Wall Stickers: The coolest playroom of them all!

When I first walked into my husbands house I immediately nicknamed it the museum. Lots of white walls, minimal furniture, minimal photos, as in 1, minimal everything. Yes he is indeed a minimalist Architect! After 8 weeks of dating I officially moved in. Slowly I increased the number of photos around the house and we even bought a few more pieces of furniture for more stuff to be put in and for more photo frames to be placed on. Then we got a dog, got married and then we had a baby. Without a doubt, the architect’s museum house has now well and truly become a home.

When we decided to turn our single garage into a kids rumpus room I was beyond excited. Finally, I thought, I can get my hands on one room in the house and go nuts on the decorating. Turned out hubby had other ideas. You see, remember all those white walls I mentioned? Well it seems my darling husband is allergic to coloured paint. So painting the rumpus room was a no go. I should have known, we had the same argument over the nursery.

Instead around the house hubby has caved and nailed holes in the wall for canvas photos.

So after the paint dream was yet again squashed I decided to turn on my negotiating skills. Wall Stickers I thought! Fun, removable, changeable, perfect for a kids play room and perfect for the architect who I’m sure deep down misses his museum. (Not that he’d give us up for anything!)

Hmmm, which wall stickers shall we choose?!

So after I did a review on Bright Star Kids great name labels, I mentioned that I’d be back on their website later in the year to choose some wall stickers. They very generously offered me a discount to try the wall stickers out so I could then tell you all about them!

I already had my eye on the one’s I was thinking but decided to peruse the website again just to make sure. There are so many to choose from, some lovely and girly, some perfect for the boys, but I needed something in between. While it’s just Sophie’s playroom at the moment, when we decide to have another baby, you never know we may have a boy and I didn’t want him to be stuck hanging out in a fairy playroom because his mummy went nuts on the girly stuff!

YAY! My wall stickers are here!

I wanted something fun, funky and colourful. And that’s exactly what I found with the gorgeous Polka Dots. I chose the bright colours pack for the playroom, but they also come in beautiful pastel colours too. So I hopped on the website last Monday to place my order. Once again the online ordering system is easy peasy. And on Wednesday, yes Wednesday our wall stickers arrived!! Clearly my excitement was contagious as you can see Sophie in the pic when I showed her when they arrived!

I was itching to put them up straight away but we didn’t have the toy storage furniture yet. But as soon as we got home from Ikea on Saturday and hubby had put all the furniture together and Sophie was tucked up in bed, I was straight into the stickers! They were so easy to apply. To be honest I was a little nervous about things like air bubbles but as soon as I’d applied the first, I was away. The stickers themselves feel lovely, they’re like a fabric, and you just smooth down as you go.

The finished product!

We opted for the random squiggly line look as you can see and we’re so happy with the results. They look great on the white wall and match in perfectly with the colourful Ikea toy tubs! Apart from the pink car and tea set, this playroom could definitely be for a girl or a boy. Exactly what we wanted!

Matching height chart!

I also purchased a matching height chart for when Sophie is a bit older, or will stand still for more than 2 seconds! I highly recommend reading the instructions before putting it up, it made it a lot easier. And you’ll definitely need 2 of you. I’m blaming the slight crookedness of our’s on my impatience to get it done after a long day and it was getting late! But once again, it felt lovely, not cheap and sticky and it comes with these gorgeous little height markers so you don’t have to draw on your walls or doors. We used the height markers to position the chart as recommended and when we removed them, not one bit of paint came off the door. (A relief as I had assured hubby no paint would be damaged in the making of the playroom!)

So there you have it folks, Sophie’s funky playroom. By far the coolest room in the house! Head HERE to Bright Star Kids to check out all their awesome stuff for yourself!

Disclosure: I received the wall stickers at a discounted rate thanks to Bright Star Kids. No financial payment was offered nor accepted for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.

The downfalls of blogging.

