Ain't No Mom Jeans

A Hauntingly Beautiful ABC Book (and Wall Prints)

Mamas, I know I said we'd be taking it easy for a while, but I just came across this and had to share.  It's something so jaw-droppingly stunning and unique and wow.  Just...wow.

Kim Krans (who happens to be my mom's BFF's daughter...follow me?) is an amazing artist.  She recently created an ABC book for kids.  Instead of primary colors and juvenile B is for BORING BALLS and S is for SNOOZEFEST SNAKE (or whatever)....Kim's book is filled with black and white illustrations that strike a perfect balance between sophistication and whimsy.  The result is hauntingly beautiful.  Each page is, quite literally, a work of art. 

Here are a few of my favorite prints from her book:

 

Each letter is available as a 12" X 16" print (pictured above) or collectively in Kim's book, aptly named ABC Dream.

ABC Dream can be purchased on Kim's website, The Wild Unknown, for $25.  I can't imagine a more perfect gift for a new mom, a budding artist, or a curious, inquisitive toddler on a rainy summer day.  (You can see more of the book in this charming video.)

And I'm dying for the LOVE set of prints ($120).  Awesome for a nursery, and cool enough for a living room.

xo,

S

ps.  Mamas, thank you SO much for all of the love and support regarding my recent travel woes.  Your comments seriously cracked me up.  Life is funny, no?

Family-Friendly, Interior Design Considerations (And an Online, Home Design Giveaway From Curio Designs!)

Mamas, I'm so excited about this one!  The following article is a guest post from Allison Harlow (Lane's sister - yay!).  Allison is an interior designer and the owner of Curio Design Studio. Curio Design Studio offers interior e-design for mamas on a budget!  For $85(!!), Allison will help choose paint color (OMG I needed her help - remember these walls?  Nightmare), address space layout, give you some DIY ideas of existing furniture and pull together a shopping list of suggested additional decor.  Love this!  

For those of you with more serious design needs, Allison also offers a few other affordable packages ($185 - $255).  Check out her portfolio here - I'm loving the sophisticated little girl's room she put together.  The chalkboard table is gorgeous.  

In addition to Allison's savvy tips, she's also offering one reader a Classic design package.  For the record, I am jealous.  You can find out how to enter at the end of Allison's article, below.  

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 In order to achieve a modern, polished, yet family friendly interior you should always start by considering the following four design principles:

1. Is it Functional?

  It doesn’t matter how gorgeous your living room is if it doesn’t fit the needs of your family. Address function first!  For families this means storage, storage, storage!

Shelves as Storage

If you aren’t lucky enough to have existing built-ins, try using pre-made Ikea shelving. Ikea shelves are relatively affordable and easily customizable.

One example of customization is to simply add bold wallpaper to the back of the shelf to create interest (here are my current faves when it comes to wall paper):

Home Furniture Catalogs

Cool Kid's Bedding...That You (and they) Will Like

Given the option, I'm sure R would choose some obnoxious Thomas-the-Train printed bedding.  Or, even worse, Dora the Explorer.  I, however, prefer Dwell Studio (chocolate dots in particular).

*snort*

We obviously do not agree.

But I just came across a few designs by Garnet Hill that appeal to both his design sensibilities (dragons!! monsters!!) and mine (clean and modern, please).  And equally cute options for girls (horsies!!).  Best of all, many of the prints come in comforter covers, so I can keep his down comforter in easy rotation. 

Voila my favorites...

Cool Ideas for Displaying Your Kid's Artwork

I am an art mom.  I am very definitely not a crafty mom, but art?  Art, I can do. 

What, exactly, is the distinction? In my mind, crafting makes a finished product and often requires some amount of skill (sewing, stitching, cutting in straight lines - all things I am incapable of), while art...well, art is messy.  And making a huge mess is something I have no problem with.  And something my husband (bless him) has learned to live with.

So it follows that we have tons and tons of artwork, in various phases of "finished"  floating about our small apartment.  And since Jackson Pollock is one of my very favorite artists....I obviously don't need a recognizable shape to love the art.  But, given the size of our space, we did need a cool way to display! My old method of scotch-taping-to-the-wall (see it in my previous post on easy Montessori-style shelves) just wasn't cutting it.  After much research, we decided on Ikea's Dignitet Curtain Wire System ($14.99) plus hooks ($4.99).  

NOTE:  Denver still doesn't have an Ikea, but we found the entire Dignitet system on Ebay for $30, including shipping.  Done and done.

