just your typical Saturday afternoon dance-off…
Monthly Archives: January 2015
i work out
just wait for it, it’s toward the end of this fiasco… he hits slow motion and it literally knocks your socks off – truthfully.
BOOM> he’s sexy and he knows it. Slow Motion before the iPhone 6 people.
pottery barn inspo
I love Pottery Barn Kids. I don’t really know why. Some of the stuff is just so effing expensive it doesn’t even make sense. But all the bedrooms are super matchy-matchy and freaking adorable. I wanted that for my girls but at like a Walmart price point.
So cute, right? It’s been finished for like 6 months and no one has slept in here yet!
Money well spent!!!
So this was O’s room and had a lot of stuff in it originally. I made these little side lamps before O showed up. They were old Pier 1 side lamps and I just bought new shades and some boa’s and stuck them around the rims.
When O got a little older I saw all these precious DIY dress-up cabinets on Pinterest and just had to have one.
I could totally see it, all the little dress-up clothes hanging on little tiny hangers and looking so freaking cute. Well guess what – as you can see from the image below we just shove all those pretty little outfits in the door and close it. O never hung her clothes up and so not only did I have clothes everywhere but she would be running around with hangers too – uhhhh helllo dangerous!
This was my moms dresser as a baby so it had some sentimental value. I spray painted this since it wasn’t real wood and glued fabric to the door because it was cracked. I also got the butterfly knobs from Target.
I got this bookshelf from my mom also. I painted it and backed it with the same fabric as the dresser.
O’s room was Mauve but I repainted it this candy pink color to match the bedding I ordered from Pottery Barn. I got the cheap last season bedding but it worked out for me anyway because I really liked it and it coordinated with the monogrammed pillows I wanted.
Always wanting to help, unless it cleaning up her own toys, clothes, etc, etc and then she wants nothing to do with it.
Love Love Love this sign we got from a burnt down barn. It was a charity event and I just haaaaaaaad to have it.
O’s aunt made that wreath from pink tissue paper for my front door when I had my baby shower. It’s soooo pretty!
This toy box was my dads growing up and I sanded the weird sketchy clowns off it and painted it 6 million times with that Martha Stewart Glitter paint. You can’t even see the glitter, total waste of time.
It is also filled to the brim with small $5 bribes. It typically costs about $5 to peacefully grocery shop with O, and it is so worth it. I would gladly pay double that to peacefully do anything with W but we haven’t reached that bridge yet. Apparently her patience and cooperation is priceless.
Found these two on Craig’s list. Luckily C went with me to pick them up for one because they weighed like a million pounds each and for two you never know what kind of sketch ball is waiting to chop you up into tiny little pieces off craigslist. SO always bring someone with you!
And don’t be scared to turn the sale down either! Unlike me who bought broken $10 packnplay with baby vomit inside and actually spent $20 because the crazy woman didn’t have any change. My fault for not bringing exact change, I will admit – but ewww so gross for not cleaning your baby puke up before you sold your packnplay! I mean seriously have some dignity people!!!!
Anyway. I painted and distressed these two and I love how they turned out. I was too impatient to order that Annie Sloan chalk paint so I used the Americana from Home Depot. Boy that is some thick stuff. We shall see how it holds up. I guess the good part about them being distressed is that scratches won’t matter???
wild nursery
Remember how I said I went through a psychotic pregnancy paint spree?
Well, I wasn’t kidding. I wanted to do something really wild with the baby nursery. This was the first of the projects I stared and I must have been about 5 months preg because I wanted it gender neutral.
I wanted to use stuff I already had on hand and since this room was very jungle-ish already I decided to go with it. This room was really just a catch-all for all the misfit furniture that did’t belong anywhere else in the house.
We had 2 large artificial palm trees, huge Pier 1 metal mother and baby giraffe statues and a queen size bed.
Jungle it is. I went with animal prints. Giraffe’s – obviously and Zebra.
