really uncertain of your ability to make it happen, there are people for that. Like I used to be (and I did paint Pooh’s tree in a child’s room once). Start with your local paint store; they often have business cards for mural painters. For people who specialize in children’s rooms, look on boards at child-specific locations like gyms, resale shops and libraries.

3) Redefine artistic. A lot of the things I created were no more complicated than coloring in a coloring book. (In fact, there were times I would draw, then have other people – non-artists – paint.) The trick is to pick simple drawings, color them in, then draw the lines on afterward with a paint pen. Easy to stay in the lines if you draw them last!

A second way to redefine it is to let your child help. While they might quickly outgrown the kind of pictures they can draw, it will be fun for you together to create a picture for the wall. Make it temporary by painting canvases or paper that you can affix to the wall and take down later.

Artistic is all in the mind! You can do this!

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange

Start with a signature piece when executing a kids bedroom idea

You’ve decided on a bedroom theme for your little girl or boy but where to start on actually executing it? After all, when you can get SpongeBob sheets and a SpongeBob comforter and a SpongeBob rug and SpongeBob posters and SpongeBob trashcan … just where does it stop? How much is too much? Ack!

My advice has always been to start with one signature piece and build around it. Generally, this would be the biggest thing in the room, but it could be a collection of small art pieces or figurines. You start there, build out and keep the theme from overwhelming the room.

Great examples of a signature piece would be bedding, rug, wall mural, artwork and furniture. That sounds obvious as I write it, but it’s so easy to forget them. The bedding is an easy one as the bed tends to be the focus of the room and there are so many themed options for that. But what about the other pieces?

With rugs and wall artwork (whether mural or decals or posters), it’s a little more difficult to define the next step. Do you still get bedding with the theme? Do you need to have nothing else with the theme? Two things to consider here in my book – scale and focus.

Scale – This one is all about pattern mixing. (Everyone’s favorite thing!) If your signature piece is big and dominating, you don’t want other articles to be big and dominating as well. For example, let’s say your signature piece is this really cool baseball field mural. Well, you might not want to use a big baseball headboard. But those really cool ones they make out of baseball bats would be smaller and subtler and work nicely. You might then pair it with a pinstriped comforter to mimic baseball uniforms rather than a comforter with baseballs all over it. The other patterns/items go with the main piece without being plain solid pieces. (I now want this bedroom!)

Focus – This is all about where you want the eye to fall. Is that rug so special you want that to be the thing guests go “ooo, where did you get that” over? Or is it just within the theme and the first thing you have? The more focus you want on that piece, the less spotlight you need to shine on other places. That could mean going with solid or non-theme-patterned bedding. It could mean balancing out a big signature piece with small theme pieces like throw pillows or shelf accessories.

The point of the signature piece is to set the theme for the room. Use it as a launching pad to make the rest of the decorating a breeze!

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange

Four steps to zoning a child’s bedroom

Zoning your child’s bedroom can increase the fun while decreasing the clutter. Sounds great, right? After all, who wants to fight clutter all the time?

Here’s a battle plan for creating activity zones:

1) List out the activities your child does in the room. These likely include sleeping, dressing, reading and playing. Then break down the play activities into types – dress-up, art, music, building, toy-based. These will help dictate the types of zones you’ll have in the room.

(Warning – don’t go overboard with the zoning. A child’s room is only so big and you’re trying to help them be organized, not overwhelm them. You might want to stick with four or five major zones and move some activities to other areas of the house.)

2) Watch where they do those activities. Do they prefer to play dress up along with tea? Do they like to read by the window? Do they take their cars all over the house? This will help you decide what zone should go where in a way that your child will understand (and use!).

3) Figure out how you’re going to divide the room up. You want to make clear for the child where the boundaries are. Ideas for this could be divider screens, furniture groupings, fabric panels, color schemes or area rugs. If you’re replacing the flooring, you might consider sectioning the rug into different colors even.

4) Get everything in its zone. That means bedtime books and toys should be over near the bed. Art supplies in storage in the art zone. Dress-up clothes in their section, every day clothes in theirs. Rather than keeping all toys in the room together, put them in the places where your child will play with them.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange

How to choose a bedding set from so many options

Yowsers. I look at a lot of bedding sets in the course of a day. Just taking a quick look for some paisley bedding, I came up with 28 sets, not counting crib bedding. And that’s just what I could find in a quick hunt.

