When it came to deciding how to decorate my son’s room I knew there was only one way to go.  Wall decals!  They are a quick way to add colour and life to otherwise plain walls, but the selection in my local home fix-it store was limited at best.  That’s why RoomMates wall decals and stickers for kids fit the bill perfectly!

RoomMates has an absolutely HUGE selection of vinyl wall decals, banners and super large posters available on their website in every design you can think of.  These peel and stick wall decals are removable, re-positionable and reusable, and won’t damage my painted walls, which is fantastic!

RoomMates kindly provided me with the Jungle Adventure theme decals we used in my son’s room, and this package came with a whole assortment of animals including monkeys, giraffes and elephants in beautiful, bright colours that catch my son’s eye everywhere he looks.  I put many of them low on the walls within arm’s reach so that he can touch them and see them up close, and I just know I’m going to spend quality time teaching him what each of them are!

Using the wall border was a bit of a challenge.  Getting up high enough on chairs and stools so that I could position it was … interesting, and since the border was quite long, getting it straight took a couple of tries.  Thank goodness it peeled off the wall easily and I was able to get it on straight eventually.  The individual animal stickers were super easy to peel and stick to the walls, and because they are printed on clear vinyl, the paint on your wall will show through the edges and you won’t have to worry about borders around the prints.

My son’s room is quite small, and I probably needed more than one wall sticker pack to finish decorating his walls sufficiently from top to bottom.  The room still looks great, though, even with some of the decals far apart from each other!

The Jungle Adventure Wall Stickers and Wall Border I used in my son’s room are available through the RoomMates website for $13.95US each.  RoomMates has a wide variety of other products, too, including peel and stick mirrors, chalk and white boards, and something called “wall pockets” – which I just may have to try soon!

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RoomMates wants to help you enhance your room decor and has offered Spilt Milk Moms readers in Canada and the US a 20% discount on any of their fantastic products available through RoomMates Peel and Stick Decor.  Just use coupon code SPILTMILK until Sunday, July 11th at checkout to receive your discount!

RoomMates has also generously supplied us with one of their wall decal MegaPacks for one lucky reader to WIN!  Thank you RoomMates!

To Enter: Leave us a comment HERE (one per day only, please) telling us which RoomMates MegaPack you like the most and where you would use it.  Once you’ve entered by leaving a comment, you can gain additional entries like this:

• Follow @RoomMatesDecor on Twitter and tweet this giveaway for extra daily entries.
• Follow @SpiltMilkMoms on Twitter and tweet this giveaway for extra daily entries.
• Mention this giveaway on your blog for one extra entry.

In order for your additional entries to count, you must come back HERE to let us know that you follow RoomMates or Spilt Milk Moms on Twitter, and if you tweeted or blogged please provide us with the link.  PLEASE LEAVE US SEPARATE COMMENTS FOR EACH ADDITIONAL ENTRY.

This giveaway ends at 12:01am PST on Tuesday, July 13th, and the winner will be selected using Random.org.  The winner will have 7 days to respond to our notification email before another winner is selected.  This giveaway is open to Canadian and US residents only.

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In my search for the perfect bookends, I found some beautiful, sculptural Zuny Classic Series bookend animals at my local Chapters store. These funky Zuny bookends are also available at other online retailers listed on the company’s website. These bookends are heirloom quality, very special toys – the packaging folds out to become a small play space and also include a cute “owner’s manual”.

I ended up selecting the dark brown bear and light yellow giraffe for my son. Zuny bookends are handmade out of leather and are really solidly constructed. The only caveat is that they should be kept out of the hands of little babies because they are fairly heavy and would hurt if they were pulled off of a shelf and bonked a baby on the head. A bonus of the leather covering is that these bookends wipe clean easily – I’m sure older toddlers would enjoy toting the animals around so this is important. While Zuny’s bookends were actually quite a bit out of my usual price range (starting at $28 CAD each depending on the animal), the beauty, quality, and functionality make them worth it! I know one day they will grace the nurseries of my great grandchildren, because beautiful gender-neutral animals never go out of style.

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We recently put our house on the market which means that not only is the house spic, span and shiny, but we also have the photos to prove it!  When I looked at the photo of Little Miss’ nursery, I was thrilled with how it looks and also thought it was a great example of how the Spilt Milk Moms actually live the products we bring to you.