My little helper.I taped and painted the walls a base color for my animal prints.
always in our underwear in this house, except me. I wear clothes all the time.
Boom. That is trippy, right? I freehand taped all the spots. C said it doesn;t look like Giraffe colors but I thought it did.
Got this little guy at a Kids Nearly New sale for $15! Sometimes it does pay to be late to everything! Nobody wants to pack this back up in their car after a long day at the yard sale!
so niiiiice.
we went back and forth with baby W’s name forevvvveeeeer. I got antsy and started painting random names anyway.
Got all the letters from Michael’s. I was so freaking mad too because I went like three different times for the letter E. I hand painted all the letters too. I liked the Carters sheet and blanket set Jungle Jill – or something, I can’t remember the name exactly but pretty sure it was that. I don’t buy the whole bedding shebang since babies aren’t supposed to have anything in the crib. But I got the sheet, the baby blanket (the super soft one not the quilt) and a wall sticker and plaque. The plaque was dumb and it was a total waste and the sticker was kind of lame too but oh well. I ended up coordinating the baby name, letters to the sticker.
Oh, yea – in case you didn’t notice we went with a different name. No matter! I love painting apparently!
I made like 60 thousand holes in the wall trying to get these letters hung. Thanks to my handy laser level the look pretty damn close to level. I had them on the giraffe wall but was scared they would fall off the wall in the middle of the night and hit the baby so I relocated them to above the window.
Here is the zebra wall. This was so annoying. Can you see the face? You either do or you don’t. If you don’t just say you do okay? Never painting this room again EVER.
I had the white crib against the zebra side but my mother said it would scare the baby. And I had bought hot pink frames and wanted to hang them on that side specifically so I moved everything all around and put the crib in the giraffe side.
Hopefully W stays in the crib until she is like 5. But I bought her a bed anyway and put it in O’s room. Once she moves out of here this will be a guest room. Cuz we have guests over like all the time. NOT.
go bold with hallway stripes
the decision There was a time in my life around 6-9 months pregnant with my second child where I decided I wanted to paint my whole house. Call it cabin fever, or nesting, or pretty much psychotic. But basically I went bat … Continue reading
interpretation
I love stories about the funny shit kids do.
Yesterday one of my co-workers was showing me a video of his grandkids singing him happy birthday. Three pretty girls cute as buttons singing away, I don’t recall exact ages but an infant, a four year old and maybe it was a seven year old. Anyway they sing happy birthday and the four year old leans over to the baby and just blows in her face! Of course I busted out laughing and said “what did she do that for??” and my co-worker responds with “oh, she’s breath feeding her”. Apparently she blows in the babies face and thinks she is breast feeding! I love it!. That poor baby is probably like WTF?!
Funny thing is, this story jogged my ever foggy brain and I recalled a similar situation. I searched my computer and found the video I had of O just a couple months over two and her interpretation of me pumping.
I don’t want to post the video because, well let’s face it – she will probably be super-mega famous one day and I don’t want her to hate me for the paparazzi getting a hold of a video of her in the bath as a toddler with her business all showing. So here is a harmless pic of her “pumping”.
What the H E double hockey sticks, right? Probably better that I didn’t post the video because I’m all snorting and laughing like “What are you doing?” and she’s all cool like, “duhhhh mommy – I’m pumping with my bungee.”
HAH. Kids.
terrible twos
W is so cool. Not gonna lie, she’s a little bit too much edgy right now (sweet Miss USA quote btw!). She’s got teeth busting through every which way and a diaper rash that just won’t quit. Between a lactose intolerance and creeping up on the terrible two’s she’s basically a ticking time bomb. I’m like scared of her. Not scared of her, so much as scared to leave the house with her.
She is the wild one; no patience, table dancing, talking back, all the normal terrible two aspects. Here is her and the dog sitting on the kitchen table watching TV. Because that’s normal.
playroom
Once upon a time I had a fancy dining room.