But depending on your space (or the type of artwork to display)...you might want to check out some of these other cool methods for displaying your kiddo's work: 

 

Wooden High Chair Review: Comparison of the Svan, Stokke Tripp Trapp and the Keekaroo Height Right High Chairs

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I was not satisfied with my initial high chair purchase for my eldest son.  Despite my best efforts, I, like many parents-to-be, did not make the best baby gear choices with Boy Wonder No. 1.  And I mean really, how can one be expected to select all the right accoutrement, having never had a babe before?  Particularly given that most shortcomings aren’t apparent until the gear has been used, rendering it un-returnable?  While many people feel compelled to rationalize and justify their purchases, regardless of their dissatisfaction, I feel the need to rectify these situations.  And with a blog like this, why not?  Thank you, CraigsList, for making this possible.  Here I compare three modern-style wooden high chairs, including the Svan, the Stokke Tripp Trapp and the Keekaroo Height Right High Chair.

Step Into My Office: Toddler Parsons Desk

 I have this problem time and again.  Maybe you have it too.  I want to provide a fun, child-friendly atmosphere for my kids, but I loathe, loathe, loaaathe most children's furniture, design motifs and color schemes.  For the most part, they're just so bizarrely saccharine that they seem intentionally designed to assault adult sensibilities.  And, in my experience, despite lending that coveted daycare-exploded-in-my-living-room effect, they're under-appreciated by their target audience anyway.  

A Chair of One’s Own: Monte Designs Cubino Kids’ Chair

Can you imagine having a job where you don’t even get a chair to sit in?  Where you’re required to sit on the floor, demonstrating your brilliance by building complex structures out of wooden blocks and operating small machinery without even a cushion or back support?  And when you do get to sit on the peculiarly oversized furniture, you have to hoist yourself up, throw one leg up to your ear and claw and scratch your way into the seat.  Then, as you sit there, finally resting your back, you realize that you can’t even bend your flippin’ knees.  Such is the plight of your average 2-6-year-old.  No wonder they’re cranky by 5 o’clock. 

Enter kids’ furniture, which I never, not in a million years, thought I would purchase until I noticed my dear boy throwing himself into every tiny chair he encountered, whether at friends’ homes or in stores.  What I found during my research was that kids’ easy chairs have a way of being either a.) insanely hideous and unworthy of even your lowliest design sensibility, or b.) particularly expensive.  

Until recently, the best affordable contemporary/transitional seating option for kids was the Pottery Barn kids’ chair, which has rolled arms, a number of festive fabric and personalization options and retails for about $120.00.  But what I wanted, and what Monte Designs delivered on, was a kids chair that would provide a comfy place for the boy wonder to snack and flip through books but that would essentially blend in with my living room décor so I didn’t have to hide it whenever we had guests.   

The Monte Designs Cubino Kids Chair, which retails for $109.00, is neither a.) nor b.).  It is covered in a very well-tailored, clean-lined and removable slipcover that’s made of washable, stain- and water-resistant micro suede in eight modern color options.  I chose (courtesy of Grandma & Beba--thank you!) the brown and orange to compliment my chocolate brown micro suede sectional.  Huck luv luv luvs this chair, as evinced by his obvious relief when he first sat in it (pictured above), and so do I. 

- M

A Gift Guide To Help Guys Who Google "wife christmas"

My husband is trying to find me a present.  I know this because he submitted a question to "Ask Ain't No Mom Jeans".  I think he thought it would be anonymous somehow.  In any case, he was getting desperate.  His highly creative Google search of "wife christmas" yielded (in addition to a link to the 1988 Julie Harris movie, "The Christmas Wife")  ideas like, "pictures of kids" or "bouquet of flowers".  Barf.

But I was surprised at his concern.  I am usually pretty predictable, gift-wise.  I love all things shiny or sparkly or wrapped in a tiffany blue box with a white bow.  I mean, really - any item off of M's holiday accessories post, or even our Perfect Winter Party Shoes, and I'd be delighted.  Home run.

But this year, Mike detected something different.  Or perhaps he noticed that I already went on a small shopping bender, coming home with fun holiday party items. <<giggle>>  In any case, he was questioning his usual methods.  Which made me think:  What do moms really want for Christmas this year?

I'm not sure if it's the sad state of the economy, or if Raines' turning two (and acting like it), or my husband's crazy schedule (work + school), but life has felt a bit hard lately.   I find myself already looking to the new year and wanting to do things differently.  Simpler, somehow.  I want to spend more time with family, but at a slower pace.  Think long walks with self-brewed coffee instead of crazy running from place to place and hitting Starbucks drive-thrus.

