Nest Bliss

Play Kitchen Recipes - Free Download

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 21:59:00 +0000

I was talking with my close friend Michelle about how our children were (sigh) starting to become bored with their play kitchens. I'll admit while Ava really has enjoyed her play kitchen she is really more of a puzzles and books kid. Lilly loves to bang stuff around at it but otherwise she really isn't into it yet either. Which actually I hate admitting because we have a kind of amazing and possibly a tiny bit ridiculous DIY play kitchen setup with that cool market. I think part of the problem is that we've had it all a while and I am noticing the appeal of putting toys away and rotating them now that Ava is older. Unfortunately, I can't just put the kitchen up for a while ;) Really it is a little annoying that my kids get tired of playing with their millions of toys and I have to rotate them out and find ways to represent them but ah well.

(Behind Ava is a giant $10 Walmart car oil pan we use for magnet play / learning = pinterest genius)

Anyway, I made up some play recipes for my three year old because Ava loves to follow directions and I figured they would help her see that she could really do a lot more with that 'tired old' (sigh) kitchen. Well it worked like a charm. I made five (the cupcake recipe is double sided) and I found three more on the internet here. They are all a similar format so they are easy to use together. I laminated mine (with a scotch laminator) and put a little ring at the top. I'd say in the least just print them up on card stock.

Mine are in Microsoft Word so if you need to edit out something you don't have that should be pretty easy. We used white yarn for our pasta. Oh! and if you don't have a kitchen you should think about making one of these mats because they are brilliant! I keep wanting to make Ava and Lilly one but let's face it that seems a little silly ;)

So here are my first files to download (hope it works if not just email me or leave a comment):
File 1
File 2
Please share the link to the this post and not my actual file with friends or on your blog etc.

Oh Lilly (14 months) does have one toy she plays with. It's this random Joker house we now own. I don't know if even Ava knows who the Joker is but Lilly genuinely loves this toy. I was totally against buying it (it's a little violent and has a jail and cannon and we have nothing that goes with it) but it all worked out after the mall Santa told Ava he would bring it for her and our little wooden doll house people have all had their turn in prison - it's kind of added a spicy new element to the story lines around here ;)

Super Hero Capes - DIY

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 00:55:00 +0000

I got a few emails when I did I DIY gift post a while back and mentioned that I make children's capes for gifts. They are easy, quick and turn out really nicely. In fact I think you would have a really hard time finding something similar to purchase even if you had a big budget. Best of all you can get two capes out of two yards of fabric so they are also really affordable. I do a side with the child's favorite animal and a side with their favorite color if I can get it to coordinate right.

(Super heroes look noble and serious.)

I looked at a bunch on the internet and really didn't find just what I was looking for, the pattern at pukingpastilles was by far the cutest I thought and I just modified it a bit. My pattern looks just like the light pink fabric. I iron my fabric in half pin my paper pattern to it and cut 1 patterned piece and 1 solid piece, pin those together, then sew it all around leaving a little opening at the bottom to pull it through. After that I simply iron it and hand-sew up the opening - that's it! I do usually iron on a felt patch with their first initial and sometimes if I am feeling really crafty I sew the patch on. Also I started making them with Velcro at the neck which seems super important to preschoolers who can't tie them on yet or untie a double knot and some kids will not wear anything around their neck that they can't take off independently.

Oh and I almost forgot to say - they give you the ability to fly :)

If anyone wants the measurements of my pattern and fabric pieces just leave it in the comments and I will update. But mine are really similar to the one at pukingpastilles. I think making your own pattern from things of the web is very easy if you print out the basic shape and have the measurements. One reader mentioned to me that they cut capes out of t-shirts and that is really brilliant because since jersey doesn't fray so they would be no-sew.

Happy Crafting and Saving the World from Evil

Ah a New Year - Resolve

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:18:00 +0000

(Photos here from a fantastic New Years Eve party at a great new friends house)

Years go by so quickly now that we have children - I can literally see Lilly growing day to day, which is tragic and amazing at the same time. Then somehow, being home, days go by more slowly. Maybe there is some age when you start appreciating the seasons but for me this year (my 30th) was my first. As blissful as our Christmas was, I am relishing January's arrival. I am thinking about crafts and cozy fires. I am already starting to browse seed websites and I am thinking about what crops we can add to what we successfully grew here last year once the spring comes. I am excited about a long hot summer with lots of slip and slides and visits to the ocean. Then we'll be almost back here again with a busy, crisp fall and a magic Christmas. We only get so many trips around the sun - not to be cheesy or morbid - but truthfully some of us just get a handful. I am definitely a goal setter. If I am not planning and creating and changing then I am watching BBC remakes of Austen novels in my PJ's all day. That's it - black or white.

