Easter Tablescape

I was in a very pink and gingham mood this Easter. In a house with five boys, I'm always looking for an excuse to incorporate the color pink. 

Thanksgiving Tablescape

Now this is the part of Thanksgiving I am on board with.

We hosted the feast this year, so naturally, I made place cards and put together silver and gold place settings for the table.

String Art World Map

I have a knack for picking the busiest, most chaotic times for big projects. Somebody explain to me why I do this.

I had the vision to make a string art world map a year and a half ago when we finished our basement. I saved the wooden planks from another project and bought the nails and string. And then it all sat in the garage for over a year.

For some unknown reason, I decided to finally tackle the project during the month of December while the craziness of Blake's birthday and Christmas prep was swirling around us. 

After staining the wood and securing the planks, I printed out an enlarged map and pieced it all together. I vastly underestimated the amount of time it would take to hammer in tiny nails at each geographic turn. It took me weeks since I could only pull out the hammer while no one was napping. Once I had all of the nails in place, I ripped off the paper template and strung away with rolls and rolls of string.

I was hoping to complete the map as a birthday present for Blake but I didn't wrap it up until the following week. He beams with pride at the creation that now hangs in his room. He told his classmates about it and he brings everyone that comes to our house down to his room to show it off. 

A completed project is much more exhilarating when you get a nod of approval from your seven year old.

Wreath Woes

Ever since I painted our front door black, it heats up like crazy in the afternoon sun pouring in from the south. Last Christmas, my beloved cranberry wreath completely melted and warped. 

To replace the cranberries, I crafted a wreath made from cinnamon sticks. It smelled divine. 

It never crossed my mind that the sun might damage the cinnamon stick wreath too. A couple of days after hanging it up, I started hearing a sporadic plop, plop...plop. I could not figure out what the noise was for the longest time. Until I opened the front door and found this:

The sun melted the hot glue and good chunk of the wreath was lying on the ground. I re-glued all of the cinnamon sticks back on with gorilla glue, and the exact same thing happened. Plop, plop, plop.

When I pulled out my Christmas decorations this year, I sighed when I came across the cinnamon stick wreath. I didn't even attempt to hang it up. Maybe next year I'll find it a new home.

Well That Mantle Sure Filled Up Fast

Every time I glance at our fireplace, I am in awe of how many stockings are hanging up. When did our family grow large enough to fill the whole mantle?

I had to make some new letters this year because I couldn't find an "F" anywhere to match the letters I used in years past.

This new little bundle of joy under our tree was worth the switch in stocking letters, even if I was partial to the originals.

There's nothing like a sleeping baby with some bokeh in the background.

Canvas Alternative Ikea Hack

I had a vision of hanging large, square prints of our boys for years.

I scoured canvas printing companies, but even with coupons or Black Friday deals, they were still very expensive. Especially for prints of young children who change from year to year.

After letting the idea of canvas prints simmer in my mind, I stumbled upon the perfect alternative while walking through Ikea last fall.

Since almost every visitor that comes to our home asks me about the prints that hang in our family room, I thought I'd share my simple alternative.

Plus, I patted myself on the back a little bit for coming up with the idea on my own, without the use of Pinterest. That's almost unheard of these days.

My secret? Ikea Lack side tables. I spotted the 21x21 inch square tabletops and knew they would be perfect on the wall. I ditched the legs and used the pre-drilled holes on the backs as nail holes. 

I ordered high resolution 20x20 lustre prints from Nations Photo Lab. I'm really picky about quality and they always do an excellent printing job. They were having a sale right before the holidays, so I went ahead and had the images mounted on single weight matboard as well. I wanted them to have more structure and more of a finished look since they wouldn't be in frames.

For mounting, I ordered some heavy duty magnets with adhesive backing and placed one in each tabletop corner. I used tiny 1/8 inch magnet cubes to hold the prints in place. I ended up adding a tiny bit of hot glue to the back of the prints as well, just to secure them and prevent slipping.

The prints will be so easy to replace in years to come. My only problem now is that this fourth baby is going to alter my perfect arrangement of three.

Christmas Tablescape

We hosted three separate Christmas dinners in four days, which naturally led to the need for a festive tablescape.

It's much better for everyone when I'm put on decorating detail and not cooking detail.