It had beautiful beaded curtains and a wall with a bunch of lovely black and white photos and a pretty bar table that would collect large quantities of dust.
Then came baby O. I first relocated the beautiful beaded curtains because they posed a huge strangulation hazard. Then I had to move the bar table into the kitchen because our kitchen table was baby-face level and glass which posed a hole new set of lethal hazards.
Then my dining room sat empty. I discussed it’s playroom potential but C wasn’t convinced and we utilized our bedroom’s sitting room as the playroom. That was great until O’s second birthday when all the kids wanted to play in there and I was uncomfortable since it was technically my bedroom. That’s when I decided to hell with our fancy decor, our lives were over anyway. Might as well accept fate and be comfortable in our own house.
Then I stole C’s favorite couch from his office and convinced C’s mom (grandmom) to make pretty curtains.
Begin transformation playroom….
Oh, I mixed the steps up a bit – I did paint first. This awkward sea foam color. I had a lot left over from the upstairs hallway so I tried to use what I had without having to buy new.
I didn’t like the way it looked like a kindercare so I painted over it wit another color I had – and I hate cutting in so I taped a trim line since I did like the sea foam color.
These are the curtains from Joanne’s that Grandmom fixed up for us. I drove to two different Joanne’s for enough fabric but I really liked it. That’s the cozy couch I stole from C. That couch has seen better days. But it’s nice and low to the ground so when the girls fall off it’s no big deal.
Then I painted the black frames yellow.
I had some of those cubes with the girls toys in them but with all the bright colors I wanted something a bit more formal. I found this great armoir (<- I think I spelled that wrong) anyway, I found it on craigslist for like $100. But the guy wanted it gone asap so I got it for $50! It took forever for me to paint it.
I hate Pinterest BTW. It makes me think I can do all this crafty stuff. Then I buy all the stuff just to figure out I am not so crafty. From afar it looks good – and that is enough for me.
It did not come with that smallish child inside.
Here is the finished result. Not gonna lie – I kinda love it. I reclaimed that coffee table too. Lets see if I can insert that post – it was one of my earlier attempts at entertainment…
https://amberunraveled.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/reclaimed/
I got a little silly and painted some shelves yellow too. And found this little canvas that matched, O sings the song all the time anyway so it had some sentimental value an all (but it mostly matched). I wrapped yarn all around that letter O and then said there was NO WAY I was going to do it again so W got the shaft, as per the norm and I painted her W.
And that’s how we got our cozy playroom. I really like it, it’s functional and gets lots of hours.
handy
Merry Christmas to meeeeeeeeeeeee.
Santa brought me an automatic wine opener this year and it’s oh-so-handy.
I like how it cuts the wrapper off. I didn’t so much struggle with the cork as I did that stupid seal.
C figured it out quick because he’s just like that. My wine bottle spun around in circles until I figured out I had to hold it in one hand and the opener in the other hand. So technically the picture below of me holding it with one hand is false. Def a two hand job, but I needed to snap a picture and I only have two hands so something had to give.
and presto. It’s more fun that a manual wine opener. and lights up too. fancy!
teleworking
It has been unfortunately snowing here off and on for the past few days (weeks – whatever). It sucks really bad. Traffic is already horrendous on a normal day – add snow and you might as well stay home. Like literally. We have a steep cliff for a driveway too so the littlest dusting calls for teleworking. Not only would I likely slide back down the driveway (hill) but I would slip off the back of the parking pad, which is a cliff down to certain doom.
Anyway, days I telework the girls just basically run wild throughout the house destroying stuff. Example – right now I have about 35 stickers stuck to the kitchen floor I have to eventually peel up at some point.
I’m not sure what drives children to just destroy but I feel as though they would be setting the curtains on fire and burning couches if I let them.
Figure 1 – playroom.
I force myself not to look in there during the day. C gets so mad because I like to clean it all up at night before I go to bed. It looks so pretty all cleaned up.