When I was pregnant I knew once bub came along that my time would no longer be my own. It would be devoted to her and everything else would come second. Including this blog. Which probably came about 100th on the list after washing, cleaning, oh and trying to have a shower. As Sophie got into a routine things became a little easier and I tried to update this blog as much as I could.  The problem then wasn’t only just finding the time, it was finding some brain cells to string an intelligent sentence together.

In the beginning, this blog was for me. A place to vent, whinge and just crap on with whatever I liked. As more people started to read it, I also thought about the readers when blogging and tried to write about topics that pepole could relate to.

I’m guilty of being sarcastic, and having a sense of humour, which led to my Supermodel post. There are many many comments that I have never published on that post, because they are rude and offensive. How dare someone think they can visit my blog, MY BLOG and call me names and carry on. I’m terribly sorry but it is not my problem that you don’t have a sense of humour. I even thought about turning Puff Pieces off and crawling under a rock where there was no Internet connection.

Then I recently received a comment on a random post from a man who didn’t appreciate some spelling mistakes I had made. I’m terribly sorry but I didn’t realise this was the online Macquarie Dictionary. It’s a blog, a very informal casual blog that unfortunately doesn’t have the time to be proof read 1000 times before being published.

And then there’s product reviews. I’ve been fortunate enough to receive 2 products to review. First were the label stickers and then the Softie’s Baby Shoes. And most recently a marketing company invited me to help with the Disney Live! show promotion for the Newcastle shows. Why would I say no to that? It’s a great opportunity for myself and my daughter to experience a live kids stage show and for some Puff Pieces readers to win tickets of their own.

I have never received any financial payment for my writing, so why not enjoy a few perks along the way. I have been approached by companies to publish stories they have written full of links to their clients but I have always refused, and will only write about products I have myself tried and tested.

The fact that 2 out of the current 3 posts on the website are about products/shows is a coincidence. Once again it all comes back to that time factor. And when you’ve just had 6 weeks with limited Internet access because we were renovating, my priorities were elsewhere rather than making sure the current posts on the blog were of an adequate variety. Throw in a one year old who has decided that one day sleep is now enough, and there goes another day, week, month flying by.

Sometimes I think I’m too sensitive to have a blog. I’m too quick to react. But then other times I think why should I bother getting upset. If you have decided to no longer read Puff Pieces, then you probably won’t be reading this. But in case you are, thanks for reading thus far. And be sure not to check in next week when I’ll have another great product review.

Right, so now that I’ve used the washing up time to write this I better go and at least have a shower.

Disney Live!

It wasn’t that long ago that I was borrowing my niece so I had an excuse to go and see the wonderful Disney on Ice show, Princess Wishes! Now just a couple of years later I have my own little excuse, I mean daughter, to take along to all things kiddie, because let’s face it, us adults really do enjoy all the kids stuff just as much as them, if not more!

So when I was approached through this blog to jump on the latest Disney show promo bandwagon, I was of course tickled pink!

And this just isn’t any old Disney stage show. No siree, this is Disney Live! Mickey’s Music Festival!

The whole Disney Live gang!

Mickey Mouse and his band of friends, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy, will perform in the musical extravaganza these summer holidays, and the show is coming to Newcastle! Joined by Disney favourites, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story, this fun-filled concert experience will entertain the whole family!

Disney hits are remixed to the hottest sounds of today featuring hip hop, pop, swing, reggae, rock, country and much more! The line up of performers including, Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy, Ariel, Sebastian and Ursula; Jasmine, Aladdin and Genie, Woody, Buzz and Jessie are among the more than 25 Disney stars featured in this jam session!

You won’t be able resist dancing, singing, playing your air-guitar and laughing with this band of characters!

To get your foot tapping, check out the video below!

This awesome show will hit the Newcastle Entertainment Centre on January 17-18. Tickets are already on sale through Ticketek. Follow the link HERE.

And just to top it all off, Puff Pieces will have 4 tickets, yes 4 tickets to give away to one of the Newcastle shows! Stay tuned…!