(Last photo of the year, maybe the first one ever with all four of us smiling)

I asked Ava (three) to come up with something she wanted to learn this year to be her 'resolution' and she started doing flips while I was talking so that I was pretty sure she was ignoring me. To ask a three year old to pick something that they could reasonably learn to do over a years time is asking a lot! Then, with her feet behind her ears she excitedly starting interrupting me and said "I want to ya know like put my feet up and ya know learn to stand up on my head". What a super resolution right! Totally doable, fun and completely useless to real life. So of course we all have to pick one, my husband is going to make at least four batches of beer this year (a batch yields about 60) bottles, so no small task. I am going to keep up with my hair all year. I have two kinds of hair: a. kept up with hair and b. three inch roots in a messy bun everyday.

(Photo - getting ready for my pretend fancy New Years Day meal which featured a tweak of this good fortune soup)

I did a really good job this year of meeting my 2011 goals - more sewing, losing the baby weight, spending dedicated time working with Ava on educational pursuits (she can read pretty fluently now!), growing food, eating much healthier and increasing the organic portion of our food consumption. In 2012 I want to just get better at many of the things I started working on this year. I would love to set some financial goals as well but until our Florida house sells my mind just can't go there! Finger crossed we will be through that huge, year long personal challenge at the end of this month. As soon as it is over we will be re-focusing on our long-term financial goals because that is really important to both of us. There is just something about body image and money, no matter how spiritual you are, that can throw everything off if they just aren't exactly where you want them to be.

Cheers!

Last Minute Handmade Gifts

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 03:07:00 +0000

Here are five handmade gifts that can be made last minute. I am still mostly making mine so you'll just have to trust me that I have tried these and they are great. Also, all no sew.

Healthy Frozen Dinners! - I made my mother and father in law five dinners, they were all hearty, healthy, and a little involved. If they were too easy they wouldn't have made a great gift! The point is to gift meals that are saving your recipient a night of work and kitchen clean up. I included directions, coffee, wine, frozen rolls and bread (made fresh at our market with organic ingredients). I tried to buy nice items and use high quality ingredients. It started out seeming a little overwhelming but what I ended up doing was just having a huge cooking day and I doubled almost everything I made them and froze it for us as well which meant I also had a week of no cooking for myself after my crazy, intense day! ... guess what though I don't have any photos ;)

Name, Birthday or Anniversary Photo Collages - My photos for this project are sitting at Walgreen's right now, that's one of Ava's A's above. Go to this Flickr site (try not to spend hours looking at the galleries) and pick a name or a birth year or anniversary year and download the numbers or letters you like. Next upload them to your favorite one hour photo place and have them printed at 4x6. When you go to pick them up stop by TJ Maxx or Walmart etc. and pick up a good frame with the right amount of openings. It is easier to make dates if you do this last minute because 4 opening photo frames are easy to find! You can make your own of course (like this) by gluing cheap dollar store frames to a board and spray painting it all - but remember you have less than a week now so maybe next year. If you buy a mat that is pre-cut and print them in black and white then they will look a lot more like the classic ones you see everywhere. The one below could also be pretty cool - it looks like it is just those cheap packs of Ikea frames glued to a black board cut to size.

Jewelry - there are some awesome jewelry tutorials online. I want this bracelet and it has a video! I would wear this everyday. Making jewelry is easy and can be done in front of the TV in one night.

We did make bracelets but we went a little lower-end than the one above ;) Ava made these for all her cousins and a few friends too with a bag of beads from the craft store. Everyone loved them. I really wanted to help Ava made bracelets with all their phone numbers on them but the number beads for those turned out to be too hard to find enough of for everyone. Most kids need ten numbers on their bracelet now since almost all of them memorize cellphone numbers.

Chalk Board - These are great for kids and adults. I made this one for our entry with a dollar thrift store frame spray painted gloss red. I had my husband cut me a cheap piece of wood scrap which I painted with chalk paint to put in the frame (we tacked it in on the back). I made my own chalkboard paint with this tutorial. Apply chalk board paint on with lots of thin layers and then 'season' it well as directed in the tutorial link. If you aren't making several boards or aren't using the chalk paint for other projects then you would be better off just buying the chalk paint pre-mixed, because the DIY version leaves you with a ton of extra ingredients.

I plan to mix up some more paint to make Ava a board book like this one.

Penny Keychain - I am still looking for my last few but simply putting pennies from each important year on a keychain is such a sweet gift! The ones sold by PatsDesign (photo below) are also affordable and come with a stamped coin. It is pretty simple to drill through a penny but practice on a few first.

