An Ombre' Dresser

Remember when I gave myself a deadline to finish 3 projects that had been lingering in the garage for way too long?


Well, I'm happy to report that I finished one! The dresser is finally out of the garage and in Brook's room where it belongs.


Last week I dug out my paint swatches, spread them out across Brook's bed and chose one that matched perfectly to the pink in her bedspread. A quick trip to the paint store while the Mister gave the dresser a light sanding and a coat of primer, and we were in business!

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I painted the bottom drawer first, and then poured some paint into a paint tray and added a splash of white. A quick stir and I painted the next drawer. Another splash of white paint, stir, and repeat.

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It's not perfect, but I am pretty pleased with how it turned out! It was a good way to step outside of my comfort zone, which is white, white, and more white.

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Organizing Baby Things, Part 1

Babies come with a lot of stuff.


And they grow so fast - meaning almost as soon as you've organized one size of clothing, diapers, shoes, and hats suddenly overnight they have outgrown it and you are packing those things away and bringing out larger ones. It's a constant cycle.


And it's not only clothes! Babies go from swings and bouncy chairs to jolly jumpers and walkers. A highchair to a booster chair. Bottles to sippy cups, milk to solids . . . their first years seem to be a constant rotation of supplies and gear to meet their ever changing needs.


I thought I would do a series of posts sharing how I organize and store all of our baby things, and give you all of the little tips and tricks I have learned along the way!


Our first stop is Emma's dresser.

We opted for a long dresser instead of a changing table. I am still so grateful that we made that decision when buying our furniture during my first pregnancy four years ago: it has served us so well! A changing table is so limited in its use - before you know it, your toddler has become potty trained and suddenly your changing table has become a useless piece of expensive furniture and you now need to find a new place to store all of the things you had once stashed on its shelves.


Not so with a dresser. This piece can grow with Emma for the rest of her years growing up, or it can be repurposed somewhere else in our home down the line. It would make a great tv stand in our family room, or a buffet style server in the dining room. It could even function in the entryway as a place to store hats and scarves and drop our keys.


We topped the dresser with an inexpensive changing pad, and all of our diaper changing supplies are kept in the top left drawer so we can easily access everything we need without having a lot of clutter all over the top.

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This drawer holds all of her diapers ( we use disposables until she can fit into our cloth diapers, more on that later) and anything else she might need during a diaper change or getting ready for the day. I keep Vaseline, a pair of baby nail scissors, baby lotions and diaper cream along with a pack of Scentsy Newborn Nursery wax that I use in her Scentsy warmer - it smells just like baby powder! There is also a stack of baby wash cloths that I get wet and use in place of disposable baby wipes. Much softer on her sensitive little tushie and cheap too!

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The other top drawer holds all of her onesies on the far right. In the middle I have all of the hats that currently fit her at the back, and a stack of bibs at the front. It's never too early for bibs - I've learned they work great to protect her clothes from all of the dribbles and spills during feedings so I spend less time scrubbing out stains from around the neck of all of her outfits. On the left are some teeny tiny tights at the back, and in the front I cut down an instant oatmeal box to contain her tiny baby socks. Maybe not the prettiest storage solution, but I love cutting down empty food boxes to create my own drawer organizers because it's free and I am usually the only person to see the inside of my drawers anyway!

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Below her diapers I store all of her clothes, which right now consists of about a dozen newborn size sleepers and two teeny tiny newborn dresses that she wears to church on Sundays. I cannot wait until she grows big enough for pants!!! 

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Underneath her clothes are the receiving blankets. A whole drawer full of receiving blankets? Yes ma'am! These puppies are essential to me, especially during the first few months. I use them to swaddle her when she sleeps, to tuck around her in the carseat when we go out and a heavy blanket would be too warm, to drape over the carseat to keep the sun out, to lay down on the change pad to protect my white covers when I know she's had a big blowout. They make the perfect nursing covers too!

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On the right side, I keep our cloth diapers. Emma is still so small that these diapers go up to her armpits, so we are using disposables until she grows a little more. I have a mix of Fuzzibunz and Bumgenius and I cannot say enough about how much we love our cloth diapers; I will do a post in the future all about them.

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Below that is a drawer full of blankets. I also keep her crib sheets and spare change pad covers at the back.

