August 2008

Flower Babies: This has to be one of my all-time favorite vintage embroidery patterns. The pattern is as precious as the finished piece itself! Embroidery is one of those things that I admire so much but have never done. The hilarious thing — that doesn’t keep me from collecting the patterns!

Click on the image for a larger view. Enjoy!

So I was thinking that a recurring feature on the blog might be tips related to all sorts of vintage baby topics. Let’s call it ‘Here’s A Tip.’ For our first tip, I’m taking you to my daughter’s room for some first-hand experience designing a vintage nursery. Sound good? Here we go!

First things first: Don’t let the word ‘vintage’ intimidate you. Just because it’s not a theme available at Pottery Barn Kids or Babies ‘R Us, doesn’t mean it can’t be fabulous! The great thing about vintage nurseries? Just about anything goes. It’s a very eclectic style. There’s just a few key tips you may want to keep in mind…

1. Inspire me: You may have tons of vintage stuff that you’ve collected over the years or you may just be getting started. Either way, find a vintage or vintage-inspired object that you dearly love. Maybe it’s something you’ve held onto from your own childhood. Maybe it’s something you found at The Baby Gardner. It could even be an illustration from a vintage children’s book. Whatever ‘it’ is, let it be your inspiration for the room.

2. Color me crazy: I’m about to give you the holy grail secret of design. Ready for it? COLOR! Color is what will pull a room filled with all kinds of random, eclectic stuff into an awesome and unique design all your own. Choose 2 or 3 coordinating colors as your ‘color palette’ and stick with them when picking your wall color, window treatment and bedding. Those three things are usually the main color focus in a nursery. If their colors coordinate, everything else in the room is gravy. Fill it with all the vintage-y things you love and you can’t go wrong. Not sure what colors to pick? Pull them from your inspiration piece. If your inspiration piece doesn’t have a lot of color (like a silver rattle or such), find a favorite fabric pattern and pull your colors from there.

3. Show me the love: Give your inspiration item a place of prominence in the room. If you love it that much, you’ll want to show it off!

For my daughter Gracie’s nursery, my inspiration piece was a children’s book from the Victorian era. I also had an assortment of vintage-inspired items I had accumulated and adored. I placed them in a grouping on the wall and it really made them the focal point of the room. Adding scrapbook paper in the back of the shadowboxes was another fun and easy way to throw in color and add interest.

Thinking about designing a vintage nursery? I highly recommend it and here’s an added bonus… Vintage never goes out of style. Gracie is now 8 and she still loves her room and guess what? The room is still as perfect for her as it was when she was a baby — we just had to get a bigger bed!

Little boy nurseries (like my son, Aidan’s) can have a vintage flair too! I’ll show you photos from his nursery in a future post. Stay tuned!

Looking for a place to start on your quest for the perfect vintage nursery? The Baby Gardner is filled to the brim with vintage and vintage-inspired pieces for the nursery, for baby, for showers and more!

What are we up to, you may ask? As owner of The Baby Gardner and one of its many contributing designers, I’m happy to announce that we’re adopting our brand new Baby Bloggie!

My name is Deanna (for those of you who don’t know), and I have to confess up front that I am not a writer. If you’re looking for Hemingway, he’s one blog over. But what I hope to offer you here is a place to discuss all things vintage baby — with a little humor and a lot of “oh, how adorable!” moments.

I really struggled with this decision because there are SO many informative, fun and credible blogs out there all devoted to baby. I didn’t want to dive into this unless I felt sure we could provide a fresh approach. I also didn’t want the blog to be solely used as a marketing vehicle for The Baby Gardner (although the shop is pretty great in my humble but heavily biased opinion).

So what in the world could we possibly offer here? Well, how about free vintage patterns? Or topics on designing vintage nurseries? Or what about Free Bloggie Fridays when we give away an item in our shop to one lucky bloggie reader? Or what about diving into the creative minds of some of our talented artists and learning a little about them and their designs? Or what about getting the scoop on new items coming to the shop before they’re even there?

Getting psyched? Well stay tuned because we plan to offer all of that and more! If you love vintage as much as I do, you’re going to love this blog!

This blog newbie would love to know what you think about our new endeavor. Are we on the right track? Leave a comment and tell us! Suggestions for ways to improve the shop and the blog along the way will always be welcome.