This is for Ashley

A friend of mine has recently encouraged me to start blogging again. So this is for you Ashley!

It has been over a year since my last blog entry and I am sitting here thinking, "Where do I even begin?"

I will keep it simple and abridge the past year and a half in pictures!

My big boy is 3 and in preschool

I got pregnant in February of 2012

And had a sweet baby girl named Caitlin

 

And I am starting my Etsy for selling vintage children's clothing and toys!

 

Other then that, life has been the same around my little green house. I am still a full time nanny and now with two kids we keep extra busy.

 

So, until next time...

 

Organizing: My hutch

I love my hutch, even if it is still brown :)

What I did not like about my hutch was the lack of functional organization it had. All of my cookbooks, kid's craft stuff, and other random books were thrown inside in a jumbled mess. I didn't get out the coloring and painting activities as much as I should have because it was just such a hassle! Something needed to change.

Here is my hutch before the change:

And here it is after!

There is still a spot for my cookbooks, but the rest of the shelves are devoted to the kids. Underneath I keep my re-usable shopping bags and there is a bin for my cloth napkins and a bin for paper lunch bags and paper plates.

The blue and green bins are from the dollar store. There is a bin for crayons, a bin for stickers and stamps, a bin for bubbles, a bin for paint, ect. Now it is much easier to grab what we need and even easier to clean it up! We have been coloring and painting a ton more since doing this.

I am still planning on painting my hutch. Maybe something like this:

Two closet offices in my bedroom

We recently changed rooms in my house, forcing us to move our computers into our bedroom. I love my house, but it is seriously lacking in rooms and storage space. We got creative with our small-ish master bedroom: my husband built a closet for his computer and we turned the existing closet into an office for me. I couldn't stand the thought of having blah spaces for the computers in my bedroom, so here is what we did!

Here is the before of my closet space:



Ugly black dresser stuffed into the closet...yuck!

And here is the after!



We built a custom desk into the odd shaped space




I created my own stencil to decorate the walls in my office



The paint looks black, but I actually used silver stencil paste. I used stencil vellum and hand cut my stencil with an x-acto knife. A little time consuming, but worth it!

And I have a spot to hang my purses in this odd storage area that was pre-existing



Here is a picture of my hubby's closet space before:



Please forgive the ugly state of my bedroom from last year!

And here is a picture of Steve's office:



We built this into a pre-existing storage space located behind the wall that runs the length of the house.

Lots of work to be done still, but its a start! More pictures of my office decorated and organized to come soon!

Thanks for stopping by!

Linked:

Vintage lunch tray upcycle

I recently saw this project using vintage dinner trays as a frame over at blue eyed freckle

Totally cute right?


I fell in love with the idea and I just happened to have a vintage lunch tray laying around the house. I used mini clothespins and pictures from my son's 1 month photo session.

So here is mine:

Now I need to find a place to hang it!

Linking to:

I won....

two giveaways!

The first is a $35 gift card to CSN Stores from Lauren over at 31 DIY !

So much good stuff on the site...now to just figure out what I want.



These are super cute...I think I might need them for my son's room:)

The second giveaway is an amazing fabric bracelet from Anything*Virtuous!

Can't wait to wear it!

Check out their blogs...lots of good inspiration!

Thanks again ladies!