Two Embellishments Kids Designs Awarded "Best of Houzz 2014"

Two of our kids room designs have been awarded Best of Houzz 2014.  Our Not-So-Neutral Gender Neutral nursery and the Teen Sports Makeover room snagged the title.  Congratulations to our two room occupants Lucas and Carson.  We always thought your rooms were great but now 16 million Houzz users agree...

Here's our blog post on the Gender Neutral nursery http://embellishmentskids.blogspot.com/2012/09/render-gender-designing-neutral-nursery.html
and on the Makeover Sports Room http://embellishmentskids.blogspot.com/2012/04/teen-bedroom-30000-makeover-challenge.html

Join us on Houzz to browse our posted works- http://www.houzz.com/pro/embellishmentskids/embellishments-kids

12 Great Baseball Decor Ideas and DIY's for Boy's Rooms and Nurseries

Please visit our new site for 12 great uses for vintage baseballs.

http://www.embellishmentsstudio.com/studio-news-and-journal/12-great-baseball-decor-ideas-and-diys-for-boys-rooms-and-nurseries

Thank you, Aaron

Desert Dwellings, Mesa Adventurers and Horseback Hip - Nursery and Kid's Room Design

Cowboy and Southwestern styles live outside the On/Off cycle of most interior decor trends.  While the overall popularity may come and go, there are fans that live the lifestyle not the trend.  Those who love the old west, the american prairies and deserts are happy to know that their passion has hit a resurgence over the past few years and there's no sign of it waining.

By other names, the Navajo, Aztec, Native, Tribal and even Gaucho (from Spain) influence has resulted in a refresh of cowboy and southwest living design.

For children's rooms and nurseries, the classic cowboy look has evolved to include reclaimed woods, faux taxidermy and a less is more modern feel.   Wandering outside of the strict cowboy theme, there's the addition of bears,wolves, camp out and USA traveler rolling into the western icon palette.  Patterns like native geometry, bows and feathers, cow skulls and even dream catchers are all the rage in children's and teen fashion and are popping up in home dec.

  

I've recently added some new wall art to my portfolio.  It explores these themes.  The group is designed for the home decor market but a few pieces cross over well into my kid theme design stick.  

Cowboy/ Western Nursery Mood Board featuring Aaron Christensen's wall art

Southwest Influence Adventurer Boy's Room Mood Board featuring Aaron Christensen's wall art.

Over on Pinterest I've also created a board exploring the trendier side of the theme with some DIY's, inspirational pictures and links to fun west by southwest goodies.

Nursery Shopping Art Spotting - Kim Kardashian

My family loves to spot my artwork on TV for me. One of my keen eyed spotters noticed my vintage princess crown art hanging on the wall at Joey Wahl Arts Children's Boutique in LA, during Kim Kardashian's visit. While it's no ringing endorsement from the pregnant reality star, it's an art spotting none the less. My daughter thought it was tweetable. OMG! #KimKardashian 

My vintage crown art spotted during Kim Kardashian's visit to retailer

The art is part of my Princess Collection.  I designed the pieces to veer away from the cutesy, animated princess look and go more sophisticated.  When I design rooms for little princess, I prefer to make them regal, not silly.  

Up and Away Nursery - Chic Paper Airplanes, Cool Kites and Haute Air Balloons

My Fall 2012 series of children's wall art has just been released and I'm excited to share three of the pieces with you.  This group entitled Up and Away is a little twist on the traditional transportation theme.  Here I've explored things that float, sail and cruise through the sky.

Racing to and fro, these geometric motif paper
airplanes are filled with color and wonder.
Canvas reproductions are available on my site and
through boutiques nationwide.

Kites adorned with fanciful patterns fill the sky.
Canvas reproductions are available on my site and
through boutiques nationwide.

Patterned hot air balloons float aloft in this children's wall
art piece.  Canvas reproductions are available on my site and
through boutiques nationwide.

The series fits perfectly into the pattern rich and muted color trends popular in children's furniture and textiles.  To inspire you, I'm happy to offer this Up and Away mood board featuring my picks for a little boy's nursery.   Its subtle skyward theme comes through with the addition of adorable cloud mobiles, a sunburst mirror and waving pennant bunting.  For good measure, keep babies head warm with a hand knit aviator's cap.

All You Need is Love - Girl Nursery and Bedroom Ideas

I'm happy to announce the release of two of my latest children's wall art canvases.  These are part of my Flea Market Finds Collection.

The Love Bubbles Canvas speak of love in a rainbow of colors.
Available from my website and boutiques nationwide.

You Fill My Heart With Love shows the many layers of love in
a prism of brilliant colors.
Available from my website and boutiques nationwide.

These and other pieces from the collection are inspired by the folk and hand wrought one-of-a-kinds you would find at Flea Markets.  Whenever I travel, I love to hit the local flea markets.  My love of vintage signage and quirky folk art always has me hunting for my next art treasure.  Within these works, I was inspired to create imagery with that unique art appeal and offer it in a color palette that compliments todays nursery and bedroom textiles.  The sweet sentiment of "You Fill My Heart With Love" is a perfect expression of my love of text and painted word art.