I thought I’d point out some of the products we’ve reviewed that are “live” and kicking in my home:

• Alphabet Print (above crib) by Penny People Designs
• Giant Monkey (on chair) by BlaBla Kids
• Anamalz, Putamayo CDs, Owl by b.delicious (all on wall shelf)
• 3 Sprouts storage bin (in corner)
• The chair, roman blinds, and crib bedding are all handmade with fabric from Nursery Fabrics.com (thanks mum!)

There are a few things in Little Miss’ room which we haven’t written about (yet), and they are…

• The Fisher Price toys – there are three of these (phone, activity center, and “TV”), and two of them are originals that my husband played with as a kid.  The TV is a reproduction included in the Fisher Price Vintage line (which apparently has now been discontinued).
• The leather “a” and “z” bookends I picked up in my local Chapters store, and they inspired the colour for the green feature wall.
• The wooden mobile (in Anamalz style) was an incredibly generous gift from one of the owners of my favourite local toy store just shortly after we found out we were pregnant.
• The paint is by Benjamin Moore and is totally original.  They literally scanned the leather book ends into a colour spectrum device and then we worked on tweaking it just a little bit.  Colour matching is something I’ve done with them numerous times, and they always amaze me with their ability to get it right.

So there you have it – a little peak at Little Miss’ nursery and some of my very favourite products!

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When we were designing our future daughter’s nursery we wanted to create something fun and stylish but also didn’t want to spend a fortune or end up with a bunch of plastic and polyester crap. One thing we really struggled over was (weirdly) a laundry basket. We wanted something that was going to last a while and look stylish (as it would always be seen in her room) but the flimsy plastic ones seemed to start at $25 while the wicker ones (which from past experience never last as long as I think they should) were $40+. Then we stumbled across the organic storage bins from 3 Sprouts.

Made from 100% organic cotton canvas with animal designs in 100% eco-spun felt (made from recycled plastic bottles), these bins are rockin’ their eco-credentials while standing strong on both style and strength. There are two designs (Owl & Elephant) which are both available in two colours (pink or navy for the elephant and green or brown for the owl), and the canvas is strong enough for the bags to stand up on their own even if they aren’t full of stuff (and at 17″ high and 20″ in diameter they can hold a ton of stuff!)

Although not on the cheapest end of the scale ($38 at Amazon.com) the fact that the bins are such good quality and so multi-purpose makes it easier to shell out.  Plus they are just too cute to resist!

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Every now and then I stumble across something and love it soooooooooooooooooooooo much that it becomes my “it” present for the year. When I first saw Alphabet Prints by Penny People Designs (pictured above), I knew I just had to buy one for our little daughter-to-be and for every single child I knew!

These bright, colourful designs are iconicly cool with their alphabet lettering, but what makes them even more special is that you can personalize them with the child’s name. There are several size prints to choose from – 8×10 to 27×39 – and six different colour choices so they’ll match any bedroom or nursery decor.

Two big things about Penny People really impressed me. First, the quality of the prints is higher than I expected (the photos don’t do them justice). The designs are printed on glossy archival photo paper, which looks and feels fantastic. Secondly, Penny People’s customer service was amazing. After sorting out my order I realized I had actually missed someone and needed to add one more print. As you only pay for postage for the first (largest) item, I didn’t want to go back and order through the shop again as it would have added extra postage. I dropped Penny People designer Lindsay Stephenson an email about my problem, and it was all sorted out in no time. Within a week of the initial order I had all the prints in my hot little hands (Lindsay sent them within a day of finalizing the order, but Canada Post can’t be accused of being hasty!).

I honestly can’t rave enough about these prints or Penny People Designs!

As she is as incredibly generous as she is talented, Lindsay has donated a large 13×19 print and three 8×10 prints for our lovely readers to win!

Here are the A, B, C’s of entering: Go straight to the Penny People site to check out all the lovely items they have to offer, and then leave a comment below to let us know what your favourite product is. One entry per person per day BUT if you follow @PennyPeople on Twitter (leave a comment to let us know you have) that’s another entry AND each Tweet and/or blog post about this give-away counts as an extra entry for that day! (Make sure you @spiltmilkmoms in your tweets and include a trackback for your blogposts).  Contest closes at midnight on Sunday, May 24th and FOUR lucky winners will be chosen using random.org.

Good Luck!

UPDATED TO ADD: Congratulations to our contest winners Jessica, Adrienne, Heather & Kara – hope you enjoy your prints!

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Not all of us are as ambitious as our darling Emily (she really does make the rest of us SMM’s look bad).  The last thing I would ever consider doing when I was preggo was adding to my ‘to-do’ list, so when it came time to decorate the nursery, sewing my own crib bedding was not going to happen.  I opted for shopping instead.

