Ch-Ch-Changes...

This summer has been a blur of activity at our house and (hangs head in shame) I haven't taken a picture of any of it or even thought about making a record of it here until um, today. Now that school is back in session and I have time to think about things other than Sid the Science Kid and the location of the extra snacks and juice boxes (Can I get a Witness?) I will attempt to post about all the things that have Ch-Ch-Changed.
First up- The Pantry

We had an unused closet in our kitchen, I think it was meant to be a coat closet as it had a bar running across the top, and kitchen cupboards stuffed with all manner of food item. Finding uncooked macaroni noodles in the bowl as you were trying to pour in Captain Crunch is a little odd and off putting in the morning, and the need to requisition this space for a pantry was born.

I don't have a before picture because the camera was ALL the way upstairs:) and I assumed we had one from our realtor visit before we bought this house. Just picture everything you see gone and dirty flat white walls and you've pretty much got the before visualized.

A few boards and brackets from Lowe's later and we had this:

Much better use of space, no?

Undergoing maintenance

If the blog looks wonky- its because I am trying a few new things to update it. Please pardon it's appearance while in transition...

Penguin Party Continued

Picture Heavy Post!


As I mentioned, finding penguin themed birthday decor was painfully impossible, so I had to custom make everything. Following the colors set by the invitation meant pulling together a party in orange, black and white. Not traditionally very girlie colors, but I tried to use them in a way that was obviously meant for a girl. 

(Click to enlarge.) 

orange and white polka dots, black and white houndstooth and stripes along with a geometric print and plenty of solids. 

the cupcake tower

penguin face, penguin silhouette 5's, orange silhouettes and monogrammed toppers designed by my hub. He also designed the tented cards that display the food names. The cake topper on top was found at Hobby Lobby, I added a coordinated bow to match the invitations. The houndstooth cupcake wrappers came from etsy. 

other food

goldfish crackers just happened to match the theme and colors. Houndstooth cones in the background, made from scrapbook paper, hold white cheddar popcorn.

pimento cheese penguins and polka dot cookies

yummy vanilla ice cream snowballs


So, whatcha think? Did I Tim Gunn it (make it work)? She has already put in a request for next years party...:)

Linking up with Whipperberry, Just a Girl

This project was featured on Just a Girl!

Let's start at the very beginning

A very good place to start, no?

10 points if you can name that movie- fist bump if you love it too.

My, sniff sniff, baby girl turned 5 this month. When I asked her what kind of party she wanted this year her reply was- Penguins. Not a surprising response as she has been officially  obsessed with penguins since a trip to the aquarium early last year. Define obsessed, you may be asking. She sleeps with penguins(4 if you are the type to count) draws them constantly and will watch absolutely anything with penguins in it, even a documentary. An episode of Wonder Pets was particularly interesting to her until the "animal in trouble" turned out to be a penguin. Cue the nightmares about penguins in trouble for like a week.  While other little girls pretend to be princesses, mine waddles around the kitchen. It's off beat, but she loves it.

What was surprising? The apparent lack of birthday supplies in her chosen theme. Scouring etsy and eBay, trolling the Internet and doing a million searches for acceptable materials soon made it clear that pretty much everything was going to be custom made.

So, let's start at the very beginning- the invitation

the front

The idea is that this is a little penguin chick, sitting down, hence the little feet popped out from the main invite. Pop dots are a beautiful thing- and that is what I used for the 3-D effect. Since we have a girlie girl I included a little coordinating bow. 

the back

I went ahead and obscured our personal information, so that's why there are odd blank spaces. The numeral five is made out of penguin silhouettes, you know, just in case the theme of the party wasn't already clear :) 

What's that holding up the invitation? 

That would be Meghan- our bubs favorite stuffed penguin, and inspiration for the party. 

So, whatcha think? Anyone else's child requested a very non traditional birthday theme? 

Up next: food table and decorations
edited to add- the rest of the party details are now up here

linking up with:

Under The Table and Dreaming,Tatertots and Jello

But wait, there's more!

