Namely co Little Dreamers Blog Series - Behind the scenes with Erin

 

Introducing gorgeous Erin from @plantiful.life.of.erin

 

I’m Erin Bacchi, an artist, graphic designer and mama on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. Art has always been my favourite pastime, ever since I could hold a paintbrush. Growing up in a small town, I spent my days creating colourful projects with my trusty tool kit of pencils, crayons, paints & hobby glue. For the past 12 years I’ve worked as a graphic designer for agencies on the Sunshine Coast, London, Sydney and while freelancing as I travelled the world throughout my 20’s. After having my little guy I decided to use art as my creative outlet, and that’s when my little art business began to grow. 

I absolutely love being a mum, it’s the most special and heart warming job in the world. Through my little guy, I’m forever growing and evolving as he teaches me to be patient and live in the present moment. Running my art business is a flexible job I can do around mum life, you’ll often find me packing orders and working on my business late of an evening after Elijah goes to bed.  

 

I think the key to creating a stylish yet functional kids bedroom is having a great storage system. Elijah’s room doubles as his play space, so my aim was to create a calm and minimal space from the outside - while keeping his loud and colourful toys, puzzles and games put away in his cabinets and in tubs that roll away under his bed. This way we can learn, play and engage all day and then when it comes time to rest, everything is easy to pack away to create the calm space again. For a busy little toddler this system is working really well for us. 

 

 Choosing a colour scheme and sticking to it ensures consistency with the tones throughout a room. When there are too many items on display a room can appear cluttered and messy, so I try to keep decor items to a minimum. When we convert Elijah’s room back to a calm space of an evening, the busy, loud and colourful items go away and left on display we keep a couple of basic, neutral coloured toys and a reading corner - this ensures there’s no overstimulating toys to distract from rest time. As for the rest of the house, I feel less is more and this ideology contributes to keeping a calm and tranquil space. These days our minds are forever so busy with all that goes on with our day to day lives, if we live in a space that surrounds us with clutter in a busy environment I feel it’s much more difficult to switch off an unwind. When styling, always remember ‘less is more’. 

I think up-cycling or creating your own decor can save money, if you can find that little piece of extra time to do them. For example I picked up a few skate board decks and a couple of sample pots of paint at Bunnings and within a morning had some skateboard deck wall art for Elijah’s room. Painting vases is also an easy and effective DIY project for kids rooms or around the house. I also rely on my Cricut joy to be able to create DIY labels, stencils, shirt decals, and fun cut outs for craft projects. 

 

Some of my artwork breathes boho and coastal luxe, where other designs depict a hint of Australiana. I like to create versatile artworks that will work well styled in a living space, bedroom, office or children’s bedroom. However my Dino prints I created specifically for little boys rooms as when starting out I was really struggling to find cute decor for little boys. I hope to expand on my children’s collections. 

 

I change Elijah’s room themes around quite often so I don’t have one favourite print to style in particular. I like to paint new pieces for his room as I restyle. When we moved into our new home in April 2021, I painted 3 dinosaurs for his room which I turned into prints to sell on my website. Then he started showing an interest in safari animals so we changed up some of the decor to safari theme and I painted a lion face for his wall. In his latest surf / skate culture room I created his custom DIY skate board wall art. I’m not sure what theme will be next but I love to follow his lead and continually mix up his space to match his interests. I use removable wall hooks / adhesive strips so I can easily move things around in his room when we change the theme. 

 

I think if you find a piece of decor and absolutely love it, you can plan your child’s room around it. Let that initial piece determine the colour scheme + style and then find other items to match. I love creating a mood board in canva before piecing a room together so I can make sure all of my items will work well side-by-side. With Elijah’s Dino room I painted his dinosaur art first and worked the room around that finding other dinosaur themed pieces of decor. For his safari theme room we found a large giraffe toy as a starting piece and then planned the rest around that item. Then for his latest surf/skate room we found a doona cover that I fell in love with, and styled his room to match. 

 

What is on your current NamelyCo Wishlist?

Next on my Namely Co Wishlist is an Alphabet Jumper and matching beanie to take us into winter feeling super snug and warm. 

  

 

Shop Erins beautiful range of prints at:

https://www.plantifullifeoferin.com/

Use code NAMELY15 for a sneaky 15% off