How on earth do you choose? Or at least narrow down the competition enough to make a choice possible? Four things you might consider as you’re battling with this:

1. Set – What comes in the set? Are you getting all the pieces you want? Are you paying for ones you won’t use? I see a lot of crib sets that come with as many as 10 pieces (including a baby bib, like that needs to match the crib quilt) and some with as few as three. You can easily knock out half your options if you know just what you really want/need.
2. Fabric – What kind of fabric is it made of and is it easily cared for? Kids of any age can get pretty messy and that satin set might not survive a sick child. Do you care about it being organic or sustainable? It might make cost go up, but might be something you care strongly about.
3. Price – Bedding sets can range from inexpensive to really, really expensive. (One of the paisley sets I looked at retailed at $750!) Know your budget before you start looking and fall in love with something that doesn’t meet it. Keep in mind that price can influence a lot about the type of fabric, number of pieces and durability of the set you buy.
4. Colorway – You say you want blue, but do you want blue with green, blue with yellow or blue with red? I looked at purple baby bedding the other day and discovered it wasn’t a cut-and-dry choice to say you want a specific color. So consider whether you want a monochromatic look or what secondary colors you’re willing to accept.

There are a ton of other things you want to consider as you shop for children’s bedding. This is just a start to help you whittle down your numerous options to something you can manage.

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange

Girl Bedroom Ideas: Just one Disney Princess?

Finding Disney Princess items for a girl’s bedroom isn’t that hard. Tons of frilly pink things featuring Cinderella, Belle, Aurora and Snow White, usually. But … what if your little girl is a big fan of just one specific princess? Be it Cinderella, Belle, Aurora, Snow White, Ariel, Jasmine, Tiana, Rapunzel … you get the picture.

This isn’t the most difficult thing to deliver on, although they don’t make it easy for you with bedding sets for individual princesses. (Other than Tiana and Rapunzel, but that’s just because they’re the newest ones.) Actually, there are still ones for Belle and Ariel floating around and I occasionally see one with Snow White and the dwarves over on eBay. But generally, out of luck.

So here’s what we’ll do. We’ll be combining what we know about decorating with what we know about our specific princess and develop a theme from there. Ready?

Color
This step is easy since Disney has pretty much developed a specific color scheme for each princess, usually based on her ball gown. (Except for Ariel. She’s always still a mermaid. What gives with that?)

• Cinderella – Baby blue
• Belle – Yellow
• Aurora – Light and dark pink
• Snow White – Primary colors: yellow, red, blue
• Ariel – Purple and turquoise (although, it could be a shade of teal; hard to tell)
• Jasmine – Turquoise
• Tiana – Lavender and mint (light purple and light green). Caveat: her ballgown in the movie is blue, but all the products have her in green. I don’t get it either.
• Rapunzel – Light and medium violet

Once you have the main color, it’s easily applied to one or both of the two big pieces of your room – bed and walls. You could go with a solid comforter in the main color and neutral walls or reverse it with a neutral bedspread and the main color on the walls. Or use two shades of the same color (like light and dark turquoise). Check out the Caribbean Coolers line at Target for some good solid options. They also have a nice white eyelet comforter that would be a cute neutral.

Conveniently, just knowing what colors to use takes care of the two biggest layers of the room. Yea!

Accessories
This is where it gets easier and harder. There are throw pillows for individual princesses, blankets you can drape on the end of the bed, artwork, figurines, wall graphics. You can see where I’m going with this. I definitely suggest at least one item that goes on the bed itself – plush doll, throw pillow, blanket – that makes the theme obvious.

Think through the elements involved with each princess as well. Examples: For Cinderella, there’s her carriage and the castle. For Ariel, underwater scenes. For Tiana, frogs. You can look for these items to sprinkle in the room as well.

Really, that’s all there is to developing a bedroom theme for a single Disney princess. Love to hear your ideas and thoughts as well!

More Disney Princess bedding options

Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission, probably enough to get a stick of gum. I generally only recommend products or services on this blog that I would use personally and believe you will find cool as well. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Tags: ideas, orange