Nursery reveal

The nursery has been in use for a solid four months and it's time to share it. I don't feel like the pictures do it justice. It has a peaceful, clean feeling but the pictures seem a little cold and bare. Does that make sense? My photography skills are lacking, but please take my word for it. I do love this room. It seems that Amelia loves it too. She gets her best sleep in there and seems to sigh a breath of relief after we've been gone a few days. 

I don't close the blinds - ever- because I really want her to be able to sleep without it being pitch dark. So far it hasn't been a problem. She does wake up around 6:00 AM or so but I don't really think it's because of the light.  If I leave her to chatter to herself for a while, she usually falls back asleep. It's working out great and having the blinds open all the time makes the room feel bright and homey. 

I really love this room.

I made the mobile quickly one night when I realized that she liked to watch her bassinet mobile while falling asleep. She's the first kid we've had that has paid it any attention. It's pretty subpar, but it'll have to come down once she's sitting up anyways, so it does the job. 

(I really need to get that camera up out of her reach before she can grab it.)

• Hubby made the valence above the window. The fabric is sadly out of stock forever. I tried to get more for the crib skirt, and it was impossible. It's also a hard color to match, so it only mostly works with the rest of the room. 
• The chair cushions were redone by this Etsy seller. It wasn't cheap and took forever to come in the mail, but it looks great in the room and will work when it's not the designated nursery chair.
• The dresser is from Furniture for Less and matches the dresser in the big girls' room. Eventually it will be in their room as they get bigger and need more space. 
• The baskets under the changing station are from HomeGoods. The bottom baskets just barely fit but since we don't need to pull them out often, it hasn't been a problem. The upper baskets are where the cloth diapers are stored so they are used ... often. 
• I made the changing table mat cover. I actually made two of them, along with all of the sheets and the crib skirt. Many thanks and credit goes to my mom who helped me keep the pregnancy brain forgetfulness to a minimum with that lovely sewing machine.
• The big A on the dresser is from Hobby Lobby.The clock is from HomeGoods.

• The flag banner contains all the leftover fabric from the sheets and mat cover. I am so glad I didn't have to throw the scraps away. I'm just too cheap (I prefer the word frugal) to do that.

• I made the outside pictures using Photoshop and ordered the middle print from this Etsy shop. 
• The model in the crib is a real life baby that just happens to live in this room.
• The owl stool is an accidental prop that was left behind by a curious older sister. It's often found here or alongside the changing table. 

• The mirror is from HomeGoods.
• The lithograph print is from this website. The options seem endless and I could stare at them all day. Check it out! This print in particular is the Pride and Prejudice print.The entire picture is made up of the words from the book. If you look closely, you can actually read most of it.
• I picked up the navy blue framed cork board from Target's dollar section on a whim. I added navy blue in with the teal/turquoise, coral, and plum last minute after seeing the colors all mixed together at the best fabric shop in the world, Modern Textiles. I tell you what, I get lost in that store just dreaming about all of the possibilities. Everything is so gorgeous.

So there you have it. My hope is that this room can evolve into a little kid room, then a big kid room, and maybe even a guest room without having to be completely redone over and over. The neutral gray walls are lovely but I also know that gray won't always be so in style. There is a lot of room for her to make it her own as she gets bigger, but for now, I like it just the way it is.

Birthday Behind the Scenes

I was so all over the place planning this party. On one hand I didn't want to get caught up spending all of my time planning and decorating for a birthday party, setting the bar so high only to fall later on with other birthdays. On the other hand, this is her first birthday and I want it to be special. I tried to keep the crazy ideas to a minimum, but they still took over. 

This lovely wall of yarn and photos was super last minute. As in done within the last hour before the guests arrived. I had the photos printed and the clothespins out but no idea what I was going to do with them. I remembered this yarn from a project I did last year, and my sister came over early to help out. We felt pretty good when we saw the finished project.

My sister also decided she wanted to make the birthday banner. My "rules" were that it couldn't be age specific and couldn't say her name in it, so that we can use it again for future birthdays and different people's parties. She did fantastic! It was big, colorful, generic enough to reuse, and original. Can't wait to see it become a tradition for future birthday parties.

These streamers were a bit huge pain. I drew four different sized circles on five different colors of stock paper, and cut each one by hand. It took so long. My hands hurt, it ended up taking numerous days/nights, and I couldn't get them as perfect as I wanted. No project I do ever is easy but I did love the way they turned out. I had originally wanted to buy a circle cutter type thing but they were ridiculously expensive. $20 for one size? Yeah right. I like options... like four or five sizes. I would have paid $20 for one that had adjustable sizes. I did fold them up nicely to be used again, which makes me feel better about all the time I spent doing it.

The tablecloth idea came from google searching and just added a bit of pizzazz to an otherwise boring corner. 

I had great plans to make potato salad from scratch but then saw the deli clearance section had a big container of it for only $5. That was cheaper than the potatoes alone. I also got one of coleslaw for variety. Both hubby and I didn't feel like we had enough food, even though we did have left overs. Usually we have so much left over so we were trying to cut it a little closer. Oh well, I don't think anybody left hungry.

