Stay in this super pink Barbie-inspired room at Tucson's Hotel McCoy

Two days before the first day of school, Noelle Mares’ shower started to leak — seeping into her 10-year-old daughter’s closet.

Serendipitously, Mares stayed at Hotel McCoy as she waited for her plumbing issues to be fixed. Hotel McCoy, 720 W. Silverlake Road, is often dubbed Tucson’s art hotel, filled with murals both inside and out.

Mares is known for her extravagant cakes and cookies, in which she paints cartoon characters and hyper-realistic portraits of icons like University of Arizona basketball legend Lute Olson. But her baking adventures were put on hiatus during the plumbing nightmare — so she started dabbling in murals instead.

“It was like two birds, one stone,” says Mares, who is known as Once Upon A Frosting on Instagram. “I was like, ‘Hello, can I do something please?’”

Mares got in touch with Hotel McCoy’s creative director and gave her a few mural ideas — three-dimensional foods, a Harry Potter theme or Barbie.

Barbie won.

“It was the year of ‘Barbie’ and Taylor Swift”

Walk into room 207 and you’ll see a whole lot of pink.

There’s the giant “Tucson Hotel McCoy” painting above the bed, made to look like the “Malibu Barbie” logo — replacing the logo’s palm tree with our iconic saguaro.

There’s the full-length mirror hanging on the wall, painted to look like a Barbie box — “so you can see yourself inside of it,” Mares says.

There’s the world map just like the one at Weird Barbie’s house, seen in the “Barbie” movie that took over the country last summer. Mares turned it into a globe, placing it atop a desk in the room. The pink stone wall that Mares painted is a replica of the one in Margot Robbie’s home in the film.

There are also 3D elements slightly jumping off the wall, shaped into prickly pear cacti and a luxurious purple bench. The three-dimensional pieces were made of drywall compound and they look a bit like cake frosting — a nod to Mares’ baking background. 

“I wanted the things in here to look like they were from a Barbie Dreamhouse,” Mares says. She painted clothing racks, a flower vase and a beach bag that resemble stickers stuck to the wall, just like they’d be in an actual toy Barbie Dreamhouse.

Mares saw “Barbie” in theaters three times with her daughter — then she bought the movie and played it over and over again as she painted room 207, tying in as many details from the film as possible.

“It was the year of ‘Barbie’ and Taylor Swift,” Mares says. “But I think I could have done a (Barbie-themed mural) even if there wasn’t this giant movie. I’ve always been a girlie girl, a Disney princess.”

Mares has a trunkful of Barbies from when she was a kid, saved by her mom.

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When trailers for “Barbie” were released, showing Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling decked out in neon and rollerblading through Venice Beach, Mares realized she got that same Barbie — called the Hot Skatin’ Barbie — for her seventh birthday. After scouring through her trunk of Barbies to look for the viral outfit, all she could find was a single yellow roller blade. 

“Barbie, to me, has always been more than just a doll,” Mares said on Instagram. “Out of all the '90s nostalgia I look back on in my childhood — from Saturday morning cartoons to collecting Tamagotchis to loving everything Disney — she's one of the reasons I held onto thinking I could be whatever I wanted when I grew up.

“When I was little, I would lay out all her clothes and while I was dressing her up, I would daydream about what career I would have, what my house would look like and who I would be when I grew up, through the lens of play. Now, as a grown-up and a mom, Barbie represents resilience, adaptability, a symbol of strength and creativity to me.”

Mares also hopes to show her daughter that the magic doesn’t ever have to go away. You can still watch cartoons, you can still like Barbies, you can still paint pink murals — even when you’re an adult.

“(Barbie is) not just a doll. She's a timeless reflection, mirroring the chapters of my childhood to the woman I've become today. Barbie is something I'm proud and excited that's still around for my little girl, giving her the same fun memories and ability to daydream about what she wants to be when she grows up.”

'From sculpting cakes to sculpting walls'

Mares’ love of baking really came from a love of art. When she was 6 or 7 years old, before she ever learned to bake, she’d create tiny clay versions of cake.

“I’ve always been super painty and artsy,” she says. “I would always watch cartoon shows like ‘Looney Tunes’ and Disney stuff. I would try and sketch what I watched, like ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch,’ the cartoon version.”

While the Barbie room at Hotel McCoy is her first big public piece of art, she’s painted two residential murals of Disney movies “Coco” and “Encanto,” along with a giant gingerbread house on a window in Oro Valley, complete with a portrait of Will Ferrell dressed as Buddy the Elf.

At home, Mares has transformed her daughter’s bathroom into a mermaid’s oasis, complete with those 3D frosting-like elements, like a glittering mermaid fin. 

“I really want to make wall frosting a trend,” she says.

In 2021, she turned her daughter’s “rinky-dink” loft bed into a princess’ castle tower. She posted the process on TikTok and more than 15 million people saw the video, leading to hundreds of thousands of followers. 

An Arizona Daily Star article about her baking journey hangs in the Hotel McCoy room, sitting under pink cursive words that say: “From sculpting cakes to sculpting walls.”

“Eventually, I want to get back to cakes,” she says. “But for now, I would like to explore room design and go with that further.”

Guests can request to stay in the Barbie room — since it was completed at Hotel McCoy in November, a couple has gotten engaged in the room. Mares feels honored that her room was part of the story.

“It’s just the coolest thing ever to know people are coming in (and seeing my art),” she says. “It means a lot to me.”

Mares hopes to paint a “Stranger Things”-inspired room next, complete with paintings of character Eleven’s favorite snack: Eggo waffles.

“I’m a huge over-thinker but when I can do art, I can turn my brain off,” she says. “I like taking something and making it prettier. I like refreshing things with its own sparkle — making its own sparkle come to life.”