Fall Mantle

My fall mantle is up.

Figured I should show it to you since it’s almost time for a Christmas mantle.

Forgive the highly reflective tile.

Break down:

Fall colored leaf/mini pumpkin garlands purchased last year at Michael’s for $10.

Small wood table and cheese dome are Pottery Barn purchases from years ago.

The tall cylindric glass vase is Joey’s moms.

The bird candlestick was a gift from my mom while she was visiting for Leo’s birthday.

The black twine holder was found at the Rose Bowl Flea Market for $10 a couple years back.

The Hope was a Target find long before it became synonymous with Obama’s 2008 election campaign.

The scarecrow was given to Leo as a free gift with purchase at a garage sale. Wtf, right?! Haha.

The pumpkins, gourds and wheat were purchased at Safeway for $20.

I feel like it needs a little something else but can’t put my finger on it.

The first photo is what you put on a blog; this one is reality.

Toys and fire place blocker. Yup, I’m the mom of a one year old.

Have you decorated for fall?

Update: I noticed that the scarecrow mentioned is strangely AWOL. No idea where it went.

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Using wood stain is awesome!

In my makeshift workshop and I am SO happy!

Projects are coming along swimmingly!

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Charlotte’s Gallery Wall – Update #2

It took me almost four months to complete the gallery wall; school and work have me busier than normal.

You can see the slow progress here and here.

Now that Leo is one, I chose to use photos of me and Joey when we were about the same age.

Joey with his mother.

Me and my mom (Bird is in mama’s belly!).

How awesome is using old family photos?!

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Garage Sale Find – Toy Shelf

We had originally been using a rolling beverage cart (garage sale find) as toy storage in Leo’s nursery.

I didn’t like the amount of floor space it was taking up in addition to it being the wrong color.

I didn’t want to paint it because I love the original color.

It had to be replaced.

Goals for new toy storage:

– Small footprint
– Easy accessibility
– Large capacity
– Fit the style of his room

A couple of weeks ago my mom, Leo and I were heading home from shopping and saw a yard sale.

I spotted this bad boy and hurriedly sent this picture to Joey.

Score at $20 (Thanks Gigi!) seeing as I found this one on EBay for $95.

AND it fits all four of my goals!

Woot woot!

A can of spray paint and it now matches the rest of the furniture.

I want to spray paint the red buckets and make them orange to fit in with the color scheme. Joey has given that idea the thumbs down but I’m still considering it.

Did not “style” the shelf as Leo is a destroyer and toys are cute without assistance.

I love a quick and easy project!

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Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

I randomly decided that I wanted to crochet snowflake ornaments.

Didn’t know I knew how to crochet, did ya?!

Mama taught me; woman is talented and trained me in.

I never made anything that amounted to a hill of beans back in the day.

Lets fix that!

I watched a couple of YouTube videos before deciding this was the one.

After dinner, Leo and I went to Michael’s and picked up some yarn and crochet hooks.

Grand total was $13.50.

Two hours later I am the proud mama of this wonky child.

Good thing Leo made his own self pretty!

I want to make a bunch more. Hopefully flakey’s future brothers and sisters are cuter.

I am going to try my hand at making a beanie too.

I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Thank god for YouTube!

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How To Make Nursery Art – Leo Style

I have talked about how I am not fan of naked walls and the crib wall in Leo’s nursery has a huge naked spot.

It’s been driving me crazy.

We crusied over to Michael’s, picked up some crafty stuff for another project and snagged a HUGE canvas.

I poured the paint from his shelves into different containers, let him dip his hands in it and crawl around on the canvas.

Grasping his hands together and swinging his arms up and down. He does that when excited.

Not only is Sharky a photo bomber but she is also an art bomber!

Poor Sharky is also missing a chunk or hair and the surrounding area is covered in paint. Leo was trying to pet and paint at the same time. We talked about focusing on one thing at a time, I am sure you know how that conversation went.

The grand finale:

Not sure that I am completely in love with the end result but am willing to live with it for awhile and see.

How do you like Leo’s smudged footprint a.k.a. his signature?

Note: This project was done in early August. I forgot about this post. I am totally with the program.

