Okay, I know I have not done well at keeping this little ol' blog updated. I always have great intentions, but I don't have the best follow through. Hopefully that is going to change now; however, I do plan to switch things up a little bit. In the past this has been solely a home improvement blog, but with some of our family and close friends recently moving out of the country, I have decided to make it a general "what's going on in our lives" kind of thing, which will still include home improvement stuff, but will also have stuff about our family and possibly random other musings, we'll just have to wait and see. I recently quit my job in order to stay home with our son, so I should have time to actually write and update on here. This is me with my little box packed up from my office on the last day.
I really am thankful for my job, it was a great transition leaving, and I know the person that took over for me will do great, but I worked there for 5 1/2 years, so it is still a strange transition and I am still trying to adjust to life at home all the time and to get a schedule down. Right now I plan to try to write something every Thursday, so that I have a set schedule to keep me on track; there may be weeks when I do more, or there may be weeks when I don't post at all, but for the most part I intend to get something down every week. So, without further ado, here is what's been going on a little bit lately:
Lately Will has been getting teeth like crazy. I think all this summer rain helped them shoot up. He has 7 teeth now. His first two teeth came in together a few months back, then about a month ago he got 4 top teeth all at once, and now he just got another one on the bottom. He hasn't let me get a good picture of all the teeth yet, but here is a picture of the little stinker anyway.
I also got a new diaper for Will at our new cloth diaper store, Baebalou. I cannot tell you how excited I am that we now have a cloth diaper store in town! When did Joplin become cool enough to have that? I visited it a couple of weeks ago with my friend Amanda, and I just loved it. It was so sweet, and the owner was very nice and helpful. They also have a little consignment area as well as some things handmade by some local vendors, so if you live in the Joplin area and have a young child you should definitely check it out. Here is a sweet little tie made by one of the vendors.
And here is the best shot I could get of Will with the new diaper on, he is a fast little bugger. It's a super cute pattern on the diaper, with different pictures of bicycles. It's a gro-via brand, and I am undecided as to whether I am totally sold on the actual style of diaper or not since I love my bum genius freetimes so much, but it sure does look cute on him.
To wrap up I thought I would throw in a little house project that I did recently. Did you know that they make small rolls of burlap? I had no idea until I was wandering Michael's the other day and spotted it in a bin near the entrance. Almost immediately I got a great idea for a new wreath for the front door. Remember this wreath that I made for Christmas a few years ago? Through a couple of years of storage the streamer that it was wrapped with was starting to not look so hot, and the snowflakes were starting to fall off as well. I figured for the tenish dollars that I spent on it two winters ago it had served me well though, and it was time for it to move on to something else, and now I had my inspiration.
So I quickly removed the snowflakes and streamers (I saved the snowflakes since I can use them for other projects down the road) which only took a couple of minutes. Then I was left with this:
I had left the plastic wrapping on the wreath previously in order to try to keep the straw from poking through the streamer, and since I was planning to wrap the whole thing up again I decided to go ahead and leave the plastic on it. Why make a mess of straw when you don't need it? I took my roll of burlap that I snagged for $6 (seriously, how did I not know about this stuff), wrapped the wreath up, and then just used straight pins to secure it to the straw.
If you look closely here you can see one of the pins I used to secure the ends. This step also only took a couple of minutes.
Since I had this project in mind as soon as I saw that burlap looking up at me out of that fateful bin, I had also picked up some burlap flowers that were on sale and a fun mercury glass looking "S" to add a little color and interest to the wreath. Once again I just used straight pins to attach the flowers and initial to the wreath, making sure to hide the pins and using the flowers to cover up the ribbon on the "S".
Here's the finished product. I love the way it turned out, and how simple and quick it was to throw together.
Here's the view of the wreath hanging on the door. I ended up tying on a piece of ribbon for it hang from since it kept falling down when I tried to just hang it like this. I think it is super charming and quaint, and the cool blue of the "S" plays very nicely with the more saturated color of the door. I also love that it works for any time of the year since the colors are universal enough to coordinate with any season.
I really am thankful for my job, it was a great transition leaving, and I know the person that took over for me will do great, but I worked there for 5 1/2 years, so it is still a strange transition and I am still trying to adjust to life at home all the time and to get a schedule down. Right now I plan to try to write something every Thursday, so that I have a set schedule to keep me on track; there may be weeks when I do more, or there may be weeks when I don't post at all, but for the most part I intend to get something down every week. So, without further ado, here is what's been going on a little bit lately:
Lately Will has been getting teeth like crazy. I think all this summer rain helped them shoot up. He has 7 teeth now. His first two teeth came in together a few months back, then about a month ago he got 4 top teeth all at once, and now he just got another one on the bottom. He hasn't let me get a good picture of all the teeth yet, but here is a picture of the little stinker anyway.
I also got a new diaper for Will at our new cloth diaper store, Baebalou. I cannot tell you how excited I am that we now have a cloth diaper store in town! When did Joplin become cool enough to have that? I visited it a couple of weeks ago with my friend Amanda, and I just loved it. It was so sweet, and the owner was very nice and helpful. They also have a little consignment area as well as some things handmade by some local vendors, so if you live in the Joplin area and have a young child you should definitely check it out. Here is a sweet little tie made by one of the vendors.
And here is the best shot I could get of Will with the new diaper on, he is a fast little bugger. It's a super cute pattern on the diaper, with different pictures of bicycles. It's a gro-via brand, and I am undecided as to whether I am totally sold on the actual style of diaper or not since I love my bum genius freetimes so much, but it sure does look cute on him.
To wrap up I thought I would throw in a little house project that I did recently. Did you know that they make small rolls of burlap? I had no idea until I was wandering Michael's the other day and spotted it in a bin near the entrance. Almost immediately I got a great idea for a new wreath for the front door. Remember this wreath that I made for Christmas a few years ago? Through a couple of years of storage the streamer that it was wrapped with was starting to not look so hot, and the snowflakes were starting to fall off as well. I figured for the tenish dollars that I spent on it two winters ago it had served me well though, and it was time for it to move on to something else, and now I had my inspiration.
So I quickly removed the snowflakes and streamers (I saved the snowflakes since I can use them for other projects down the road) which only took a couple of minutes. Then I was left with this:
I had left the plastic wrapping on the wreath previously in order to try to keep the straw from poking through the streamer, and since I was planning to wrap the whole thing up again I decided to go ahead and leave the plastic on it. Why make a mess of straw when you don't need it? I took my roll of burlap that I snagged for $6 (seriously, how did I not know about this stuff), wrapped the wreath up, and then just used straight pins to secure it to the straw.
If you look closely here you can see one of the pins I used to secure the ends. This step also only took a couple of minutes.
Since I had this project in mind as soon as I saw that burlap looking up at me out of that fateful bin, I had also picked up some burlap flowers that were on sale and a fun mercury glass looking "S" to add a little color and interest to the wreath. Once again I just used straight pins to attach the flowers and initial to the wreath, making sure to hide the pins and using the flowers to cover up the ribbon on the "S".
Here's the finished product. I love the way it turned out, and how simple and quick it was to throw together.
Here's the view of the wreath hanging on the door. I ended up tying on a piece of ribbon for it hang from since it kept falling down when I tried to just hang it like this. I think it is super charming and quaint, and the cool blue of the "S" plays very nicely with the more saturated color of the door. I also love that it works for any time of the year since the colors are universal enough to coordinate with any season.
So that wraps up the first of (hopefully) the weekly Thursday posts. I hope you like the new style and topics!