Stay tuned for more posts on organizing all of that baby gear! Up next - the diaper bag!

Tiny Baby, TONS of Stuff

Meet baby Emma! She graced us with an early arrival on February 11th, and we have been enjoying some much needed family time for the last few weeks. Our little peanut has been a very easy baby so far and I am enjoying being a momma to a newborn once again!


Along with a new baby though, comes new stuff. A LOT of new stuff.


Which is fun! I mean, who doesn't like opening presents? And getting out all of Brook's old baby things and reminiscing has been really special. I love having pink and purple take over my house!


But I am not a clutter person folks. I have a serious aversion to too much stuff. I am famous for walking around the house with a giant garbage bag and not stopping until it is full. We regularly take truckloads of things to our local thrift store and re-use shed at the local dump. My rule is, if I haven't used it in the last 6 months or I don't LOVE it - it goes. I am pretty ruthless in the clutter department.


So to have a constant stream of gift bags, dishes full of food, cards, and flowers comes along with a wee bit of anxiety for me. I appreciate each and every gift, don't get me wrong! But I cannot believe how much "Stuff" has moved into our house along with this tiny little 6 pound bundle.


The baby swing sitting in the middle of our living room, I can handle. The playpen taking up every square inch of free space in our bedroom, it's ok. The carseat and stroller now filling my entryway, whatever. But the stack of three dozen gift bags and the mountain of tissue paper - ACK! The row of empty casserole dishes and tupperware waiting to be given back to their generous owners - drives me nuts. The piles of special momentoes that I don't have a box to put in yet...eek!


Receiving blankets and pacifiers seem to be laying on every suface in the entire house, the laundry baskets are stuffed with tiny puke stained outfits, and the garbage cans are constantly overflowing between the diapers and all of the packaging and wrapping that has come into the house along with all of the new baby gear. Add in a giant  stack of thank you notes that permanently lives on my dining room table so that I can work on them whenever I get a spare minute, and a LOT more mess and clutter from the husband who is home on parental leave and I am ready to have a heart attack wherever I look.


I crave organization in a  bad way. A few days ago I even broke down into tears over how stressed out all this extra clutter was making me. My wonderful husband knew what I needed - not a nap or a massage. Just to clean.


He took the baby from me and kept Brook entertained while I had almost two glorious hours to myself, armed with Mrs. Meyers and a broom. I cleaned my kitchen, folded laundry, and took out the garbage. As much as I like a clean organized home, I usually don't actually enjoy the process of cleaning but this day every pair of socks I matched, every crumb I swept felt like therapy. The tightness in my chest disappeared with every dish I washed, and when I was done I finally felt like myself again.


I never want cleaning or organizing to come before my children. That old poem that says

                The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow,

But children grow up as I've learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs: dust go to sleep,

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep

definitely has a point! My children will never remember if the sink was always full of dirty dishes, but they will remember the times I played with them. And the times I said I was too busy to read a story, or built a blanket fort. I want their memories to be filled with many, many more "yes" moments from their mommy than "no" ones. I don't ever want to be so consumed with the daily drudgeries of running a home that my children miss out on quality time with their mom. 

But I also feel like one of the best gifts I can give my children is a clean, organized home. Space to spread out and play, rather than a space that is crowded with too much clutter. A sofa that always has room for the whole family to crowd onto, not littered with magazines and blankets. Room to run without fear of tripping over things. Freedom to spread out, to create a mess where a mess wasn't already. To grow up with the calmness and peace that comes with being in a space that is also calm and peaceful. I also want to instill the lifeskills in them that come along with having an organized home - time management, responsibility, teamwork. 

It's a balancing act.

  I will continue to clean. I will always make time in my day to sweep the floors and sort the mail. I will still tell my daughter "Not now, honey, I am busy" sometimes when I am up to my elbows in dishwater or making dinner. But I will try to remember that sometimes, that "Not now" needs to be replaced with an "Of course!" and I will dry my hands on a dishtowel and let my frying pan sit until the dishwater has long gone cold because I am too busy playing dressup to care.

Cookies

I have decided to carry on the tradition my mom started with me of making special heart shaped cookies every February.

Growing up, we always made classic sugar cookies with pink and white icing, and topped them with cinnamon red hots. Always.