I don't think I'm alone.  So this year, my Christmas picks reflect this need to slow down, to simplify. 

...And to wear something pretty everyday.  Because some things never change. 

Gifts To Help Get Us Out Of The House

It's one thing to get out with the kiddos when the sun is shining and shoes are optional.  It's a WHOLE DIFFERENT BALLGAME when it's freezing, and your two year old not only doesn't want to wear shoes, but throws a screaming fit over long-sleeve anything.  Not to mention that once you've stuffed the little screamer into his snowsuit and are now hauling him football-like down the stairs, you yourself drenched in sweat....by the time you get outside (and cooled off), you realize that the hat your grabbed for yourself is the one with the moth holes, and that you are missing a glove.  Not that this has happened to me (cough),  I'm just sayin.  In addition, over the last two years, my diaper bag has mysteriously gotten heavier.  It's the same bag.  With the same stuff.  It just bugs me more.

So here are a few items are help ease this process.  Nothing but time will cure the kiddo's long-sleeve phobia, but here are a few goodies that inject a little bliss into the "we're having fun, dammit!!" process.

   

I've been coveting the Lug Life Glider Sling Bag, currently on sale at ebags.com for $50.  This is the perfect long-walk diaper bag.  It sits close enough to your body to feel like a backpack, but is urban enough to look cool.  It comes in a wide range of colors, including ocean (pictured).

I'm also in love with J.Crew's Merino Trapper Hat, $45, and their Ribbed Merino Glittens, $24.  They are soft, warm and cute.  Cream may not be the most practical color, but it's beautiful and snow-bunny-like.  And they are just expensive enough to feel like a gift. (I think nothing of dropping $200 on jeans, but a $50 hat? Whoa!) 

Lastly, if your lady sports a ponytail even half as much as I do, try Juicy Couture's Faux-Fur Earmuffs, $55 at Neiman Marcus.  The key with earmuffs is that you want to choose a color OPPOSITE to her haircolor.  Blond?  Choose a darker earmuff.  Brunette?  Go light.  Else, they blend in too well and from a distance it will look like she has hair spurting from her ears.

Modern Nursery Design - A Mod Toddler Room

So, you’re having a baby.  And you love hearts, teddy bears and pastels.  Congratulations, you’re in luck!  A lot of what’s out there in the kids’ design world is still pretty traditional.  But even though the last time I did this whole nursery design thing was only two years ago, I have been pleasantly surprised this time around by how many more options are out there for new ‘rents with less traditional taste.  And, having the experience of spending a year-and-a-half using my boy’s former gear and furnishings (now donated to babe no. 2), I knew where to cut corners and where to put my coin according to my tastes.

The Rocker
In an earlier post, as you may recall, I coveted the IKEA Karlstad swivel chair in Ullevi Orange.  Well, this is indeed the rocker that landed in my boy’s room and which perfectly complements his organic cotton Pixel Organics Lions Tigers & Kitties bedding.  This chair is everything I’d hoped and, with the addition of a lumbar pillow, is super comfortable.  Huck loves it, gleefully spins in it and it’s possibly the best story time chair ever with great elbow support for wide board books and the like.  The footstool adds seating for parental guest appearances (we’ve been using the divide & conquer method since Boy Wonder Too arrived so we can eat dinner together before 10 PM).  

Diaper Changes Made Easy and Hip: Choe and Tomlinson Self Portrait Mirrors

Mirrors are great for your babe’s social, emotional and language development and, placed at your kiddo’s eye-level on the changing table wall, they can also help keep diaper change fuss to a minimum.  But who wants to hang a large, heavy and disfiguringly shatter-able object above their dearest boy or girl at their most prone?  Baby mirrors intended for the car, such as the BearView mirror, $25.00 from www.GeniusBabies.com, are a safer option, of course, but they are, as a rule, either too hideous or freaky cute to want as a permanent decorative object in your home.  Here’s a hip, safe and fun  alternative: Choe and Tomlinson Self Portrait Mirrors, $35.00 (and well-worth the extra ten bucks), at www.DesignPublic.com.  The mirrors measure a diminutive 12”  x 16” and are made of acrylic, eliminating the hazards of larger mirrors you may otherwise feel compelled to bolt to the studs if your first-time parent safety threshold is as low as mine.  There are a few different motifs, but I chose the Songbird Mirror for my boy’s  mod boreal forest-inspired room and he has dug it since early babyhood, going from the perennially surprised “who’s dat baby!?” stage to, now at 16 months, hamming it up and practicing his goofy expressions whilst I pat, powder and cream his creases. 

 

- M