I instantly fell in love with Kids Line nursery sets.   They make decorating so easy because everything matches!  From light switches and night lights, to frames and floor mats, you can add just the right amount of ‘theme’ to your nursery.  And with so many styles and designs, you are bound to find one that works for you.

We’ve had ours for almost a year now, and we have found the quality to be amazing!  We opted for less ‘theme’, and only purchased the bedding, and we have been really, really happy with it.  They wash and wear really well, the soft and luxurious fabrics are gorgeously textured – Maddie loves to lie on her quilt and pick at all the different patches and pieces.

I have found that although the bedding sets are sold at most major department stores, some of the accent products can be harder to locate.  The Kids Line webpage includes a full list of available products and provides a search engine to help you find a local retailer.

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Having a baby very much reminded me of getting married.  The options were endless and you can literally spend as much or as little as you want.   Take monitors for example.  I couldn’t believe the available options:  number of headsets, belt clip, battery option, camera, vibration, movement sensor, nightlight, 2-way speakers, travel size, blah blah blah…  starting at $39 for the basic, all the way up to $339 for the deluxe versions.

At first I thought I should go as deluxe as possible.  After all, no amount of money was too much to ensure the safety of my child.  But then I started to really think about it, and it all seemed a bit crazy.  Was it realistic to watch and monitor her every second of the night?  I guess for some people that is realistic, but not for me.  I just wanted a simple monitor so that when I was downstairs I could hear my baby crying upstairs.

Graco has numerous models on the market, and the Graco Ultra Clear Baby Monitor was the monitor we chose in the end.  With two handsets, we can keep one on our main floor, and one in the basement, and with the light display screen we can ‘see’ our baby cry even if the hockey game is on at top volume.  And it has two channels, so if one has interference, then you can switch to the other.*  It’s functional, reliable, and it gets the job done.

I paid about $69 CAD at a Canadian Department store, but it looks as though Graco sells it on-line for only $39 USD.

* For some reason the website description says it has a nightlight, but I think that is a typo?

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Homeworks Etc. offers a variety of simple and stunning wood creations for your home.  Inspired by the birth of her first daughter, the company’s creator and president, Jacqueline De’Ath, decided to turn her hobby into a home business.  Her online store sells handmade wood furniture and gorgeous handmade wood accessories, including a Girl, Boy, and Home Collection.

I first saw the Homeworks Etc. line at a local boutique, and instantly fell in love the with the daisies.  They are so simple, yet very effective at sparkling up any nursery or little girl’s room.  They come in a variety of colours and are available in two sizes: 12″ or 18″.  Constructed from 100% recycled, formaldehyde-free, medium density fibreboard and non-toxic adhesives, the daisies are painted with low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) finishes, so you don’t have to worry about the health of your child or the environment.

Homeworks Etc.’s online Product Catologue contains the complete Girl, Boy, and Home Collections, including growth charts and adorable customized name plaques.  And in case you are looking for inspiration, the Product Catalogue also contains a photo gallery of bedroom decorating and design ideas.

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I cannot express (without using profanity) how frustrated I get trying to change the sheets on my baby’s crib. Between the tight fitting sheets and the bumper that has about five million places it needs to be tied to the slats of the crib, I come this close to throwing the whole darn thing out of the window every time!

The QuickZip from Clouds & Stars is my savior – it’s the smartest invention ever!  Once you have the sheet on the first time, you simply zip the base off to throw it in the wash then zip it back on again once it’s clean.  The sheets come in a few different colours and you can get ones big enough to fit your kid’s bed beyond the crib stage .  Clouds & Stars even offer the QuickZip in organic cotton for those of you on board with keeping it green!

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When I picture mobiles, I think “works of art suspended in air”, not “Winnie-the-Pooh and friends travelling in circles to irritating battery operated music”.  Flensted mobiles to the rescue!

These simple and elegant mobiles are made in Denmark in an eco-friendly manner – the mobiles are made of cardboard, a renewable and sustainable resource, and the company’s employees work from home assembling the mobiles (twice a month a company car collects their work – it’s enough to make anyone want to move to Denmark to become a mobile artisan).  And Flensted doesn’t just make mobiles for kids – check out their line of modern mobiles for everyone.

Flensted mobiles are available at select retailers and on-line stores (including Crocodile Baby and KangarooBoo).  Prices vary depending on the mobile’s complexity.

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