As much as I loved our tradition, I am the sort of person who is always itching to try something new! I doubt I will make the same cookies every year - I like to mix it up!

I have been scouring the internet for ideas, and have come across so many adorable cookies and techniques!



I love these stained glass looking ones

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These peanut butter cookies with chocolate hearts would be easy for little helpers 

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Or maybe classic sugar cookies with a rainbow of icing colors(although we'd skip the black)

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These are unique and oh so adorable!

And these neopolitan cookies are so pretty!

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Royal icing is always impressive

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I doubt I will attempt anything this complicated with a three year old helper, but, oh...swoon!

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Even something as simple as cereal treats look impressive when tinted pink (maybe some sprinkles thrown in for good measure)

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So many beautiful cookies . . . the options are endless! I am trying to decide which ones we will tackle this year. Hopefully this weekend is full of sprinkles and the sound of my mixer!

It Is What You Make Of It

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays. So many people see it as a holiday manufactured by card companies, but I say it is what you make of it.


As a girl, my parents always made me feel special on Valentine's Day. I  remember every year, coming home from school and KNOWING there was a special surprise waiting for me. That was more exciting to me than trading valentines at school . . . knowing all day long that when I got home, there would be something special waiting on my bed from my mom and dad.


I remember my Valentine presents more vividly than most of my Christmas presents. I think it's because Christmas presents were expected, everyone got them. And a lot of my friends got bigger and better Christmas presents than we did - my parents had four kids to buy for!


 But not all of my friends got valentine presents.


 And valentine presents play right to a little girls' heart - pink, frilly, extravagant, and oh so grown-up and romantic! To receive a heart shaped box of chocolates, all tucked into shiny foil wrappers underneath a lace doily at the age of 6 . . . swoon! It made me feel loved, special, and spoiled. I remember pulling into the driveway after school, looking up to my bedroom window and seeing a giant foil balloon bobbing away . . . waiting for me! Some years it was handfuls of heart shaped candy sprinkled and hidden all over my room. One year it was the foil balloon. Other years it was the classic box of chocolates. Every year, on my bed when I got home from school; some special token left to surprise me.

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My most special Valentine memory is the year my dad came home with flowers, not just for my mom but also for my sister and I. I don't remember what sort of bouquet my mom received, but I do remember being given a glass bowl with a floating rose inside, and how it made me feel. Thinking about it now is actually bringing tears to my eyes! My dad is my hero, and he always made the effort to treat his girls with the same care and affection that he treats our mom. . My dad treated me like a princess - he complimented me every Sunday morning when I got dressed up. Opened doors for not just my mom, but also for me. Held my arm when we walked across slippery parking lots. And he bought me flowers on Valentine's Day. He gave me those experiences of knowing what it felt like to be cherished, to be loved and truly cared for so that when it was time for me to enter the dating world I wouldn't settle for anything less. And I didn't :)

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Every year, my mom would spend an afternoon making heart shaped sugar cookies with me and my sister. We always decorated them the same way every year. Pink and white icing, and cinnamon red hots. It was our special tradition and I was always so proud to have those cookies in my lunch bag at school in the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day.

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When I got older, my mom would often make a special Valentine dinner with everything prepared in heart shapes, the table set with a lace tablecloth and candles. The first year after I got married, I invited my parents over for a candlelit dinner and served a heart shaped cake for dessert - our first married Valentine's Day and the idea of going out for a romantic dinner just the two of us never even crossed my mind. I wanted to surprise my parents and do for them what they had done for me every year.


When I think about Valentine's Day, those are the things that I remember. Those are the things that make me get excited to celebrate with my own family. Not an expectation for a fancy dinner out, an overpriced bouquet or a new piece of jewelry. Just the little things. The small gestures of love, the time taken to surprise a loved one just because you want to make them smile.


This year I am bringing back the tradition of making heart shaped cookies with my own daughter. And on February 14th when she walks into her room at the end of the day, there will be heart shaped candies sprinkled across her bed.


And we will sit down to a dinner of something heart shaped, with candles flickering and wine glasses full of juice in front of our plates. Some romantic music will be playing, and after dinner I will relax with my hands on my ever-expanding belly while I watch my husband twirl our daughter around the living room for a special Valentine's dance.