I found two more fabrics that may work

P Kaufmann Slick Palm


Waverly Cross Section Green

Thoughts?

Is this

an acceptable substitute for this?

staring out my kitchen windows at the yard work being completed (without my help thanks to some particularly vicious allergies) makes me yearn for a punch of fabric above my view.

I love the Imperial Trellis fabric, I know there are those that are "over it" but I am not. Its hard to be over something you don't have, and at $100 or so a yard it's not looking like I'll get the chance to try it out.

The first fabric is a Waverly print that rings in at $10.98 per yard. The question is- can I get the same gorgeous graphic punch from it?

Does Anyone Know...

Where I can get one of these:


for less than a bajillion dollars?(okay so it's actually more like $1,000, but from where I am sitting it may as well be a bajillion since the thousand aint happening either.)

And while we are on the subject of lighting


I need that gorgeous green deep bowl pendant light. Need, I tell you. Anyone seen one of these 'round town?

Peeks head out of overstuffed closet...

I am knee deep in removing the excess junk from every drawer, cabinet, closet and crevice of our house. Progress on the bathroom has halted as we try and solve the overly complicated (but is probably a fifth grade level math problem) equation that is the baseboard/wall board/ top moulding situation.

Advice? Encouragement? Prodding to get me to finish? Hit me up in the comments section!

One down, lots to go

Progress has been made on the bathroom redo.

 the walls have been painted!I chose James River Grey by Benjamin Moore.

Yes, there are a lot of paint samples down there. I had to keep a certain wee babe entertained while I was working, and she loves to paint.

See? I told you the light fixture didn't look any better in place.

Next up is cladding the bottom section of the wall with some scrumptious paneled boards. Hope the husband is ready to fire up that saw...

Oh Happy Day

Whatever you are doing, wherever you are, Happy Valentines Day.

Oh, and if you havent stopped by and given your opinion on the last post- please do so:)

I need YOU!

Ladies- opinions please!

After testing a couple of paint samples on the wall I think we have narrowed the color choices down to two:

james river gray

mount saint anne

We also intend on painting the trim and the boards we are installing a creamy off white. The trim in my house isnt white, and we actually prefer the softness, so we are sticking with it.

Here is where I need your help

I found two fabrics I like and want to use in the space, but before I pull the trigger and buy them I want to know if you all think it will work.

Here are the two fabrics

shower curtain, if I can make it work

Window treatment

What do you think?

Advice, please!

A long overdue project has been started

This weekend I finally bit the bullet and got started on the bathroom project. You know, the one I was supposed to start a month ago? Yea, that one.

Here is what my bathroom looked like until Saturday

After three coats of primer, here is where we stand today

I think it is going to take another coat of primer before we can start painting. I chose a No VOC primer, Kilz Clean Start to do the priming. It is a little thin, but has almost no smell and no VOC's. I am still waiting for my thank you card from the Environment:)

What's that you say? What is that dangling over the sink? Oh, thats just the scary beyond all reason light fixture I told you about but never showed you before. 

I am going to show you now, but you may want to ask small children to look away from the screen. 

Oh.My.Gracious

If you are wondering if it looked better on the wall as opposed to hanging off it, the answer is no. :)

So, one more coat of primer and then we begin testing paint colors on the wall. I am still not sure which color to use, or if the shower curtain I picked will look right in the space. Ya'll will advise me right? Pretty please? 

Paint Colors in My Home

1. Sherwin Williams Camelback

2. Benjamin Moore Classic Brown

3. Benjamin Moore Powell Buff

4.Benjamin Moore Newbury Port Blue

5. Behr Pale Bamboo

6. Behr Smoke Screen

Linking up with The Nester

Fortune-Ate Valentines Gifts

My daughter's teachers will be receiving these Chinese style boxes for Valentines

Inside we have placed felt fortune cookies, each complete with one of the reasons my daughter is so "fortune-ate" to have them this year

we also threw in a few Hershey's kisses, because why not really? 

The original idea for this project came from Martha (who else?), though I adapted her directions a bit. I used pipe cleaners instead of floral wire and hot glued it inside the felt instead of using white glue. Easy peasy, lemon squeezie. 

