A Forest-Themed Toddler Room...it's a work in progress.

Butterflies

I ordered these butterflies from a shop on Etsy. Check out the collection HERE. Normally they come with magnets on the back, but I had the artist leave the magnets off so that I could stick them directly onto the wall. I already had the antique oval frame which created this whimsical look.

Storage

I wanted as many of Babe's toys as possible to be out of sight so they don't take over from the simple forest theme of the room. I started with the above unit with the pink pull out tubs from Ikea (wish it had come in plain white or green) to store most of her loose toys. I bought some pretty little labels and applied them to the front of each tote. And then I bought the shelving unit below for inside her closet to hide all her books but still keep them accessible for her. I wanted to keep her old crib rails safe in case I sell the crib later so I stashed them in the closet and am currently using them for shoe storage. I also hung hooks from her slatted closet doors for extra hanging abilities and traded out the old seventies knobs for some pretty little glass ones from Home Depot.

  

Lighting

Babe still has the old wall-mounted light that I featured in my old post on her nursery. It still fits as it has a monkeys on a vine theme. But I am loving this new squirrel lamp which was a gift from Babe's grandmother. The mushroom nightlight was purchased from Canadian Target before it closed shop and vanished from the Land of the North. It's convenient that the nightlight can plug in or run on batteries.

Here's the old lighting that we still use that was featured in the Nursery post.

Cushions

I'm still looking for the perfect forest-themed bedspread so for now we are using an inexpensive Ikea option. I might have to end up buying a fabric that I like and sewing my own. The fox and deer cushions were purchased from Home Sense.

More Forest

I have had my eye on a gorgeous, realistic forest mural wallpaper for Babe's room ever since I got pregnant. But we are always renting and I haven't wanted to commit to the cost of it or the application and eventual tear down. But last spring we grabbed this three panel forest screen at a fundraising auction. It goes great with the grass-like shag rug we got from Ikea and the adorable fawn wall decal I ordered from THIS SHOP on Etsy. The mini grand piano is from Chapters/Indigo. The carpet and screen combo create a temporary little forested corner until I can get her a room where I'm happy to commit to a full wallpaper/mural effect.

Mounted Stuffy

This was featured in our trip to Calgary post but I'm still loving it and it still fits the theme. It was purchased at the Calgary Airport.

Sky/Ceiling

Babe has one of those little stuffies that projects stars onto the ceiling at night and plays ambient noise. But I wanted a touch of nature on the ceiling in the daytime too. Enter THIS TUTORIAL VIDEO on making a cloud with lights and I thought I could do that, but with a mobile twist. It's kind of still a work in progress as I wanted to use clear fishing line instead of basic thread. But the fishing line of course has a lot of curl to it. I discovered I could get about 75 per cent of the curl out by using my hair straightener on a low heat setting and pulling the line through quickly (a hint that also works for quickly ironing your boxing hand wraps) but some of the kinks still remain. I'm hoping they will straighten out over time otherwise I guess I will re-string all the beads with plain thread. The cloud is made with paper lanterns and synthetic batting. In the video they use a glue gun to attach the batting to the lanterns but I found spray glue worked much faster. Stinks a bit though so the cloud spent a couple nights outside. The video peeps hung little curtain lights from their cloud but Babe and I wanted rain drops so I bought the blue and clear beads from Michaels. I may still put a battery-powered light inside the cloud at a later date - a nice perk to the cloud shell being made out of lanterns and not a paper mache ball or something is that you can still reach inside of it.

Little Rock Star.

Cozy Robots.

Made some fuzzy little buddies for some friends on Valentine's Day. 

I love these little robots and have wanted to make one for along time. You can buy them from various makers online but I found a pattern on Etsy and made my own. 

Cute huh?

Another App Review.

So it's been a long time coming but I wanted to quickly review a few more kid apps for you all. Babe is nearing three years old now so of course her taste in games on my phone have changed since my last app review page.

Now some of you may be pro iPhones, iPads etc for little ones and some of you may not be. I myself go back and forth. But for anyone who does utilize technology babysitters from time to time, here's my top picks for Babe...or rather, Babe's top picks.