Okay so here is the part that makes me cringe but also smile huge. I really wanted to try working with fondant topping for cupcakes, but had no idea how to do it. My friend/cousin-in-law's wife Missy has done it enough to be an "expert" to me, so she came over to help. When she got there around noon, she found me just about having a meltdown because the cupcakes I had made had completely failed. I am not the worst baker out there, so I was caught completely off guard when they over flowed but didn't cook or stay raised. What did I do wrong?? 

Missy convinced me just take a break from baking and make more later after we made the fondant, and that is exactly what I did. They turned out perfect and it was a super easy recipe compared to the original recipe I had tried. Stick to the simple things. That's what I've learned. 

The fondant took quite a while since each piece needed so much attention and focus, but it was worth it! They were so perfect for my baby girl. The fondant is marshmallow and powdered sugar, so it didn't taste too bad either. 

Lastly, my sister said we needed to have a game to play to pass the time. She suggested bean bag toss, so she got to work with a friend of hers to make the boards with the hole in it, and I made the eight bean bags. That took some time too, but once I got going it wasn't too bad. I took a video of the "action" in the back to show them off, so feel free to watch it or just start it to see what they look like. 

It was the best idea. They drew people outside so we weren't all crowded in the house, and we got to enjoy the nice afternoon while moving around a bit before we crammed back in for cupcakes and presents. It broke up the party just perfectly. Thank you sister.

I'll post about the rest of the party later, but I wanted to get this post done first so I don't forget the detail and time that went into it. When you read this later, Josie, please know that it was worth it, but no party of yours will probably be this perfect. ;)

Want to leave a comment? Click on the title of this post and scroll to the bottom. You'll see the comment section there. Can't wait to read what you have to say!

Organize that kitchen!

Just like everyone else, I've got the urge to organize. And it is bad. So I will show you how hard I've been working on my kitchen. I don't have good before pictures but I am so excited about the after pictures that I will proudly show them off.

Here's my one before picture. Well, really it isn't "before" because I took them all out of the cabinet and put them on the table. This is all of my tupperware that is getting the boot. I plan on replacing all of it with glass containers to avoid all the junk that plastic gives off like BPA and other chemicals. I'm finally jumping on this bandwagon...

I like being environmentally friendly and recycling and all of that, but I get so sick of the hype of it all that sometimes I just throw in the towel. If you remember, I was a vegetarian for about two months before I got pregnant with Josie. I did this because of everything I was hearing about the meat industry and what was happening to the animals and even more so because I found that my body did just fine without meat. I was no longer ignorant (sometimes that's not a good thing). But pregnancy won in the end, and my cravings and general appetite required it. 

I am all about trying new things and finding what works best. I try so hard to balance what is good for this beautfiul earth that God gave us and what works for us because if I tried to be the "greenest girl in the world" I'd be completely overwhelmed living in a hole in the ground; I'm sure of it.

Baby steps.

So here is my cabinet that had been packed full with tupperware that was worn out and obviously in need of replacement. I purchased some Pyrex bowls (a set of nine bowls with lids) and another set of three that were smaller but still matched). These glass containers take up about the same amount of space, but I don't have (or probably need) as many of them. I'm sure I'll add to my collection eventually but they are expensive (and way longer lasting of course) so it will be a work in progress.

Aren't they pretty?

 The next thing I'd been wanting to do was use the space on the inside of the cabinets. I keep seeing this brilliant idea of putting hooks up and using that space for more than just a door. Who'd have thought? So I found some cheap hooks at Target and put them up in two different cabinets. Voila!

This added a lot of room to one of our very few drawers that was poring out and getting jammed shut all the time. Pictures of that exciting update will come soon.

Then I moved on to the canned foods cabinet. If I had a before picture, you would have seen cans filling the bottom two shelves and pasta along with other random things that don't have homes filling the top shelf. I went through my canned foods and set aside everything that was expired (much to the dismay of my husband who insists that canned food cannot go bad). It left me with half of the cans left. That is so gross. But it also shows me that we don't use canned foods all that much. Why are we storing all of it then? So out it went, and it will not be replaced (until we use some more of the current-not-expired cans). 

I also added this little shelf that matches a shelf we have to separate our plates and bowls (completely made my week when I got it the first time and of course didn't fail me this time). These things work miracles. So lovely to go up vertically instead of just wasting all of that space!

I rearranged our lazy susan (Susan? Since it's a name, should it be capitalized?) which also had a lot of wasted vertical space and filled in the bottom shelf. I haven't perfected good ole Susan yet so that will have to have follow up pictures later. 

I mentioned before that hubby had added roll out shelves to the pots and pans disaster corner. Here they are:

It makes my heart go pitter patter. No joke. I actually grin like a fool when I get to take something out or put something away. I'm sure it will wear off, but I'm determined to enjoy it while it lasts.

More updates later (because you know there is more. I don't ever do something just a little bit!).

Blue bird singing in the dead of night...

Take these broken wings and learn to fly. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arrive.

What moment? The moment to shine in her fancy new costume.

Happy Halloween!

The quality isn't awesome, but you get the idea. She stayed in the costume for about 5 minutes. Good enough for me and the camera. :)

Real blue birds fly, so fly she did. I think it made it more realistic for her. I could practically hear her saying "why the heck do I look like a bird instead of a baby. You people are strange".

Oh dearie dear, you have no idea how much you will love Halloween in the years to come. I can feel it. I think I have some learning to do on that good ole' sewing machine before I'm ready for more!