And it will be a million times better than any pair of earrings or fancy restaurant dinner could ever be.

Kitchens Past - Our First Home

When we got married, we purchased the worst house we could find just so we could have a mortgage we could afford. We paid $300 a month, and this disaster of a kitchen became home.

It's hard to tell from the photo, but the cabinets were oddly sized, homemade ones with rusting hardware. When you opened a door, the scent of curry punched you in the nostrils. The walls were painted alternating ; lime green with yellow trim, and yellow walls with lime green trim. There were white lace curtains hung from a brass rod, and brass light fixtures filled with bugs. The countertops were chipped formica, and the tap was almost stuck shut with calcium deposits. The floor was covered with burns and black marks, and the stove was harvest gold and burnt everything we tried to cook.

When we first moved in, we painted the cabinets white, got new hardware, and painted the walls blue. We covered the countertops with some cheap black plastic "refresh your countertop" gimmicky stuff. The backsplash was covered in metal flashing to make it look like stainless steel, and we bought a floor model dented stove from Home Depot with leftover wedding money.

This is the only photo I can find of that time...you can see the painted cabinets with new hardware, and the nasty floor...but not much else.

Then we purchased new laminate countertops and installed a subway tile backsplash.

And later we added some inexpensive moulding to all of the door fronts, and bought a new sink and faucet from Ikea. I can't believe that this fresh little country kitchen used to look like this!

We put the house up for sale shortly after finishing the kitchen renovations - and it sold in 2 days, for double what we had paid for it 3 years earlier! We walked away from that home feeling very proud of what we had accomplished, and itching to do it all over again.

Tried It Tuesday - Restore Wood Furniture

The other day I was sitting in the living room looking at our piano. It was badly in need of a good dusting, but I was feeling too lazy to get up and do something about it. Instead I was scrolling through my Pinterest boards with my feet up. I remembered that I had pinned a homemade furniture polish a while back, so I found it and my curiousity got the best of me; pretty soon I had the camera out and was taking photos of all the water stains and scratches on the old piano, and mixing up my oil and vinegar in a bowl with a rag.

I followed the directions, using 3 parts of oil ( I used olive oil but I believe any oil will work) and one part vinegar (I used regular white, but the instructions said it's possible to also use other vinegars like apple cider or rice wine vinegar). See that big ring at the front of the photo? Water damage from a plant pot . . .




I dipped a rag into the mixture and buffed the piano in circular motions, working from top to bottom. The husband came into the room when I was about halfway done and I excitedly made him come and watch. "Look at this! See this mark? Now watch . . . it's gone! Cool, huh?"

See that big spot? It looks like water damage - the finish is completely gone. You can also see a lot of small chips, scratches and scuffs all over the surface.

Same spot after the oil/vinegar mixture had been applied. The water damage has completely disappeared! I can still feel a different texture to the wood when I run my hand along it, but that is the only way I can find where the damage once was. It has completely blended in to the rest of the wood!





Within about 30 seconds I was back to relaxing on the couch and the husband was on his knees, buffing away at the lower portion of the piano. He said it was so my pregnant self didn't have to crawl around on the floor, but I think he was having just as much fun as I was with it!

The piano had a greasy shine to it for about 24 hours. We could see it being absorbed into the wood in dry areas, and for a few days afterward it had a blotchy appearance when the sun hit it - spots that were still shiny with oil and dry spots that had sucked it right up. I gave it a quick wipe down with regular furniture polish and it seemed to even things out and restore an overall shine.


Even after the oil has been absorbed, the piano still looks amazing! All of the scratches, scuffs, chips in the finish and even some splinters that had broken off from the bottom due to some rough moves over the years - all virtually disappeared! Obviously it hasn't filled in places where pieces of wood are missing or chipped, but the piano is a uniform color all over and looks almost like new! The wood looks glossy and healthy; it was in such rough shape that I was considering completely refinishing it or even *gasp* painting it, but now it looks so beautiful that I cannot imagine ever changing it!

The only place that I didn't have complete success was that big water ring on the top. It has faded dramatically, but is still quite visible.

 It's quite dramatic damage though, and I didn't expect that this particular spot would completely disappear. I think I will do another round or two of the oil/vinegar on the area over the coming weeks and see if I can get a little more improvement.