Top of my list is My PlayHome. I have no idea why this dollhouse app hasn't gotten more review attention online. There's some of course, but when I searched best apps for kids it didn't come up. I love this app. I originally downloaded the free Lite version but it only came with two rooms. Babe loved it so much I paid to download the full version which I think was about $3.00.

It's a full dollhouse and everything in the house is interactive. Babe can change CD's on the stereo, dress the people, flush the toilet, get food out of the refrigerator, put toothpaste on the toothbrushes and pull carrots out of the garden. This app has held her attention longer than any other and she has loved it for about a year now.

The only down side is everything is so tiny that on an iPhone younger kids may have some trouble manipulating everything. But now that Babe has it on her iPad it's much easier for her to use.

I also downloaded the DooDoo Pad for Babe about a year ago and she still uses it all the time. Not sure if the name is a lost in translation deal, but whatever.

I originally got it because I thought I would like it too and I was right. The pens are super cool with neon lights, beads and an array of colours and paper backgrounds.

You can also import photos and draw on them. Babe loves to colour all over pictures of herself and save them to my photos.

The Lite version is of course free and although it does have an ad banner at the top it doesn't seem to get accidently tapped as often as some of the others.

The only downside, and maybe that has changed since we downloaded it, is when you are drawing with one pen, every time you lift your finger the colour changes. So if you wanted to stay with pink you'd have to keep drawing a line, then undoing it until you rotated back to pink. But I did notice that there was a colour wheel when I looked at the newer version so maybe it's a little different than the one we have.

To compliment Babe's letter learning I chose the Endless Alphabet app. It got good reviews and they weren't kidding around when they made this bad boy. It's so awesome. But the makers know it too and the app will set you back a whopping $6.99.

It has a ton of words to learn and not just ones like; cat, dog, hug and pretty. The kids choose a word and the funky cartoon characters make a big mess and scramble the word up. Then the kids have to drag and drop all the letters back into place. As they drag a letter the app makes the sound that the letter makes. Then once they have fit all the letters back into place the voice says the word, then shows a little cartoon of what the word means and explains the definition to the child.

There are so many funny characters and interesting sounds that Babe can spend a long time working on her letters with this app.

The only downside that I see is she can place the letters back into their spot in any order she wants. Meaning, if the word is BELLOW, Babe can place the LL's first, then the W in it's place and the B last. I would prefer if she were learning how to spell the word out in order from left to right.


Babe likes puzzle games, we have tried a few over the last year. But so far her favorite by far has been the Shape Builder app. It was a good buy at $.99.

It's very simple. Colourful shapes scrambled up, drag them into place and it becomes a picture of something. It has numbers, letters and images to fit together.

It doesn't keep Babe preoccupied for as long as some of the others but she keeps coming back to it.

Also for some reason, because the shapes are random splotches that only reveal the real picture once they are in place, some of the shapes frighten her. I have no idea why or what they look like to her but once in awhile she gets to a puzzle that she says is scary and she wants to skip to the next page. But that's probably just specific to my precious little weirdo.

Both of us LOVE the Nighty Night app. The pictures are really cool with a combination of realistic textures and cartoon characters, kind of like the Little Big Planet video game. The app is $2.99 which is pricy for a kid app but I would buy it again if I had to.

A soothing male voice starts with an intro about everyone going to sleep in town but says there are still lights on at the farm house. Then Babe has to turn off all the lights in the farm house to put all the animals to bed.

Again, it's interactive so whatever she touches makes noise and she loves going through the house and putting the animals to sleep (just for the night, it's not a euthanize the farm animals kind of game).

The end has a little girl waving out her window and Babe finds that part really intriguing. She always waves back.

This app is part bedtime story and part play and it's very calming. No bright, flashing lights or loud sounds. Just farm animal noises and lullaby music. A good short game to play at the end of the day to calm your child down.

And that's it for now folks. Check out some of these apps and let me know what your child thought. And of course let me know if you have any I should be checking out.