organization {toys}

after christmas (also known as the day our house was taken over by toys), it didn't take us long to figure out we had to do something to regain control of our den. since we don't have a playroom or a bonus room or any of those toy-collecting rooms, we had to make our main living space fun for coleman, while bearable for the rest of us.

one thing that was a issue was our lack of space. we have a really large den but it's already pretty full of furniture. after some brainstorming, i came up with the idea to purchase one of IKEA's expedit bookshelves that is only one cube wide and turn it on it's side. it fits perfectly under a railing that separates our breakfast nook from the den. i purchased 5 fabric bins from Target to fill the cubes.

 this system has some really great perks...
1) the five compartments allow for categorizing toys. right now we have them divided into blocks, puzzles, balls, little people, and of course miscellaneous. i have a feeling these will be continuously revamped, which is perfectly fine!
2) it's the perfect height for coleman to access all his toys...and to put them away himself!
3) the long top serves as extra bench seating when we have a houseful of guests.
4) the piece of furniture is incredibly versatile. if it wears out its welcome in this room, it can serve as a shelf in several other rooms in our house (it's actually the same furnitue spencer has in his room now).

happy heart day {decor}

happy valentine's day everyone!

 

to recognize *heart day*, i thought i would share some photos of my current home decor. i don't go "all out" for valentine's but i do have a small decor collection, and even added a few things this year...

 

my mom made this awesome heart bouquet. i just added a little cheesy garland around the base and a heart shaped candy dish sits beside it.

 

just a cool, large red bowl that i have. i purchased these fake petals from target years ago and just have them resting in the bowl. coleman likes to play with them.

 

a new addition this year. i opened my valentine's day box to discover this heart shaped mat that i must've picked up on clearance. i happened to have a frame the right size with an outdated photo of coleman, so i swapped it out for this seasonal item. i couldn't find any heart or love patterned paper in my stash that i liked so i chose this red snowflake pattern instead.

 

in our bathroom stands this white storage unit. i opted to put our silver "love" in there this year (it's always been in the foyer in years past). i also added a "first valentine's day" frame from last year and a felt mini book that i made matt many years ago.

 

this is my favorite addition of the year. these photo easels were holding very outdated photos (as in, BEFORE coleman's birth). here's what i did...

• "love one another" print - free download from becky higgins. in photoshop, i cropped it to be a vertical 5x7, rather than horizontal.
• family photo - i opened one of our recent family photos in photoshop elements. created a duplicate layer. changed the top layer to black & white. used the eraser over the boys' shirts to reveal the color.
• subway art - free download from eighteen 25. it's formatted to 16x20 so i cropped it to fit a 5x7 canvas.

tiny tip tuesday {bottle brush}

before having a baby, i never owned a bottle brush. why would i? well, coleman hasn't had a bottle in a long while, but you will still find a bottle brush at my sink. why? because it's the best little kitchen gadget ever! ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but it's very handy. it is incredibly helpful in cleaning anything of a tall & skinny nature, such as wine or champagne glasses, pilsner-style glasses, certain vases, pitchers, etc. they are super cheap and very helpful. i recommend getting the kind that is similar to the style pictured above. some styles are less flexible.

before + after {boys' bathroom}

upstairs in our house, there is a small bathroom that used to be spencer's, but of course is now for both of the boys. when i graduated college, i lived in a one-bedroom tee-tiny apartment. there i chose to decorate the bathroom in a nautical theme. that theme has moved with me and been used in 4 different locations! it was time to say good-bye.

since this bathroom and the laundry room are both pretty small, we decided to just share a can of paint and now they are both crazy green.

the trick with this room was making it work for a toddler-to-be and a tweener boy...oh joy. you may remember that i already posted about this a little bit HERE. we chose our decor from Kohl's, from two different sets. we went with a basic striped shower curtain. we decided to use red as the accent color because it's spencer's favorite. we chose plain red rugs and white towels with a red accent stripes (pictured below) for spencer.

for coleman, we picked up some younger towels with stripes (similar to the hand towel in the photo below) and some with monkeys and other animals. the other big improvement was removing the plain mirror and installing a medicine cabinet (which spencer picked out at lowe's). we love the additional storage (which is out of reach for coleman), and it makes the room look so much nicer. the red & white trash can (not pictured), soap dispenser and toothbrush holder (in photo below) are from target.

we were a tad worried that spencer wouldn't be thrilled with all of our decisions (even though he was pretty involved in the process). but, in the end, he really liked it! i also like it and feel it will last us for several years. it's very gender and age neutral, but still lots of fun.

before + after {laundry room}

in our last house (almost five years ago), our laundry room was TINY. i mean TEE TINY. our new laundry room isn't large and luxurious, but it is definitely a step up. i try to remind myself of that if i ever get frustrated with it's size. but, anyway...

the biggest problem with this room for the first four years in our home is that the space we did have was not being maximized. i have wanted to do something about it for a long time. finally, earlier this year, we did it! and i couldn't be happier.

below you will see the before and after photos of the main washer/dryer area. obviously, the biggest visual difference is the bright green color. it's loud, but we love it! but the most important improvement was the removing of the one wire shelf and replacing it with white cabinetry. we still need to add a pole for hanging clothes to left of the cabinets. i'm also hoping to find a cute window treatment to go with our crazy green.

