<![CDATA[Inside Emily Dolton's Head - Blog]]>Tue, 21 Feb 2012 17:28:24 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Spots, Polka Dots, Oh So HOT!]]>Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:20:35 -0800http://www.insideemilyshead.com/3/post/2012/02/spots-polka-dots-oh-so-hot.htmlPolka Dots are HOT right now. I just finished two rooms with polka dots. They are surprisingly simple to do…unless you are making them line up and then the math is actually a lot harder than you’d imagine. If you’re a beginner or lousy at math, I recommend using a few overlapping and widespread circles interspersed on the wall. You can even use mirrored circles from Target or Bed, Bath and Beyond for depth.

Also, smooth walls make for crisp lines. If you have a heavy orange peel, you might want to reconsider a design that requires smooth lines.

The last room I did was from Target bedding in hot pink, fuchsia, teal, aqua, lime and magenta. I recommend painting no more than two walls with polka dots. Remember, the child will still have posters, shelves and toys to be displayed and these work much better against a solid color background. We chose the lighter aqua because the two walls of dots shrink the room, so you want the other walls to look as big and expansive as possible. We color matched the dots in the bedding with a fan-deck .The other two walls were painted in one of the dot colors to tie the walls together.

Decide how many colors will be in your repeat of the pattern. Using small painted samples or pieces of the fan-deck, arrange the colors how you’d like them to be repeated to ensure you won’t have two colors right against each other that create a funky pattern. Four light colors might be seen as a square for example. You don’t want to finish a wall only to realize you have created an unintentional pattern or shape.

We chose a circle of about 14 inches in diameter. Anything smaller will take a lot longer than you’d imagine. Two walls will generally be about 50-60 polka dots in an average kid's room. I have several cake pans and serving dishes of varying sizes, so I can use a solid object to trace around. This is SO much easier than using a compass. Trace your first circle on heavy paper or cardboard and cut out a template. Fold this in half and in half again to find the true center and then cut a minute hole at the intersect to use as your center guide.

Place your first circle where you’d like it in the corner. Do you want it to overlap on the corner? If you expect both walls to have no overlap, you have quite a bit of math in front of you. You’ll need to divide the wall into imaginary squares that house the circle, draw lines that dissect the square from corner to corner and then use these points as your center of your circle. Don't get angry if your walls aare perfectly straight or level. In California Earthquake Country, they rarely are!

I tend to not to worry about overlapping of circles onto opposite walls. Trace your circle and make a small point in the center of the circle to use as your level guide. Now measure down from the ceiling and away from the wall. Write these numbers in the circle where you’ll see them but they’ll later be painted over. Using the pinpoint as a level point, draw a line straight down, measure the distance between the circles and wall and draw a full vertical row of circles. Draw the next adjacent circle measuring down from the ceiling and away from the first circle in exactly the same measurements as the first circle is away from the ceiling and wall. Draw the center pinpoint; and then use a level to ensure they are level to one another, as ceilings and floors are often not level. From here on out, use these pinpoints to draw level lines. Where two level lines intersect, you have the center of a circle. Measure the space between circles from time to time to ensure your on track. After you have the first two rows of circles, you’ll find you breeze through drawing and checking your circles for accuracy.

I strongly urge you not to cover moulding, baseboards or fixtures. Most of the time, It just looks wrong. These architectural elements provide borders and really make your polka dots pop.

Use your color chart and write the name of each color in the circles. Ensure you have no accidents. Paint the circles one color at a time until the wall is full.  Use quick sweeping strokes and a larger brush. People tend to lean toward smaller brushes because they feel they are more accurate; but they also allow for a lot of wobble. You will have a much cleaner line with a flat, two inch brush. Most paints will take two to three coats to cover. Dots, my friend, do not go quickly. It’s going to take a while; but you’ll love the pop!

