Always on the lookout for kid friendly art, I was delighted to come across the work of French artist Wanda Kujacz. Drawing upon the stories told by her Polish grandmother, fairy tales and children’s books she layers photographs, drawings, digital imagery and collaged ephemera to create fantasy landscapes that are ethereal, whimsical and filled with hidden narrative. Prints of her work can be purchased through her Etsy shop and her entire portfolio can be viewed on Flickr.

Lovely, stylized animal pillows designed by Eleanor Grosch and available at Urban Outfitters.  $26.00 each.  Thanks to Grace at Design*Sponge for turning us onto these cute critters.

Mention stencils and many of us have 1980’s ‘country’ kitchen flashbacks complete with stipple painted geese (adorned with steel blue bows) being chased around the ceiling line by tendrils of forest green ivy. Well Brooklyn based graphic designer Ed Roth has turned this home craft on its head with his line of graffiti stencils with motifs ranging from 70’s turntables to 80’s joysticks stencils.

Knowing allot of little guys that are transportation crazy, Stencil1’s selection of planes, cars and semis would make a great runway or freeway out of a bedroom wall. Get Junior involved in choosing images and paint colors, giving him some ownership in his room. And these pre-cut mylar stencils are reusable, allowing you to create continually changing traffic patterns - and did I mention your application need not be limited to the walls? Ed has video on his site of Martha Stewart and Cynthia Nixon stenciling spooky images on tshirts. Depending on the stencil size prices range from $10.50 to $120.

Stencil1’s obviously tongue-in-cheek directions crack me up.

Well, I have to confess I got a little out of control with this post. What started as a small survey of non-traditional color nursery bedding quickly expanded when I kept stumbling into great orange colored products over at Modern Nursery. Orange? I know. The new black? Mmmm…doubtful, but I am happy to see another member of the ROY G BIV family take center stage. This sunny color, properly applied, makes for kid quarters that are absolutely cheerful. A full dose of vitamin C.

Forgive for not linking to every single product below, but considering they’re all from the same shop I’ve linked you to the corresponding category so they shouldn’t be hard to find.

Modern Baby Bedding:

Wall Art:

Furniture and Rugs:

Highchairs and Strollers:

Toddler Gifts:

Quantifiable information: kids soak it up like a sponge. My four-year-old nephew recently memorized all of the US presidents off of a placemat, a placemat! Knowing this floors his memory-challenged uncle and makes me think that for his next birthday I need to seriously consider one of the inventive new shower curtains from Simple Memory Art. The folks over at SMart have taken those basic diagrams we all remember from our grade school text books, enlarged them and carefully silk-screened them onto environmentally friendly EVA vinyl shower curtains. Select from dinosaurs, metamorphosis, the solar system, weather and the periodic table. Daily exposure to these bright graphics is bound to make some of their pertinent information soak in!

Thanks to our pal mod*mom for introducing us to the smarty-pants line of goods over at Simple Memory Art. For those of you not familiar with mod*mom’s site, it’s another one of the few bastions of good kiddy style on the web worthy of repeat visits and a browser bookmark. And as an incentive to head on over I’m sponsoring a ‘Secret Prize Giveaway!’ through my shop Mahar Drygoods. At MDG we’re always collaborating with artists and designers to develop new products and we’ve got an especially swell one we’re preparing to roll out later this week. To be the first house on the block to add this goody to your play room, visit mod*mom for the giveaway details. You only have until this Thursday, May 17 to enter - so get moving!

The odds are Junior’s clothes are currently strewn in unexpected places across your home: a trail from the tub to the bedroom, adorning the backs of furniture in the family room and let’s not even start on the roving tribe of socks that race from under the washer to behind the sofa. So what’s to make us think he’s going to exert the energy necessary to hang his jacket on a coat rack or wall hook? Well, I’m certain that will depend in part on the insistence of the reining adult in the house, but I’m thinking he might be more apt to use a set of antlers, a free-standing fruit tree or a row of puppy butts before he goes near a plain wooden peg.

Pakhuis Oost Coathanger Deer at Rose and Radish, $54. each
Coat Check at Generate, $29.
Tree Hooked Coat Hooks at Elsewares, $62.
Eames Hang-It-All at Modern Seed, $149.
Blu Dot 2d:3d Coat Rack at Public Design, $55.
P’kolino Clothes Tree at P’kolino, $94.85
BÄSTIS Hooks at Ikea, $1.99 each

It seems that the Piggy Bank’s origins don’t lie with an inventor but rather with a case of muddy semantics. General consensus is that its name was derived from the orange clay, “pygg” used to create storage jars in Middle Ages. The so-called “pig” jar, which was utilized for items such as dry goods and currency, retained its name long after potters stopped using “pygg” clay to produce pottery. While this is the prevailing theory, there certainly are others which you can read about on the Piggy Bank Page.

Following are a few of my contemporary favorites.

For the minimalist there’s the Moo o o Piggy Bank (above) by designer Savitri Sukul, $16.00 at the MoMA Store.

Sporting an easy fill funnel is Coink by designer Scott Henderson. $36.00 at BabyGeared.

