Because the illustrator knew restraint, the soft green hits harder here. Most of the scene is misty pine and pale paper, so the little cake and its balloons read as the one warm spot on the wall. Hang it and a nursery stops feeling like a set of matching furniture and starts feeling like a story someone tells at bedtime. It works above a cot, a changing unit or a low bookcase, and it holds a narrow wall between a window and a wardrobe. Keep the things around it plain: pale wood, cream linen, a wool rug, one stoneware lamp. Don’t crowd it with bright primary-colour bunting or cartoon decals they flatten the mist and the quiet.