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Leo’s First Halloween

This post is only two weeks late. That’s pretty good.

I took a mini stay-cation to prepare for Leo’s first Halloween, first birthday party, first birthday and first haircut.

First up was Halloween.

I am sure it is normal to take forever to decide what your baby’s first costume is going to be. I searched and searched and sent Joey a ton of choices. Here are a few:

Lion since he is named Leo.

Source

I thought this skunk was so stinking cute!
Joey said it was a girls costume and it was sold out at the time.

Source

Thought about a monkey since I have always called him my alien love monkey. I have no idea why.

Source

There were a bunch more with Joey vetoing everything. Finally we compromised on a dinosaur.

Source

The day before Halloween we took him to the Clayton Pumpkin Patch; last year we went I was HUGE as a house pregnant.

Such a great place to take kids for picking out pumpkins.

We dressed Leo up and let him go find the perfect one.

Super cheesetastic!

Then he lost his mind and ripped the head piece off.

Of course this is one of my favorite photos. Love me some crazy baby shots!

It was very warm and Leo was sweating in his costume so we took it off and snapped a couple of more shots.

This one is my favorite of that bunch. Kid is representing his home team and looking all gangsta while doing so.

On Halloween we went Trick or Treating with friends of ours and their two daughters.

Leo had way too much fun and passed out half way through. Didn’t stop Joey from filling up his bucket though. 😉

Hope your Halloween was awesome!

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Mood Board – Baby Girl Harper

My very best friend is going to be a grandma come March.

Her daughter asked me to do a mood board for her.

She gave me this to go on:

Keywords: Grays, Celtic blue ( like the color of my room at moms house), pops of color, fun wall hangings, and newborn equipped.

This is what I came up with.

I’m in love with a round crib centered in the room with a beautiful light above it.

What do you think?!

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A Change Is Going To Come.

Click this link and listen to this bomb ass (yes, I am 17!) song and then read my post.

I would love to blog more but I don’t have access to the home computer on a regular basis. I have put this unnecessary pressure on myself to have “great” photos even though I am sure the ones I have edited still suck. I am now an iPhone blogger. My pictures will be taken/edited with my iPhone and I will call it good.

This way you will see me more often. I hope that makes you happy.

Also, I think I want to change the name of the blog and the look. Standby.

I want to blog about whatever is in my crazy hodge-podge brain and not feel like I have pigeon-holed myself into a specific category.

xoxo

P.S. I know I owe you Halloween, First Birthday Party, and 12 months. The party nearly killed me along with my mom and sister. I have finished Charlotte’s Gallery Wall will post about that soon.

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Minimalist Living? Minimalist Lifestyle?

I was pre-gaming a dinner party with two buck chuck and a friend a couple of weeks ago when the friend said the most bizarre thing to me. She said “…you and Joey are minimalists…”.

SAY WHAT?!

I wasn’t sure how to take that and wasn’t sure how I felt about it.

I didn’t say anything.

Shocking, I know.

I talked about it with Joey the next day and it certainly has been on my brain since.

Questions:

– Why does she think we are minimalists?
– Do I know anyone I would consider a minimalist?
– Do I consider myself a minimalist?

Answers:

– She lives in a world that is all about “keeping up with the Joneses” and I do not.
– No. I remember a guy I used to work with tell me that he didn’t have a T.V. or a car by choice. This was crazytown to my then 20 year old self.
– No. Although, it is very appealing to me and I would like to see myself have a more minimalist type lifestyle.

Recently there was a 31 day challenge that went through blogland that required the blogger to do the same thing every day for 31 days.*

I follow Raising Colorado and her 31 days was all about “tidying up the joint, one mess at a time”.

I LOVED it.

I’m going to go tell her right now that I loved it.

Ok done! She has inspired me to tidy up my own joint!

Not digressing I promise.

Using Raising Colorado’s challenge , I can be on my way to a more minimalist type lifestyle (I need a nickname for this).

I won’t do one every day and I am going to start with what I refer to as nightstand hell.

It is scary!

*I am sure this description is overly simplistic but I was too lazy to actually look it up.

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