on the other side of this small room, is a "nook" of sorts. in the past, we just had a laundry sorter there, so it was a huge waste of space. now it contains a tall cabinet that allows for lots of organized storage! i even got some super cute (matching) containers from target. the biggest drawback is that we still need the laundry sorter so it sits in front of the cabinet and has to be rolled out of the way slightly, to get inside. it's kind of a pain, but worth it to have the extra storage space.

my ultimate goal was to find some attractive baskets or containers to put on top of all the cabinets for additional (cute) storage. however, i haven't done that yet. and on the tall cabinet, we now store a beach bag and diaper bags up there. not pretty, but functional. overall, i am 100% pleased with the room's transformation and look forward to finishing up the final things that need to be done.

photos {easter decor}

i only had a week's notice that i'd be hosting easter dinner for 10. with little time for menu planning and decorations, i stuck to easy and simple.

spencer and i made this a few years ago. it's one of my favorite easter decorations.

the dining room table. i chose teal because it coordinates well with the blue/silver that already in that room.

i used real glasses, plates and silverware, but purchased cute paper napkins from target. i added a teal peep in the dessert bowl. each setting had a little plastic egg decoration as well.

i bought these 5 vases at crate & barrel a long time ago and never did anything with them. i thought it'd make an easy, but springy centerpiece. i already had the glass marbles so i just picked up some white daisies at the grocery store.

{big plans for a little bathroom}

matt, coleman and i went to kohl's yesterday. matt wanted to go and get us some new towels. two hundred dollars later, i'm thinking...what happened to just a couple of new towels??? :)

the only rooms in our home (where we've lived a little over four years now) that are not painted are the laundry room, master bath, and the bathroom the boys share. we have done nothing with the laundry room and master bath. but the boys' bathroom does have a theme (nautical) and is decorated, just not painted. however, i've had *that* nautical bathroom for way too long. seriously. since my first apartment out of college. it's a small bathroom and wouldn't cost much to redo but we've just never bothered.

we recently purchased some cabinets for the laundry room and matt is going to paint in there before he installs them. he's been itching for a bright green room (random, i know) so i told him we could do the laundry room in that color. then i had a brilliant idea. since both rooms are small, we could just go ahead and do the boys' bathroom the same color!

so, we are at kohl's and i'm coveting this absolutely adorable kids' bathroom set. however, we need something that will work for a one-year-old AND an 11-year-old. somehow i didn't think that spencer would appreciate the splish-splash monkeys!

but, right around the corner, we find this one. even though it appears to be equally childish, we were able to work with that. we only bought the striped shower curtain and towels - none of the "sea" themed stuff. we got a few more towels that are white with a red stripe for spencer (they are much more grown up). and we went with solid red rugs. we got a few towels/washcloths from the first set for coleman because the colors of the two sets are so similar.

you will notice that there is a bright green in both, so we will paint the walls that color and stick with some red accessories (to make spencer happy) and hopefully it will be a good combination to make everyone happy!

i will definitely show photos once we've completed the transformation. oh, i need to take "before" pictures too.

p.s. - after all of that, YES, we did get some new towels for us - the original purpose of the trip. we also managed to get coleman a monkey beach towel, a monkey plate (that actually matches the bath set) and some monkey pjs that matt said he just had to have. i wonder how long this monkey thing will last.

{an *ah-ha* moment}

have you ever noticed that some things seem to jump out at you at just the right time. recently i've been very overwhelmed and saddened by the state of my scrapbook studio. i'm so lucky to have an entire room to serve as my studio/office. but it doesn't even come close to meeting my needs, and often feels like it inhibits me more than helps me (creatively speaking). anyone that's seen my room and knows how much i love it, will probably find that statement surprising.

there are two issues of which i'm well aware:

1) the room is a "crap catcher" in our house...everyone has one - it may be a drawer, a table, a corner, or in our case...an entire room. when the house needs a quick clean-up...it goes to my room. when i go shopping, the bags get dumped there. papers to file. things to organize. projects to start. projects to finish. future gifts. you name it. it's there. right now i can hardly walk in there. but even when it's clean...something isn't right. and guess what...when the floor is covered in crap, not only is hard for me to work, there is no way i can bring a curious baby in there with me...see the problem?

2) i have too much stuff. this may be sacriligious to say for most scrapbookers. but seriously, i have too much scrapbooking stuff. it's time to let go.

it's turns out that i actually have three issues....

today, i was catching up on some old posts via google reader (which deserves a separate blog post of it's own), and i came across two posts, on separate blogs that really "spoke to me".

first i ran across this post on stacy julian's blog (written earlier this week):
midweek muse on multitasking

this post made me realize that despite that my room is incredibly organized, it doesn't allow projects to flow through it! this is the quote that really hit me:
"maybe it's not organization of actual product, but organization of process and progress that could help you get more done - especially when it's stuff you really want to do!"

later, i came across this post on write.click.scrapbook:
Fit Your Space to Your Process

this just confirmed the whole concept (though the post was actually written a couple weeks earlier). timing is everything because i doubt that this post would've had much affect on me, had i not read stacy's post earlier the same day.

so, anyway... i still have a serious lack of time and a trashed room - not sure when that'll get fixed, but the thing that is making me feel warm*fuzzy inside is that at least i now have an understanding of what's wrong.

photos {studio sneak peek}

ok, here are the first "sneak peek" photos of my new scrapbook studio. i still have a long way to go (well, considering how much is done, maybe it's not that much farther). anyway...i did manage to get a lot done over the weekend, including some decorative things. i made notes on the photo if you enlarge them.