I had such a nice exchange with Victoria Cramsie at PaperBoy recently, I have to share some of her wallpaper designs for boys. These papers are made by Robert Hamlin-Wright at his small factory in Norfolk, England and they’re made to order, so after you place your order it will take 4-6 weeks for it to arrive. This hand screen printed wallpaper is FSC accredited sustainable forest paper, in a nutshell this means, “Your paper has come from a forest that is managed to the highest standards to meet the social, economic, ecological, cultural and spiritual needs of present and future generations“.

Victoria’s wallpaper is geared towards boys, as you can tell, but I still liked it enough to share it here on decor8 despite how little I show kid’s design. These photos feature Victoria and her two boys, Rory and Archie, another sweet thing about homegrown companies is when family members are photographed in some of the product shots, don’t you think?

Here is what inspired Victoria’s line: “Her boys outgrew their nursery style room and needed a place that they (and their mother) could be proud of. So she thought about what made a beautiful house. A place with a few lovely, classic things. A place with designs and materials that sing. That’s filled with colors and shapes that have a sense of harmony and intrigue. That makes you feel somehow calmer, more comfortable. As if the world is really rather fine. Somewhere that might even make you smile. And she thought wouldn’t it be great if you could find designs that did this for the boys? But she couldn’t find any. She was looking for boys’ wallpaper that felt handmade, but wasn’t folksy or whimsical or twee. Something more pleasing than tacky, standard licensed wares. But affordable, too. Something classic, even iconic, but with an edge. Modern, but with room for nostalgia. Enough fun for little kids yet cool enough for bigger ones. And lovely enough to fit in with a beautiful, grown-up design scheme. Well made, slightly subversive. And funny. So she gave up looking and started to create. She liked the handmade look so she drew images by hand. The boys she asked liked ‘edgy’ images, from graffiti to slightly scary skeletons. And more classic images like pets, puppets and dinosaurs. And they responded in a surprisingly sophisticated way to color, simplicity and texture. She came up with designs that would appeal to boys from preschool to teens. Something for after the fluffy bunny stage that would see them through until they painted their bedrooms black.”

Bravo, Victoria! So many successful business are born out of frustration — you can’t find what you want out there so you create it yourself. Then you learn that so many others were in fact looking for the same thing. I guess the moral of this story is to spend less time complaining and more time doing, right? If something is lacking out there, and you are passionate and talented enough to fill it, then by golly – do it!

Congrats on your new line!

(images: paperboy)