For Seller

By: Robert Meier

Cocalo has designed and manufactured crib bedding sets and nursery décor accessories since the late 1990’s. Their merchandise is available through various national retail chains, baby specialty stores, and selected internet retailers under a variety of licensed brands, including: Baby Martex, OshKosh, and Kimberly Grant. Blossoms crib bedding is one of their more popular collections from the Baby Martex line, first made available for sale in late 2004. Blossoms was clearly designed to appeal to mothers-to-be of baby girls, with its unique color combination of cranberry, soft pink, and sage. Normally selling for less than $200 for a four-piece set, it appears reasonably priced as compared to competing brands of crib bedding of similar quality and design.

Blossoms crib bedding is normally sold as a four-piece set, consisting of a lightweight embroidered blanket, crib skirt, four-sided bumper, and fitted floral crib sheet. Moms should be pleased to see that Cocalo sells this pattern in the four-piece set. Cocalo, following the lead of other manufacturers, is increasingly introducing new patterns in six-piece sets which include a diaper stacker and valance. The smaller sets, combined with the availability of the other items as separate accessories, provides the consumer with the most flexibility. Although most of the crib set pieces are not available for separate purchase, it is possible to get extra fitted sheets at most locations, a common request of many consumers of these crib bedding sets.

A modest selection of nursery décor accessories are also available, including: musical mobile, lamp shade, sherpa blankets, wall hangings, wall border, pillows, valances, and diaper stacker. While the Blossoms collection is dominated by colors in the deep pink family, amateur decorators should give serious consideration to using other colors for the walls, to avoid the risk of having the wall colors wash out the colors of the bedding itself. I have had a professional interior designer recommend two possibilities - a pale yellow and a soft olive - each of which provide a very effective "stage" on which to display the beautiful colors of this collection.

Cocalo has done more than enough quality-wise to justify the price of this collection. I confess to having a strong personal preference for patterned fabrics that are woven, not printed. In woven fabrics, differently dyed or colored threads are woven together in a manner to create the desired pattern. Contrast this with printed fabrics, where a pattern is imprinted on the surface of a solid colored fabric. Woven fabrics are superior to, and more expensive than, printed fabrics, being more vibrant, durable, and color-fast. I was very impressed to see that all of the various plaid and striped fabrics used in Blossoms are of the higher quality woven variety.

Blossoms communicates its floral theme through embroidered appliqués. Using nearly a dozen different fabric patterns and surprisingly intricate embroidery, a variety of garden plants and creatures are displayed on the crib blanket and bumper. These carry over onto many of the coordinating accessories. I examined the embroidery very closely and found it to have been very well done for merchandise at this price point. In particular, I saw no "bleed through" of the appliquéd fabrics beyond the embroidery stitches, a coloring outside the lines appearance that I have seen in other similarly priced merchandise.

Robert Meier is President of Baby Supermall, an online retailer of