This is the first year that we've ever stayed home for Christmas instead of traveling to our families. Since I've never hosted before, I don't have any holiday-specific dishes. But I really like the simplicity of my white beaded china. So, I just fancied it up a bit by adding some silver chargers. With a few touches of burlap, candles, fresh greenery and pomegranates, we had ourselves a festive little tablescape.

I swapped the names out for each round of company and washed and repurposed everything else.

There are a lot of aspects of Christmas preparation that I don't particularly enjoy (namely, shopping). But I was giddy as I set and re-set this table. I may even let it carry over to our New Year's Eve dinner.

The Waiting Game

Every day now, I wake up with this panic that today could be my last day of "freedom" before the baby comes.

And because of that, my energy is through the roof.

I'm running circles around Troy who keeps reminding me that I should be taking it easy, but I feel like these are my last days to get any remaining projects done before I'm nursing a newborn around the clock and simultaneously taking care of a five and three year old.

It took me all week to put the furniture back and hang everything on the walls after our massive painting job was finished. And places that I thought were clean needed to be deep cleaned again and all the windows needed to be washed. But I couldn't stop there. I had to sew/paint curtains that flowed with the new wall color, naturally.

Here's a sneak peek.

And in between conference sessions and hosting a couple of different groups of friends over the weekend, I deemed it necessary to completely clean out our garage. Because when will I find the time to do that once the baby is here? I think Troy wanted to stifle my insane energy at that point instead of being disturbed from his nap to help me out of guilt.

I'm feeling a little sense of relief now that our house is mostly put back together. The schedule for the basement is; Monday-paint walls, Tuesday-tub surround, Wednesday-tile bathroom floor, Thursday-carpet goes in. So, we're getting there. And hopefully we'll get our kitchen cabinet fronts and backsplash up in the next few days as well.

I'm sure I'll invent approximately 16 other projects that need be done in the meantime as well.

Since I'm not feeling super miserable, I'm actually grateful for this little waiting game and each day of productivity I'm rewarded with at this point.

Thank you, baby, for staying put. I'm sure all of this extra exertion will eventually catch up with me, but the baby does have to come out at some point, right?

New Method of Creativity

While we were in Hawaii, Blake developed a love for drawing and coloring and linking together sheet after sheet of completed artwork. Since his grandparents are only living there temporarily, they don't have a big supply of toys. But I kind of loved that it forced Blake to be more creative with the time we had indoors.

His affinity for all things art has only grown since then. 

I put together a little kit of supplies for him and he uses it every single day. Most days, the items are used all day long. Even if he's watching a show, he'll pause it to draw a picture of what he sees; shields, sailboats, patterns, and one day he replicated an entire game.

Now, in addition to building machines, he writes and illustrates books about machines. Come to think of it, his love for building machines originated the last time we visited Hawaii. There must be something in the air there that sparks creativity (and possibly the lack of toys).

Almost every Thursday morning since Blake was a baby, we have gone to storytime at the library. But throughout the year, they have weeks off here and there between sessions. When Blake learned that there was going to be a lapse, he immediately started brainstorming ideas about having storytime at our house in lieu of the library.

He was so passionate about all of the intricate details that I could not say no. He planned out the entire morning from top to bottom. And he used his newfound creative skills to craft individual invitations.

He invited a few friends from the neighborhood that we usually see at library storytime. I wish I could have captured how much his face was glowing as we hand delivered them.

Then, he came up with the lesson plan all on his own. He gathered his favorite books and thought of all the movement activities. He had the materials gathered days in advance. All he talked about for the week leading up to storytime was how many days were left until the big event.

Minus a minor bumping into each other incident during one of the movement songs, storytime at Blake's house was a hit. 

Valentine-ing

When I was growing up, my mom always made homemade Valentines with us.

I've wanted to continue the tradition because a) I like how meaningful it is b) it creates lasting memories (I still remember the year confetti was placed in each individual card, and the first time my mom let me use her embossing gun) and c) I obviously enjoy projects like this. Maybe since I have all boys they won't want to make Valentines with me forever, but I'm soaking up their enthusiasm while they're still young and willing to help.

We settled on monster pencils this year. I can't take credit for the idea (thanks Pinterest for guiding me here), but we had to add our own tags and washi tape of course.

Blake diligently signed each one.

We also carried out our tradition of making jello hearts. The jello boxes sat in our pantry for over a week taunting the boys. So, they were pretty elated when Valentine's Day finally arrived for the sole purpose of cutting out those hearts.

Happy Valentine's Day!