New Release- Happy Camper. A wall art and decor collection for the wanderlust, wilderness lover.

Announcing the Happy Camper Wall Art and Decor Collection

Nothing is more serene than time in the woods, on the lake, camping, fishing or just enjoying wildlife.  To honor that, I've created the Happy Camper collection.  It is a decor and wall art group that includes stretched canvases, studio built accessories and more.

The collection of wall art is available in separate stretched canvases and paper prints or produced as one image that displays all nine.

Studio made custom park signs can be personalized with names, places, dates and more. 

Available wall decor from the collection includes the studio custom  tent shelf, faux live edge log mirror, pennants and the customizable park sign.

The Happy Camper collection pennants

Coordinating wallcoverings and fabrics are available from my Spoonflower.com shop.

Personalize a pennant to express your wild and wandering side.

Studio made vintage look chalkware animal mounts.  They were inspired by the 1950's chalkware distributed to scouts by the Boy Scouts of America.

Lacrosse Wall Art - The latest sports art series.

Fueled by special requests, I'm happy to reveal the latest sports wall art series to add to my collection- Lacrosse.

Live Love Lax!  Lacrosse Collage featuring nine images on one canvas or poster.

Available as one canvas or print in sizes from 12" to 36" the collage wall hanging features Lacrosse terms, slang and equipment.  Also available from my website are individual prints of the images in the collage.

Lacrosse Wall Art - Attack Area  available as stretched canvases and paper prints.

Official Lacrosse Ball Wall Art - available in sizes from 12" to 36"

Lacrosse Canvas and Prints available - Division Champions

Lacrosse Decor - available as prints and canvases - Rip the Duck

Stick Doctor - Lacrosse Wall Art in Canvas and Paper

Lacrosse Painting / Print / Wall Hanging - Bullseye

Yard Sale - Lacrosse Wall Art for Teens, Kids and Home

Lacrosse Ball - Available on Canvas and as Paper Prints

Lacrosse Art Print and Canvas - Slash

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

Boys Rooms and Nursery Ideas - 15 Mood Boards For Boys

There's a lot going on in the studio right now.  I'm working on  new art, upcoming changes to my website, a new ecommerce platform and a few items, debuting this winter, that will help you design your child's nursery or room.  So to bring some things up to speed here's some new mood boards to inspire, that I've been delinquent in posting.  I'm also including some of my pinner's favorites from Pinterest.  Do you have a favorite?  I'd love to hear which one and why.

Superhero Boys Room in Yellow and Gray Mood Board

With all the superhero movies debuting, boy's superhero rooms are a popular request.  Here I explore the genre with a an Up, Up and Away theme.  Look up in the sky, it's gray and yellow, one of 2013's hottest color combos for boys.  My Up and Away art piece is available from my under the radar Etsy shop.  I haven't announced the store opening so sssshhh.   It's official debut will be announced later in the year.

Superhero Room with a Spiderman and Wolverine Influence Mood Board

 Some of the new superhero pieces from my Etsy shop (see the caption above) make their way into this  big boy super room.  It works in superhero without being too cheesy.  The room's look will grow with the boy so it has great value and savings built right in.  The board introduces the neutral brown/tan/taupe color to dial down the primary feel of most superhero offerings.

Classic Sports Bedroom Decor for a Teen Mood Board

Man cave design is hot right now.  There's no reason it can reach into the young men's world.  This sports mood board combines the timeworn finishes of painted woods with the raw and very masculine textures of sisal and burlap.  My vintage art collection recently expanded with the addition of lacrosse and golf.  All are available from my site.  

Cowboy Southwest Boy's Room Idea Mood Board

 The earthen plains and grassy prairies are celebrated in this mood board.  It's southwestern influence boasts a nostalgic americana feel yet its simple and more modern.  The western art is, as mentioned above, available from my Etsy shop.

Modern Cowboy Nursery Decor Mood Board

Hold off on the wagon wheels and bandana print!  The tumbleweed nursery speaks to the old west in theme yet it does so in a more modern sophisticated way.  The great pouf from Surya and the simple shapes of the rusty bull mount and rocking house relay the idea without all the cowboy campyness.  The cowboy images are part of my latest releases.  They represent the old west in my pop vintage way.  I hope you like them.  Sssshhh, they're from my un-promoted, un-announced Etsy shop which will officially launch later this year. 

Boy's Race Car Transportation Room Mood Board

If this were a game show, I'd give you 30 seconds to name that theme.  Correct!  Theming a room doesn't mean you have to go over the top (I know, I'm guilty).  This race car room is updated with a cool ombre rug, the pinterest popular mason jars repurposed as pendant lights and some art from my speedway collection.