]]><![CDATA[Accessorizing a Simple Wall Wolor: Easily Adaptible Rooms]]>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:05:56 -0800http://www.insideemilyshead.com/3/post/2012/01/accessorizing-a-simple-wall-wolor-easily-adaptible-rooms.htmlOnce you’ve got your child’s wall color down, we move on to accessories. Studies show that for the best vision and brain development, you want a lot of contrast. I recommend a simple formula. If you have a 20% concentration wall color you want the following ratio of colors in the room. 20% light white or off whites or paler versions of the wall color. 50% in the 30 percent color saturation range, and 30% in the darker or over 60% range. For instance, if you paint a wall light pink, you’ll want some whites or super pale pinks, yellows or lavenders to highlight the actual pink of the walls (illustrate just how much color is on the walls), 50% to be close in color concentration but different in hue, like blues, greens, darker, different pinks or lavenders, and 30% to be bright pinks, bolder purples or even reds.

An Aside Here: I LOVE tone on tone rooms. Pink saturated rooms, rooms full of creams and gold metallic. This is a beautiful look. What I am suggesting here is a simple formula for those not necessarily skilled in providing the tone on tone space. Also, although I love soft pale green and yellow nurseries, this is not the nursery I would choose for my child because it does not stimulate eye movement like black and white do. Studies show brain development is aided by contrast in color and tone.

First, we tackle things like drapes and bedding if they didn’t already drive the wall color choice. Let’s start with a gender neutral color like tan. Sounds boring right? Well, many of my clients will initially put their children in rooms that will later become offices and guest rooms because the rooms are closer to the master. These walls can stay this color very easily. For boys, you can choose a bold primary stripe drape and sports ball bedding, embellish with lockers for storage and playful sports art. For girls, you can use a black on white toile with gold accents and all the French finery of Versailles. Other themes that work well with Tan: jungle, dinosaurs, bugs, garden/Peter Rabbit, and trucks. When we use canvas and hardboard art, we can easily exchange these items out for more adult themed art later without too much touchup or difficulty.

The beauty of canvas and hardboard art is that it is inexpensive, not created in your home while children are playing, and easy to exchange out. And the possibilities are endless. 7 year old girl transitioning from Fancy Nancy to Shake it Up tween glamour? Both rooms will work with feather boas, reflective sequin curtains over beaded sheers. Fancy Nancy painted canvases and dollhouses are replaced by hardboard dance silhouettes and full size dress mannequins for displaying cool outfits.

Truck loving toddler heading into extreme Padres Fan? Simple Target truck shelves and pillows, safety cone accents with truck shaped hardboards transition to framed stadium art, displayed signed memorabilia on wall cubes, bat racks and framed Sport Illustrated Cover Portraiture.

In both of these scenarios, wall color and furniture does not change, and the makeover costs $250 instead of $2500! I love a dynamic mural, but these scenarios let the child’s taste change easily without breaking Mom and Dad’s bank!

Favorite Child Art Sources: Target($), Walmart($), Pier One ($), Cost Plus ($), Pottery Barn Kids and PB Teen ($$$), HomeGoods ($), TJMAXX ($), Marshal’s ($), Ross ($), Kirkland ($), Costco ($$) My Own Room Online ($$), Land of Nod ($$$),  and  the dreamy Posh Tots ($$$$$). Locally in San Diego, I also like Leaping Lotus ($$) and Vignettes ($$$) for Girls  and the San Diego Store($$), the Petco Padres shop ($$$) and local train and hobby shops for boys.

]]><![CDATA[Choosing a wall color for your child's room]]>Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:35:03 -0800http://www.insideemilyshead.com/3/post/2012/01/choosing-a-wall-color-for-your-childs-room.htmlToday’s economy makes it tough to repaint rooms as fashion changes or as a child ages and their tastes change. A simple way to get around this is to choose a light version of a gender appropriate color or a gender neutral color in about the 20% color concentration range. This is usually the second or possibly third color on a six color deck. Then, you can switch out accessories as the child ages.

Why light colors? Once we get into a 30% color, it is harder to match or coordinate colors because more colors may share that same value, or gray scale, but are made up of different hues (the true color of the paint.  Take white for example. Almost every color goes with white because it is a 0% color. The value difference is so great, it looks good.  Off whites, however, which are close in value, tend to stick out like a sore thumb.

