Good Design with Kids in Mind & the Girls of Small Fry Blog

This post and series is brought to you by one of my favorite places to shop for Kids, Land of Nod! 

I hope you are all enjoying the last few days of the good design with kids in mind series. Don't forget to enter my giveaway on instagram! 

You have a great chance to win an e-design done by me for one of your kid's spaces. It can be a kids playroom, corner in your living room, kids room, nursery etc! Just post a picture of the space you need help with and check in Friday night for the winner! Find more details over at my Instagram...

And now back to the series...

Today we are getting a small glimpse into how the girls of Small Fry live with their adorable kids. Kids are top priority to this trio but they also all have great taste so they are constantly trying to maintain organized and beautiful homes. Here are some tips on each of them are able to create good design with kids in mind. 

Emily's boys are 16 months apart and that first year was tough! Raising two babies  while running Small Fry, Bijou Market and styling on the side left her house in shambles. She quickly switched her Saturday clean-fest to daily zone cleaning when she realized that while her house was tidy, it wasn't really clean. For her to really get a deeply cleaned home, she split her house's rooms into days. Monday is the kitchen, Tuesday the bathrooms and so on. Sure, her house is never ALL clean at the same time, but it gives her peace of mind that each room is getting the proper attention. 

She also noticed that she found her self picking up the same toys, books, socks multiple times a day. Rather than go insane, she puts the clutter out of her mind until the end of the day. Using a giant woven bag she whisks through the house picking up everything that is out of place and puts it away once. 

photo by Jessica Kettle Photography

Jenna is a long time graphic designer and being a working mom left her feeling constantly guilty at the state of her house. On top of the guilt, she noticed a huge difference in the peace and happiness of her home and its inhabitants when it was clean. Rather than toil over the house, but never really getting to the level of clean she wanted, she found an inexpensive cleaning service. For $50 every two weeks her house is clean, she has more time to spend with her kids, less guilt, and a more peaceful home. She says she'd rather skip out on going out to a restaurant or not buy that cute pair of heels and have a clean home.

Aside from cleanliness, Jenna's new year's resolution was to become more organized. She says that for her that means that everything in her home has a place. Using organizational systems like bins, baskets, labeling drawers and dejunking has helped her tackle this long time goal. 

In her son's room she took the time to organize with him, educating him on where toys should go so that she sends him to tidy up, he knows where everything goes too. 

Nicole's design style is super minimal and clean. Without realizing it she picked a pretty narrow color scheme of black white and gray with pops of yellow throughout most of her home. This makes it so easy to rearrange decor and furniture! With such standard color choices, you can imagine that the realm of possibilities when shopping is large!

Outside of Small Fry, Nicole does photography as as side business. Her schedule is jam packed down to the minute and she says not being home does wonders for her home's cleanliness! She cleans her home top to bottom on Monday's and then tidies up every day in between. She also says having a play room with a closable door right off the kitchen makes clean up a breeze.

Thanks girls! And make sure you check out Small Fry. It will become one of your new daily reads. 

We just laid down this new Candy Dot rug in our new playroom and it is amazing! This rug screams, "fun"! The dots are raised which creates a fun effect to drive cars over and it's nice and soft which makes it a great rug for playing on. This rug has every color under the sun in it so it will go with almost any decor scheme and boys and girls alike will love it! 

This post and series is brought to you by one of my favorite places to shop for Kids, Land of Nod!