Poll: Baby Food Processors

Lila is quickly approaching the 6 month mark, (her half birthday! So excited!) and we are excited to start experimenting with solid foods. I would love to make my own baby food, and it would be nice to have something to steam/chop/puree for me. I am interested in making small batches, and some of these contraptions come with storage cups for on the go, which is nice.

Lila is loving her Rice Cereal! She gets concerned when the spoon takes a break.

Did you use any of these products? I would love to know any tips you have!

Thanks, y’all!

**UPDATE**
After getting a lot of feedback from my Facebook followers, I was encouraged to not buy any of these- I had a Black and Decker handheld purée /whisk (forgot I had it!) and it works great! I use ice cube trays to freeze the small portions. It doesn’t grind food as small and smooth as the Stage 1 baby foods you can buy, but if you add a teeny bit of water then it thins it a little. Lila never had had a problem and likes the texture better than store-bought I think. 🙂

It’s a candle festival up in here

Layered Candle Upcycle

My Half-Burned Candles

Yesterday we started spring cleaning. Along the way, I noticed I finally had enough half-burned candles to combine into new layered candles. I pinned this awesome idea on Pinterest about a year ago, and I am so excited about the results. See picture below for link to Happy-Go-Lucky’s original post about this, which I followed.

Happy-Go-Lucky: Easy Candle Upcycle

Boiling the candles

Mason Jars

Supplies: Candle Wicks, Pencil or Pen, Clean Jar or vase

You have to wait for one layer to dry before adding the next layer.

I had several candles going at once! The pencil kept the wick in the middle as I poured.

My mom gave me a couple candles that were not in glass- so I re-used a vase I had already emptied to heat up the candle.

Layered Candles Complete!

It smells awesome in my house today now that I am finished- it smells like a candle factory!

It took a little longer than I expected, because you have to wait for each layer to dry. I tried to keep the scents within the same family. Florals, Clean Smells, Holiday…Also, I have made a mental note to buy more colorful candles- mine were mostly shades of white and tan! Cute labels would have been nice if you were going to give these as a gift. Ta Da!!!

Remodeling Project: Man Cave to Family Room

When we bought our house in 2009 it felt huge! We had our living room, kitchen, dining area, “master” bedroom (maybe in the 50’s it was big- but now it’s a joke…), spare bedroom (now nursery), and an office. The previous owners had finished the basement, which had a large living area, back yard access, and then a hall to the laundry room, and my studio. On our list of must-haves for our house was a studio for me (I bring a lot of projects home and it’s messy!), a man cave for Joey, and a suitable entertaining area. I did not get some things on my list with this house, such as, a covered front (or back) porch, fireplace, large master bedroom/bath. But I settled for a back deck off the kitchen, and the possibility of combining some rooms to make a bigger master. I’m already making my new list. How much you learn the first time you buy a house! We loved all the space this house had. And it did have a lot. But there is a phenomenon that I didn’t quite understand till now. Like a goldfish that is put in a pond or bath tub, your “stuff” will grow to fit your space. (Weird).

Giant Goldfish. Click to read how they say this is actually a myth.

So we decided last January that we would gut the downstairs and make a Master suite and move my studio upstairs to our old master bedroom. Great idea. We ripped all the paneling off (and by “we” I mean Joey and his dad of course!) which we had to do anyways because we were having water leak issues (long and boring story) and proceeded to rip down walls, built-ins, had a big yard sale with extra furniture, yada yada. Then we found out we were having a baby- and the whole project got put on hold to make a nursery.

Manly Man Cave- great for watching Football! Go Hogs GO!

My old studio was going to be our new closet.

Taking out the wall, paneling, built-in cabinets

Wall coming down

Ripping out the Hallway

Laundry Room

Inside this wall we found the house blueprints!!

Joey thinks this is the easy part!

Project supplies.

This is the view from the stairs before the tv and cabinets were taken out.

New Floors!

We ended up having to get new floors because the one we had from Home Depot were discontinued, and we needed one more box to patch where the cabinets had been. So we ended up getting some laminate flooring from Lumber Liquidators that I just love.

So it was almost October after Lila was born, that we decided that we didn’t want the master suite downstairs, since her nursery is right next to our room now. And we are now putting the downstairs back together.

Our 2600 sq foot home has been missing about 700 square feet of living space and we are going stir crazy tripping over dogs, cats, bouncers, jumperoos…. So we are resolving the water issues, we paid someone to finish dry walling, and Joey and his Dad are finishing putting the floors in this weekend. We will be picking out colors for paint soon. I’m excited. I have great ideas for the space. What color would look good with this deep brown wood? 

I will post more progress pics soon. Stay tuned!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I hope you had a great day! After a really rough night with my sweetie, (growth spurt?? teething?? both??) I felt like I had the biggest hangover ever. I think maybe she wanted to tell me “Happy Valentine’s Day” over and over til dawn. LOL.  So when we were invited to lunch, we quickly said YES!  Then we finished delivering our handmade Valentines.

Little tootsies make great hearts! Can you tell I’ve had some printing practice?

Lila’s Valentines were all different. I cut the hearts out then I added paper and pen accents.

Here is another one!