Try this simple experiment. Choose a super light sky blue (10-15% color concentration). Place any 30% blue color next to it. Almost all of them will look as if they coordinate. Now move up the fan deck color card of the same sky blue to a 30% color. Only a few other blues will look good with it because the value is the same. The colors that each has in its makeup will start to be more apparent. One will look more lavender; one will look more green, etc. The differences in hue become more apparent because the values are so close.

A 20% color concentration primary blue will work very well with a boy’s room because many items geared toward males have blue in them. We also equate blue with sky and sea, which are popular themes with boys. However, neutral tans also work well because they work well with green colored themes like bugs and dinosaurs and transition nicely into sports and sports ball themes. Either way, by choosing the lighter versions of these colors, we increase the range of the coordinating palette and leave us plenty of options for varying the themes.

Girl’s colors tend to be a bit trickier. Here, we start to see a greater range of warm versus cool interaction. Simply put, warm colors have hues of red, yellow and orange. Cool colors have hues of purple, blue and green. When we hear the words “cool red” or “warm green”, it is usually used to describe a color that has an element of the other side of the spectrum. For instance, a burgundy red has elements of purple and black. It is a cool red. A tomato red usually has a touch of orange and is therefore a warm red. Similarly, teal is a very blue green (cool) while olive is a very warm mix of green and yellow.

When we choose girl’s colors, especially in the pinks and purples, navigating the warm/cool questions can be quite frustrating. I like to choose lighter shades and keep a sample in my wallet so I can whip it out and see if the bedding matches the walls. A good rule of thumb is to choose a warm palette or cool palette and stick with it.

These are safe suggestions for rooms that easily transition to the next phase of childhood. Want to jump right in to a fuchsia or an eggplant? Go for it! Kid’s rooms tend to be an area where people feel a little freer to experiment. Soon, I’ll talk about accessorizing and the psychology of colors…why we make the choices we do.

]]><![CDATA[Add 22q to the newborn screening Panel]]>Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:33:19 -0800http://www.insideemilyshead.com/3/post/2012/01/add-22q-to-the-newborn-screening-panel.htmlThe Dempster Family Foundation has taken up the charge to get 22Q added to the newborn screening panel, This $6 test will determine if children have the 2nd most common genetic anomaly after Down Syndrome:22Q.
For those of you who do not know, My son was diagnosed with 22q because of his facial structure (wide set eyes, low ears and thin lips). Because 22Q is also the 2nd most common cause of infant heart problems, his blood oxygen problems were determined to be heart related instead of lung related. Perhaps if he had had this screening immediately, or if it had been part of my amnio, Aidan would have had the neccesary heart surgery sooner and spent less days in the NICU. This test could save thousands of children's lives and identify thousands more for Early Intervention Services. Please join us in asking Washington to add 22Q to the Newborn Screenings! ]]><![CDATA[Involved Exceptional Parents' Day (IEP Day)]]>Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:26:43 -0800http://www.insideemilyshead.com/3/post/2012/01/involved-exceptional-parents-day-iep-day.htmlI am part of a committee that puts together an awesome day of training for the parents of children with special needs. Check out www.iepday.org for all the deatils. This year we feature Had To Be Productions Play Not Just Ramps as a keynote, a strand in spanish and a strand about teens transitioning to adulthood. There will also be an exceptional resource fair and a networking lunch! Hope to see you there! ]]><![CDATA[Cinderella Story]]>Tue, 06 Sep 2011 22:30:12 -0800http://www.insideemilyshead.com/3/post/2011/09/cinderella-story.htmlWhat  a blast! Rachel Ackerly of Cecily's Closet called me for another room for Cecily's Closet. This room was a partnership with UPS. The UPS team put together a beautiful bedding set and many designer touches, and a UPS employee and her Dad installed new flooring. Mike from PaintGreen busted out a great paint job and I stepped in to do a mural based on the little girl's love of Cinderella. As usual, this was so much fun and I recommend you go to the Cecily's Closet site and check out the video of the reveal!
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