Here you might enjoy two mood boards, one for a nursery and the second a girl's bedroom.  If you are interested in the art, it is available from my website boutique or from hundreds of retailers nationwide that carry my line.  If you would prefer to shop locally, send me your zip code and I'll locate your nearest retailer.  Keep in mind, EmbellishmentsKids.com offers e-consults and travel based design packages for nurseries, kid's and teen room.  See our website for information.

Enjoy!
-Aaron

Render a Gender- Designing a Neutral Nursery for Baby

 There's a segment of the population that want their baby's gender to be a surprise until birth.  If completing the newborn's nursery ahead of time is a priority, then for sure the term gender neutral comes up.  Oh, but how I wish we could adopt a term other than gender neutral to describe that desire.  Gender neutral sounds like a physical impairment or a sarcastic answer to a Match.com dating preference question.  Regardless, whether they are inny-outty-unsure, seat up or seat down undecided or reproductive representation reserved, those choosing to wait on their baby's sex have decor decisions to make in their nursery.

From all angles in my work as a kids designer and artist creating art and products for the retail marketplace the trend of color is being shouted from the mountain tops.  How's color a trend you may ask?  Well, the trend nerds who spend their every waking hour looking for hints on how to forecast consumer's buying habits all look into 2013 and beyond as years of saturated color.  They are proclaiming the full spectrum of rainbow colored hues IS the new black.   They say it has a causality relationship between our rebounding economy and the need to feel optimistic, re-energized and alive!  Alive with color....say it with me....ALIVE WITH COLOR!  Extra points for your jazz hands and open mouth smiles, well done reader, well done!

This gotta-have color trend relates back to my topic of gender neutral, because basically, I'm not a big fan of mousey mint and rubber duck yellow.  Those official colors of nursery neutrality are tired and thankfully my most recent nursery client agreed.  When I brought up the topic of color, in our initial client meeting, I met no resistance to pushing the color palette into the super saturated one.

My client was ever so happy to put faith in my decisions and abilities.  She used the magic words "I trust you!"  So off I went shopping for fabrics and all that might inspire a color rich room while trying to remain neutral to gender or, P or V identification procrastination.   Having hit every fabric resource in town with my faithful designer counterpart Shannon Ponciano, whom was designing the rest of the clients home, we came upon a terrific abstractive chevron fabric.  It was color rich, fun yet sophisticated.

This fabric choice led me to my fellow children's artist Melanie Mikecz's wall art entitled the Rainbow Zebra.  What a beautiful mix of happy colors, a fun subject and textures I am so drawn to.  I was delighted to frame the piece with a custom frame, made here in the studio.

From there the room's design rapidly came into fruition.  I planned on saturating the walls with a deep teal, adding a vanilla framed color block of green on the ceiling and furnishing the room with blasts of color and the neutrals grey and white.

Throughout the home's interior, rustic woods are being used in modern ways, so I designed corner shelves for the nursery and constructed them out of 50 year old reclaimed barn wood topped with an acrylic polyurethane finish and lined with burnt orange paint.

For those of you that know me, you are aware of my love for building and creating unique items for my kid's spaces.  I drew up several ideas for a crib mobile and was ready to build my favorite until I came across a terrific DIY, by Jaime over at Sew She Sew's.  Her mobile design was an amazing mix of homespun ingenuity and artful elegance.  I couldn't imagine a better fit for the nursery.

Having solved the mobile dilemma my attention turned to props and accessories.  I created a custom alphabet piece, a vintage wood mirror and a cute green chalkboard to compliment the grouping anchored by a 30 inch tall giraffe sculpture.

A Red Ryder wagon entered my studio brand new, out of the box, and left a distressed and faux antiqued piece ready to act as a bookshelf along the room's bank of windows.
Inspired by the crib fabric I chose to render one wall with a series of elongated zig zags inviting more color into the room.

Once baby arrives the room can evolve to impart a more feminine or masculine attitude.  Of course that depends on their little one either having a wee wee or a she wee!  Yep, after that, I'm fresh out of gender neutral terms.

I have an extremely happy client, I've made the hidden from sunlight trend seekers proud and most of all had a lot of fun.  I did however piss off all of those mint and yellow fans.  Oh, well....sorry, I'll repay you in 20 years when the whole southwestern pastel aztec trend reemerges like a zombie.  Aaaaaahhhhh!

Best,
Aaron

This nursery is featured until September 23rd in an open home tour, in Vancouver Washington.  The homeowners are opening their newly completed home to visitors as part of the Clark County Parade of Homes.  If you're in town, I'd love to have you drop by and check it out.

Of course, I'd love to hear your comments here or you can join me on my Facebook page, where I'll share a few more details.  For you Pinning Peeps I've loaded up the collection of photos on a Pinterest board for you to share.