Linking up with :Under the Table and Dreaming
A Little Lovely
Just A Girl
I heart Naptime

This project was featured on Under the Table and Dreaming

Up Next- I confront a  deeply held decorating fear and talk about  a project that may just have to jump up the line. 

Meeting in the Middle

I mentioned something about an update on the bathroom project I have been talking about, right? Hmm, I wish I could say I have done a lot of work in there, but unfortunately I have done more thinking about the work than actual work itself. That is to say- I haven't started. In my defense I did manage to clean out the coat closet, and even though I didn't find a doorway to a magical land back there I did make it easier to find everything else.

We also removed a pair of 30 year old bi-fold doors that formerly took up residence in the entryway to my living room, which revealed a huge framed opening into said space, making my house feel much larger than it did before. And brought some much needed light into the living room as well, big bonus!

Which got me thinking about other ways to bring light into my house, which then resulted in some window film on the sidelights around the front door being removed.

So, see? I have actually been doing some stuff, just not anything I said I was. Kind of like Friday nights in High School...

Ahem, back to the subject of the bathroom remodel. I have been going back and forth on the beadboard/ board and batten issue. I don't really want to use beadboard in there, I much prefer the board and batten look but I don't think it will cover enough of the wall underneath to work in the space. Which left me wondering if there was a way to meet in the middle between beadboard and board and batten. Googling "what would it look like if board and batten and beadboard had a baby" yielded nothing(how is this possible?) and I really began to lose steam on the whole thing until I saw an episode of Design Inc (Sara Richardson- how I drool over everything she does) where the team(!) used thick boards across an entire wall and it was gor-ge-ous! It was the perfect mix of the look of beadboard with the delicious chunkiness of board and batten. The meeting in the middle! So I am off to Lowe's to hunt through the miles and miles of wood they have to find the perfect boards for this project. The lovechild of board and batten and beadboard- if you will. Hopefully soon there will be an actual update on the  bathroom reno, rather than an excuse riddled explanation. Maybe:)

Fine, Fine, I hear it too

The call of a house that desperately needs to be purged of all clutter, chaos, mayhem and foolishness. It seems like every post I read this month is about massively decluttering and reorganizing our houses. I have ignored the call to action, mostly because we have been out of town for over a week,or at least that's the story I am sticking with. But today when I opened the coat closet and three mittens, a rain coat and half a vacuum cleaner fell out I had finally had enough and decided today was the day I stopped ignoring the cries of a home desperate to be cleaned out. I'll be back with an update on our bathroom project soon. If you don't hear from me by next week, send reinforcement as the closet may have sucked me in. If I find the doorway to Narnia back there, I'll let you all know.

Bathroom Plan

Since I have already listed the many, many things wrong with the bathroom the next logical step is to talk about what I'll be doing to fix them.
The current plan includes

* LOTS of paint in hues of cream and a soft turquoise blue

I am still in the deciding phase, but I am leaning toward using

James River Gray

the cream I want to use is called Richland, but there doesn't seem to be a color swatch available online.

*bead board or board and batten on the lower walls

I love both the look of board and batten and a really high wall of bead board. In the end, bead board will probably win out since I am trying to cover the wallpaper rather than taking it down.

*pops of  coral orange as an accent

chili pepper.

Again, still in the decision phase over paint. I am leaning toward using this color since it coordinates well with the textiles I already have for the room.

*new lighting in a rubbed bronze finish- I realize I didn't show you the lighting situation in the last post. It's scary beyond all reason. The front(glass) of the fixture threw it's self off the wall about 3 weeks after we moved in and the exposed bulbs have been (not-so) proudly showcased ever since.

*replacement faucet for the sink

*adding a window treatment and possibly replacing the blinds


of course I am also planning on replacing the shower curtain and towels.In my linen closet I ran across a set we used for a few months in our old house. It **may** work in this space, depending upon how it all comes together.

Anyone done this scheme before and has advice for me? Paint color recommendations? Offers to help paint? :)