Light and Airy Boy's Airplane Nursery Mood Board

A light and breezy nursery with a sky theme is accented with chevron bedding and a few vintage wood accents.  The art is from my Up and Away series which includes kites and hot air balloons.

Here We Go.  Transportation Theme Nursery Mood Board

If you're a DIY'er search the internet for suitcase tables, they're easy to make and very charming.  You can also find a variety of them ready made on Etsy.  Combine those handled charmers with some great woodgrain and slip in some modern textiles and your set.  The theme could go train, plane or automobile real easy.  The America piece is from my American Byways collection.  

Teen Tween Surf Travel Theme Room Mood Board

As I'm sure you can see, I prefer for boy's rooms to grow with them.  Not that there's anything wrong with cutesy wootsie, it's just not my thang.... When you can swap a crib for a bed, change out a few pieces and the room ages instantly, that's my favorite.  In this case, we have the reverse.  This teen/tween surf travel room could easily go younger.  Switch out the teen fave papason chair with a glider for bedtime stories and add in some beach themed pillows and its fun for your elementary aged water boy.  The wall art is also from my American Byways series.

A little less Blam Batman Superhero Theme Room

The Batman movies have weaned away from the cheesy and campy days of holy smokes bat bombs and bat nipples (sorry George), so why not go with a less BLAM in the bat room.  Capture the caped crusader with a few implied decor items, subtle themed accessories and bring them together with a few grow-with-time investment furniture pieces.  My less Pow more Pop superhero series of art can add a sophisticated twist to the batcave.

Superman's Alter Ego Geek Chic Boy's Room Mood Board

 All that's geeky is groovy.  The worlds most famous nerd boy is Clark Kent and exploring his world would make for a great superhero room.  Focusing on the Metropolis urbanite and eluding to his super persona opens the door to fun accessories, mid century influences and a bit of geek chic.

Classic American Baseball Theme Nursery Mood Board

The classic americana baseball room is realized with my baseball art and color rich pieces from my pals at Newport Cottages.  The traditional wainscoted walls, the gallery art display and charming light fixture create a space that will grow with your little slugger.  Both the art and my vintage striped lamp are available on my site.

Geek Chic - Revenge of the Nerds

 Oh, isn't it cute that little Abby wants to be a princess and Aden wants to be a baseball player?  Those are decor themes we can get behind.  A little Disney gobbledy gook decor and her room becomes a castle.   Paint the boy's room team colors and hang a bat on the wall and it's a MLB paradise.  Brush your hands together, you're done....easy.  Right?  Not so fast....

Well what do you do when your sweet pea proclaims she wants to be a Endomolecularbiologist or your sure to be a little leaguer says Nanotechnological Bioinformatics System Integration Researcher?  Gulp, the silence is prolonged, the stuttering begins and for a brief moment you can hear the squeaking wheels inside parents heads grinding to a halt....errrrrrrrr....klunk.  What?  Sorry, kiddos you're going to have to pick out a predetermined fantastic identity that matches the offerings on the shelves at your local big box store.  Forget astrophysics, come on, don't you want to be a cowboy, Batman, a smells-like -stawberries imp or a one of those 12 inch tall fashion dolls?  Look there's matching sheets!

Times have changed.  While there's no coordinated bedding with accountant or lawyerly like patterns on it, we're seeing the industry mold break in a new direction.  That is one that embraces intellect and celebrates the word Geek as a term of endearment.  If your little one loves to read, enjoys math or questions the wonders of the world with the scientific method, you should be able to decorate their room with those interests.

To fulfill the wish for brilliant mind decor, I've introduced a line of children's wall art that explores inner nerd-dom.  The collection includes ABC and numbers charts in a retro chalkboard style, a new US map and more.

ABC wall art, available from my online shop and boutiques nationwide.

123's number chart available from my online shop and boutiques nationwide.

Genius art for children's rooms

Chalkboard look hand written typography wall art.

Continents Map Wall art available on my site and through boutiques nationwide.

Here's a couple of mood boards illustrating how a room can reflect a Geek Chic attitude.  They're also available for pinning off my Pinterest page.  

Smart Boy's geek chic decor mood board

Genius teen and tween room based around a science theme.

  

Get-a-way - A Room for a Teen Longing for Paradise

Dig your feet in the sand, lay back and sun yourself.   In this mood board featuring my American Byway's Prop Plane art, I've assembled a room for the young guy who longs for travel and exotic locals.  Borrowing from the hot trend of reclaimed lumber, deconstructed furniture and primal materials, the design brings home the textures and colors of the beach, preferably one in an far off paradise.

Visit my website for the art and details on how I can help you design your children's, teen, tween and youthful spaces.

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.