Gender Neutral, Color Not So Neutral - Our Latest Baby Nursery featured in Parade of Homes Tour

The Clark County Parade of Homes is host to my latest baby nursery project.  The homeowner settled into a gender neutral theme awaiting the baby's confirmation of sex.  The room features many of my studio's custom items.  Be sure to follow me here on my blog or join me on Facebook for the latest update and room details coming soon.

A sneak peek at my latest gender neutral nursery featured in the Clark County Parade of Homes Tour 2012.  The show is open September 7th - 23rd.

Here We Go! A boy's transportation nursery mood board for the little traveler.

With summer winding down, the road trips and expeditions are coming to an end.  To keep your little traveler imagining the world around him, I've designed this mood board with an on-the-go attitude.  Featuring one of my latest wall art pieces, the American Byways American Map, the room flies, drives and rails its way into a classic transportation motif.  The combination of rustic woods, a soothing fresh color palette, retro chic goods and a hint of a modern are a charming touch that will grow with your lil' man from infant to adolescent.

My art, available nationwide, and through my online boutique, brings together the look of old travel related signs, vintage elements and reclaimed wood within a U.S. Map.  It's available in two sizes, fit for a boys room or within your home.

If designing a nursery, kid's room or teen space has you searching the map for design directions, let me help you keep your vision on the road to success.  I offer e-consultations, accommodate travel and have a fantastic network of retailers who can help us create your dream space.

All the details are on my website.  Or if you prefer, give me a call for a no-obligation phone consultation, as to how we can help.

A Sweet Nursery Retreat - for the love of trees and birdies.

It's no surprise that birds and trees are a very popular motif for nurseries.  Nature is always welcome in spaces for children.

Birds have symbolism around the world and throughout history.  The Owl embodies wisdom and virtue, the crane eternity, the eagle power and courage and the nightingale love.  I'm not sure what the twitter bird stands for, maybe a short attention span.  Regardless whether they be animated silly birds or decorative tweets on fabrics and furnishings they bring nature in and herald joy as in the joy of spring.

My client, whose gorgeous craftsman style home sits remotely out in the country, asked that I create a room befitting their home and thought a natural theme would compliment their style and their surroundings.

We settled on a design that featured poppies along the baseboard, a tree and some visiting birds.  The colors of bedding and room accents varied from pale red, a mauve to an antiqued poppy orange.

The nursery had very high walls that followed the wood beam vaulted ceiling.  To make the room more cozy and bring the viewers eye down we incorporated a tree mural.

 

 To break the wall's height issue we created a focal  point using vintage style frames which were hung framing the mural illustrations of birds.

The soft beautiful light was glorious in the late afternoon as it beamed in the wood encased windows.

A bird in flight carrying a ribbon helps frame the opposing wall and diminish the wall's height.  Stripes of complimentary colors graces a small sidewall that flanks a door going out onto a patio.

In the studio we created the striped etagere to house trinkets and help carve up the height of the room.

The softness of colors, the implied tree and the elegance of the colors make this room charming and cozy.  Baby Elizabeth surely will have treasured memories in her sweet retreat.

Out of the woods - a nursery mural for woodland friends and baby McClure

New Portland residents and blushing parents-to-be, the McClures and I sat down to talk murals.  They wanted their daughter, due in October, to be welcomed into her nursery by friendly animals and flora from their new stomping ground, the Pacific Northwest.  Our collaborative thoughts of mountains, trees and evergreen forests were enhanced by the idea of a flowering Cherry tree, an iconic Portland beauty.

A Kwanzan Cherry Tree beginning to blossom.

 Kwanza Cherry trees are radiant clouds of pink early in the spring and the McClures thought its splendor would be the perfect centerpiece for the mural.  Having an interest in the mural featuring watercolor-like imagery, we discussed the works of Beatrix Potter and I turned them onto a favorite illustrator of mine, Barbara Firth.  Her look was less whimsical than Potter's yet her terrific use of color, texture and pencil outline  was perfect inspiration, in my mind, for the baby's nursery.  The McClure's agreed.

I rendered several loose mockups to convey the idea of a blooming cherry tree mixed with Northwest flora and fauna.  The mural was to be executed in a similar styling to Firth's illustrations, with big washes of color, a framing composition and visible pencil outlines.  Short of my locating a gigantic pencil to render with, I chose to outline the mural in gray tone glazes to simulate the sketch of pencil lines.

A little bird will peer down at the crib.

The completed tree mural.

A friendly squirrel runs across the branch
to see what the baby will be up to.

The McClure's beautiful foursquare bungalow
frames the mural well.

I have to duck into the pictures now and then.

One of the best things about creating a mural, is that it becomes part of the family.  The proud parents and their new little one will enjoy this room for many years to come.  Its imagery will be engrained in their child's loving memory, a gift from me to her.

 Welcome baby McClure, your new painted friends are waiting your arrival.  Congratulations McClures and thank for for bringing me in on your special project!