Inside her cards, I included a current picture. I can’t wait until she can make her own Valentines one day.

Everyone LOVED them! You can’t go wrong with footprints. Having a paint your own pottery studio as our family business, I have had the pleasure of printing hundreds of baby feet. This was my first time using acrylic paint, which made me nervous because its permanent…on clothes, the bouncer she was seated in….but we had not problems! I had my wet wipes handy and I went pretty fast. 🙂

Here’s what Lila gave me for Valentine’s Day.

Lila’s Heart Mug

Isn’t it precious? I will admit the chevron as a bit of a pain. But so worth it. If you are unfamiliar with Paint Your Own Pottery Studios, then you have been missing out! It is so much fun for all ages. We have birthday parties, ladies nights, walk-in painters, etc. Not to mention we also offer silver jewelry (Precious Metal Clay), mosaics, and glass fusing! I picked out the mug I wanted, printed her feet with special glaze, and then painted around it to my heart’s content. (no pun intended? hmm) The paint is non-toxic and washable (unlike acrylic) and becomes permanent once the studio staff glazes and fires it. At our studio, we have so many projects coming in that the typical processing time is 7-10 days, but it depends on the time of year. If you would like more info on finding a pottery studio near you, go here.  If you would like to visit my studio’s website, go here. But please don’t judge the site. We are currently updating and redoing it. 🙂

Anyways, I love my mug! We had a great day, and to top it off, my husband surprises me with chocolate covered strawberries. YUM.

Baby’s Shadow Box

Baby Nottingham’s Shadow Box

What do you do with those hospital bracelets? What’s a cute way to frame that birth announcement!? Well, a shadow box of course!
I originally bought this shadow box frame from Target this summer before she was born (less than $15, I believe) with a gift card thinking I would put something of mine in it from my childhood. Two weeks ago, it was still empty and hanging out in her closet. So I decided to make her a cute memory box, or shadow box, using her birth announcement as the focal point. It’s a fairly simple project, with very few steps or supplies needed. I think the hardest part was the arrangement of the pieces inside.

Materials:
Shadow box frame
Scrapbook paper (12 x 12)
Straight pins (or some other way to attach bulky items)
Scrapbook tape or adhesive
Personal items to display

Lila’s personal items that I used were:
Her birth announcement
The tiny hat she wore in the picture
All four of our hospital bracelets (she had two)

Basically, once you have all of your personal items, make sure they are essential to the piece. The card from her hospital bed that had all her birth info was edited out of my arrangement because I had the same info on her birth announcement (and it was cuter). I’ve seen lots of shadow boxes that are completely stuffed with clothing, or scrapbook stickers, and that just wasn’t working for me. WWFMMNWFY (What works for me may not work for you!)

Here are a couple other examples I found by googling:
Baby Shoes
Boy and Girl Examples

First, I placed my square scrapbook paper over the felt backing inside the frame. Then I played with the arrangement of the items until I was happy with it. I decided to mount her Birth announcement on a coordinating piece of scrapbook paper so it would “pop” more. I attached all of the items to the backing using the straight pins (except for the paper items where I also used scrapbook tape). It sort of has the look that I just pinned this stuff haphazardly, and I like that. Sometimes I don’t want something to look 100% perfect, or that I spent a ton of time on it.
Like I said, very easy and quick project, and fairly cheap too!

Detail of Baby Nottingham’s Shadow Box

Lila’s Changing Table

I have received many compliments on the dresser that I painted in Lila’s Nursery. While I would love to take most of the credit, really it was quite easy (for an 8 months prego girl) with Annie Sloan’s chalk paint. I picked up the paint at The White Goat here in Little Rock. They helped me pick out my paint, and showed me how to use the paints. (They had classes available, I still want to go sometime…)

The coolest thing about the paint is you don’t have to prime your surface before you start. So for someone who like to dive head-first into a project, that definitely speeds up the process.

I used a mixture of Provence and Old World White. I only bought the small tub of Provence as a sample, but it lasted the whole project because I watered it down and mixed white with it! Sweet! I did invest in a quart of the Old White, and have tons leftover.

 

I believe the end result was a ratio of 1:6. After the dresser and drawers were dry, I dry-brushed some more white on top. (Dry-brushing is done best with a cheap brush and a little paint on a paper plate. ) LESS IS MORE! You can always add more paint, but it’s hard to take off a big glob if you get too much on your brush. Dry-brushing is a fun way to make the piece look aged. You can also distress your piece by sanding the edges. I used a sandpaper block on mine.

I used Annie Sloan’s Soft Wax in clear to seal the dresser. (It’s slightly stinky, so I wore a mask.) I applied it with a cloth and wore gloves. Wax on, wax off, Mr. Miagi!! I would suggest doing the top all at the same time, not in sections. This is why: My hubby helped me with the wax, and we split the top. He did not rub the wax off as much as I did, and it was noticeable!! So I re-waxed the whole thing. (Hubby rolls eyes at my obsessive tendencies, but it had to be perrrrfect).
You really have to buff out the wax. I kept using clean scrap cloths as I went.

Lastly, I spray painted the original handles glossy white to finish out the look. Yay, project complete! Love this paint and wax. It really looks and feels like an expensive piece of furniture.