Pepper Design Blog

A Little of This & That... Renovating, Decorating, DIY Projects & Family

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Project Nursery: Bookshelves for the Reading Nook

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Liv’s nursery has this very cool tree painted on the wall by her Grandma and Great Aunt:

So neat! They created it from a magazine clipping that I had pulled long long ago, and I have to admit that it’s probably one of my favorite wall designs that they painted for the nursery. I love the patterns in the leaves – and I love that owl! He’s peeking down over the shoulder of whomever is reading a book to Liv in the rocking chair.

More recently, the glider was moved to the crib side of the room to make space for a new play/reading nook complete with table and chairs.

I’ve been thinking about ways to create a fun little art and reading station in this corner as well, and how I can creatively add some above-table storage for books, crayons, play dough containers and the like. My first thought was to paint a few spice racks from Ikea the same burnt red as the changing table and install them below the owl and above the table.

Then Sheila left this idea in the comments section of the Reading Nook post from a few weeks ago and I fell in love with the idea of incorporating a bookshelf right into the tree!

My goal is to make it less complicated (maybe three total shelves?) and a little more on the focus of the actual tree design rather than books (so that all of that beautiful artwork is not hidden). But I think with a little moderation and modification it can be a very cool idea!

And that’s my new weekend project!

Office Makeover: A Little Chevron, Gold & Greenery

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How was your Easter? Ours was a really nice little celebration with family at my aunt’s house in Santa Cruz. Pictures soon to be edited… hope to share a few this week.

I’ve actually been gone for over ten days and now I’m back home and sooo happy to be back in my zone. Part of my 9-5 job includes traveling up to my company’s main office in the bay area (of Cali) for a week every 6 weeks, so part of me is very used to time on the road and the other part is always so happy to be home again. Luckily I get to take the little one with me and her grandparents watch her while I’m away during the day. It’s a pretty ideal traveling situation.

Back at the home office, I received a really cute, thoughtful gift from Maryam (she’s a style board contributor over here) and her business partner, Jennifer:

Adorable!

Maryam and Jennifer co-founded Green Your Air, a site that provides air purifying plants for the home in cleverly designed biodegradable pots. I love the new chevron print and I’m so thrilled they brought this guy over! I hope that eventually they’ll see this post and the big thank you/virtual hug I’m sending their direction!

You might have spotted the addition during the tufted headboard reveal last week:

I have so much respect for these two ladies and their growing venture. They are stylish, green mommas (and entrepreneurs!) that are trying to change the quality of air indoors one home at a time. Here’s the reasoning they share over on their site: certain varieties of indoor plants absorb and filter the air of harmful chemicals and airborne toxins (did you know that the indoors can be as much as 10 times more polluted than the outdoors?). A chart sharing the chemical emissions found in the average home or office and which products they are generally emitted from can be found here. Surprising, right?

I’m a big fan of something living and green in each room (brings a little life to the party) and also a huge fan of hardly having to remember to water. This guy needs maybe an ice cube every 2-3 weeks to keep him going.

We currently have the Viridis in Liv’s room, too:

And he’s still alive! And going strong. Here’s another glance at those air-purifying leaves of the Fortis:

Maryam and Jennifer have extended a 20% discount to all readers through the end of May – these guys make lovely gifts for new mommies! or are great to add to your own space. Instead of sending flowers, this would be a great gift to have shipped to someone who has just bought a new home, too. Use code PEPPER20 during checkout.

Here’s a little inspiration that they feature on the site. Love that headboard!!

Thank you again Maryam and Jennifer for the sweet new addition to the office.

PS, follow our family’s efforts to Go Green by checking out this series.

Speckled Easter Eggs!

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Liv’s a little young to fully appreciate how fun it is to dye Easter eggs, but I was excited about the idea (it’s been too long since I was a kid!) so I decided to give it a go anyhow.

I wanted to keep it simple with whatever we could find easily available in the kitchen, so my first attempt was to create my own natural dye using this awesome tutorial. Vegetables, fruits and spices can create some pretty neat, saturated colors, check out these beautiful examples! And I’d imagine older kids might find it pretty neat to see how dyes and colors were originally derived.

My goal was blue speckled eggs, so I defrosted a frozen bag of blueberries from the freezer and boiled them down (with about two parts water) into a rich, dark liquid. Sadly, after just a few hours my blueberry concentrate left my eggs looking black and rotten…

Muahhhhahaha, perfect for Halloween! So blueberries aren’t the way to go, but I would definitely try this method with another fruit again in the future!

Plan B: trusty food coloring + vinegar.

Two hours later and the eggs were looking quite blue and quite beautiful! I dyed a mix of white and brown eggs from the fridge, and I actually prefer the darker tint of the brown underneath that very saturated blue.

To achiever the speckled egg look, I improvised brown dots in clusters and speckles with a brown sharpie once the eggs were completely dry.

Such an easy project and such a fun result!

We carried the eggs around the yard for a bit, unloaded the bunch from a basket and filled it back up again.

We’re practicing for Sunday.

We also made a few simple solid yellow and green eggs, and then a few polka dotted versions!

Egg hunting under way…

Here she’s wondering ‘where are the rest?’, Liv just picked up the two hands out posture when she’s asking a question in baby talk, it’s adorable!

Look at those big brown eyes! What a cutie.

And then mid outdoor play time, Liv realized that she could smash the eggs!

And that if she squished them between her palms just right, pop! The hard boiled inside would come bursting out.

A half dozen smashed eggs later and our hunting adventure was officially over. So much for keeping these guys around until Sunday ;). But they served their purpose and we had great pre-Easter fun.

A few more reminders of those pretty speckled eggs…

*Sigh*

The polka dotted eggs were a fun project for us to tackle together. I covered a few eggs in small metallic smiley face (they have the best stick) and round office label stickers before letting them sit in the dye. When they were finished and dry, Liv helped me pull all of the stickers off.

It is tough to get a clean circle without any blue leaking underneath a sticker, but the dryer and more room temperature your egg is, the closer you’ll get. Here’s a great tutorial on polka dot eggs, check it out if you give these guys a try!

Have a wonderful Easter weekend! Hallelujah, He is risen!

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