Totoro Nursery Theme

We've been pondering the nursery theme for a few weeks as Lee finished up the closet and we finished painting the room (pale yellow). Because of my penchant of creating costumes of actual characters (Tali, Harley Quinn) rather than concepts (disco vampire, zombie banana) I wanted a theme that included actual characters. It has the added benefit of style consistency in case anyone else in our family wanted to help with the theme. Stitch from Lilo and Stitch still looks recognizably like Stitch regardless of which store it's bought from; safari animals may run the gamut of styles from cartoonish to realistic.

At first, I was drawn to a some sort of Disney theme, just not the princess ones. As much as I loved watching Little Mermaid, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, etc., I disagree with the over-princessalization being taught to girls and I don't want to start a baby on that stuff. And I'm not all that fond of too much pink. Then I was drawn to a Winnie the Pooh theme - this idea is so popular that Babies R Us has it as its own nursery theme category. Lee was mostly fine with it except that he felt that the Disney treatment of a classic book made it seem too commercial.

I noodled around the internet for some more ideas but ultimately, it was still Disney that provided the payoff. Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio headed by director Hayao Miyazaki. Disney licensed the rights to distribute their films in the US. My Neighbor Totoro, one of their earlier films, tells the story of two young girls befriending the wood spirits near their country home. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. Here's the trailer:



Since Disney is one of the strongest merchandising companies in existence, there are Totoro themed items that can be bought in the US. However, most of these items are plushes and toys, not quite all the paraphernalia needed to outfit/decorate a nursery. Wall decals are all the rage for their ease of application. We'll probably make our own Totoro decals from acrylic paint and contact paper. I've found a seller in Japan with some Totoro-related fabric type things (rugs, Japan-sized bedding, towels) but they're expensive to ship here so I'll probably only get a few key items, perhaps a rug and a door hanging that can count as curtains. Other fabric-based items can be Totoro'd via printed iron-ons. I'll probably leave the bedding as something that's just generically forest-themed or colored because I'm not sure I feel like sewing bedsheets even if I did find Totoro cotton fabric.

Besides the charm of the characters and the story, the aspect that appeals to me about a Totoro nursery is that we get to craft our own decorations. There are a few other Totoro-themed nurseries in internet-space where I'm sure we'll get some great ideas. I can't wait to get started!