Cast from a mid-century mold, this Piggy Bank by Pamela Barsky actually comes with a little money inside! How much is a surprise. $24.98 at Ochelly.

Honestly the cast resin Piggy Bank by designer Harry Allen kind of creeps me out which would make it perfect for an seven year old boy except for its price tag. $95.00 at Matter.

Made from 100% reconstituted leather is designer Pedro Ressig’s sleek and comical Piggy. $49.00 at Zansisa.

I recall having a ‘Eureka!’ moment the first time I wandered onto the Thumbtack Press web site. Looking for a new site to obsess over? Problem solved.

Responding to the ever narrowing gap between illustration and fine art TP boss man Tony Bailey has created an express connection between you and work you need to have on your walls. Every print from Thumbtack Press is a gallery quality print on heavy bright white stock, printed with archival inks and utilizing a professional 8-color process. The final print is trimmed to size and protected in an acid-free polyurethane cover before shipment in a board-backed, water resistant envelope. They’ll even mat and frame it for you. And did I mention that most prints are under $20.?

I’m a huge proponent of introducing more sophisticated art to kids, enough of ‘dumbing down’ Junior with posters of the latest cartoon character tied to a new product endorsed by a cereal and owned by a mega corporation - make him think, give him something to spur his imagination while he’s stuck in a ‘time out’ or waiting out a cold in bed.

The image above is Eureka by Nishant Choksi and the following titles and artists correspond to the prints below, top to bottom.

Pussypus by Mark Frauenfelder

Pet Walk by Mark Frauenfelder

Expedition by Jaime Zollars

Pep-Up by Nishant Choksi

The Food Chain Series by Brandon Reese

Leaning to Share by Jeremiah Ketner

Birds at Play by Jeremiah Ketner

Umbrella Pink Eyes by Doug Boehm

Baseball Heroes series by Bob Dob

Dinner by Wilson Hsu

Silhouette artistry. This is an art form with a long history that began to flourish in late 17th Century Europe and reached prominence in the 18th and early 19th Century. Originating in a time before photographing, silhouettes were an inexpensive and quick way to preserve one’s likeness.

The term silhouette derives from a derogatory reference to Louis XV’s Minister of Finance, Etienne de Silhouette, who had crippled the French people with his tax policies. Oblivious to the plight of the people of France, Etienne was much more interested in his hobby of cutting paper profiles. He was so despised by the people that in protest, the peasants wore only black to mimic his black paper cutouts. The saying went all over France, “We are dressing a la Silhouette. We are shadows, too poor to wear color. We are Silhouettes!”

Today, vintage silhouettes are highly collectible but there is also a small but growing group of artisans working to revive the art. Paper Portraits is the site of silhouette artist Kathryn Flocken who not only offers her reasonably priced services to create a portrait of your child from a profile photograph but has also created a range of beginner to advanced kits and supplies available for purchase.

You can find a simple tutorial over at Shiso Mama, a blogger who set out to create a silhouette family portrait for her husband’s birthday. Her approach involves tracing photographs of the subjects which yields really great results.

Another contemporary silhouette artist is Karl Johnson who has recently taken on several high profile projects with considerable press coverage. Karl not only embraces traditional silhouette portraiture he also experiments with a broader scope of subject matter. Below are examples of commissions he’s taken on and there’s more to be seen on his website Cut Arts.

And finally, for those of you in the Minneapolis area, the Walker Art Center is currently exhibiting the first career retrospective of artist Kara Walker. Kara has used this popular colonial art as medium through which to explore issues of race, racism and slavery in the US. It’s tough subject matter that not all parents would want their young children to see, but I’ve included some installation photos to give you an idea of their scale and the lyrical narrative it creates. Cut from black construction paper, Kara installs her work by waxing it to the wall. Learn more about the art of Kara Walker by visiting the site created by the Walker as a companion to their exhibit.

Wall decals can be found everywhere these days and unlike allot of trends these removable wall graphics really are a smart idea, especially for a kid’s room. This is low commitment decorating, meaning if Little Miss decides next year that she wants a castle themed room vs. her current barnyard theme you simply peel the graphics off and replace them. For the most part wall decals are reasonably priced and are definitely less expensive than paying to have the room repainted.

Ochelly is a lovely online store with a nice selection of children’s items including the pennant decals which allow you to spell out any message or name; and a charming menagerie of farm animals available in three color choices.

Wee Gallery make a line of kid’s products featuring their charming and stylized line of bold graphic animals.

Blik Surface Graphics has a large selection of images including the fantastic roadway graphics allowing you to build your own super highway through Jr’s bedroom. And you’ll note in this application that they’ve also adhered the decals to the floor. Below this are the wonderfully silly Zeptonn character graphics.

And then there’s the ultimate in customizable wall decals, Wonderful Graffiti. Their primary focus is on text and they offer numerous colors and fonts, a library of great quotations and a gallery of how clients have used ‘graffiti’ in their own homes. Below you’ll see a definition style graphic used in conjunction with wall mounted photos, a family tree and a nursery monogram.