Other things I have made as gifts in the past include superhero capes (for girls and boys) and embellished tea towels. I also really want to make some enhanced silhouettes like these.

There you go! Happy Crazy Crafting!

The Perfect Gift - Simple, Beautiful and Practical

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:05:00 +0000

I love holiday blog gift posts! I honestly have a hard time finding just the right gift for a few people on my list. I hate giving candles that will never be lit or 'one more' toy to add to the box. For birthdays I typically give gift receipts but at Christmas I buy ahead or buy on clearance so I don't always have a gift receipt! My default gift when someone is very hard to buy for is always a restaurant gift card because who doesn't like free food?!

Here are some other gifts though, that have gone over really well for me -

For Babies

Kid's regulation sized sports balls. Babies love balls and these are a 'grow with me' toy that most babies don't have. At our house my three year old only plays with her soccer ball for 'real' soccer but our baby is memorized by this cool bright red and black ladybug soccer ball.

My other default gift is a classic board book signed to the baby. Even if we have a book - a dedicated book feels like a keepsake, just make sure it is truly a classic book like Ten Little Babies - there isn't anything worse than a dedicated Elmo book that you feel like you have to keep because it is signed!

Older Kids

If I can't figure out what to get a kid over the age of three I always default to nice art supplies or nature gifts. Children love to create and be outside. I have never gone wrong with -

sun print kit, flower press, magnifying glass, regional plant and animal guides, binoculars, or nature art / activity books like Blossom Buddies. Another idea that would work for lots of kids is an Audubon iPad or iPhone app.

For Adults

My adult ideas aren't that original but I can tell you my husband's perfect gift involves good beer and an iTunes gift card. My favorite thing to give to women though is small, original framed art from Etsy. You can of course go larger but almost anyone can find a good place for original art. Photographs are easy but I try to branch out, I think you could easily find a piece of art to fit anyone's personality on Etsy. I would pick the print below for myself, it is an 8.5 x 11 limited edition print of 100 for $28 by Elsa Mora the author of Blossom Buddies. This print is beautiful and unique and would be a bargain to frame. A less expensive option would be framed art note cards like the ones from Sarah Jane Studios. I adore her holiday line for framing and I have the three little bears cards framed in Ava and Lilly's room.

I am working on my top DIY gifts post too - I have some great, easy ones!

Preschool Activity Swap - such a mom thing to do!

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 17:07:00 +0000

I organized a preschool activity swap for a preschool homeschool cooperative I am a part of here. We basically take turns teaching a lesson to the kids every other week or so and do some cool field trips as well. It went so well we are already working on our next one! So many of my friends have asked me for these and so here are the activities from the first swap:

1. Cookie Matching - This one was made with circles of felt hot-glued with cotton in the center for flipping them more easily. The mom that made them provided some awesome extension activities. There might be a simpler way to make this by using heavy weight interfacing ironed onto felt but these came out perfect.

Shown here with my own cookie sheet and spatula.

Lilly (12 months) loves to take these out of the red container and put them back and to inspect the toppings.

2. Lego Math - Just print on cardstock and provide a sheet protector. these have been so much fun for us. Ava has some trouble with the subtraction but not with the addition and they are really fun to use with your real Legos. http://thesixkents.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/lego-math-worksheets/

3. Emotion Play Dough Mat - Print in color and laminate. We have had so much fun making angry and scary faces for this poor girl. http://kidlutions.blogspot.com/2011/10/fun-with-feelings-faces-playdough-mats.html

4. I-Spy Bag - Simple I-Spy bag with card. I did do coins to make it a little more academic. This is a huge pain to sew and if I did it again I would use fleece instead of felt. Also I used painters tape to tape the window in and then sewed through the tape and that made all the difference. I-Spy bags are much easier than jars because you can manipulate them with your hands. However if no one sews or is crazy like me then you could do this in clear plastic bottles or glass jars.

5. Pom-Pom Magnets and Boards - These pom pom magnet activities are all over the internet so this starter set it nice to build on. You just put your cardstock mat on a cookie sheet when ready to play. Use hot glue to adhere the magnets and remove any paper backing from the magnets before gluing. http://engagingtoddleractivities.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/homemade-toy-magnetic-pompoms/

6. Consonant, Short Vowel, and Long Vowel Cards -

Print Consonant Cards here http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Consonant_Cards.pdf

Print the Short Vowel Cards here - http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Short_Vowel_Cards.pdf

Print the Long Vowel Cards here - http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Long_Vowel_Cards.pdf

7. Read, Build and Write Mats with sets Word Cards - http://homeschoolcreations.com/Read_Build_Write_Printables.html

http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Read_Build_Write_Mats.pdf

I think if I did this one again I would make it worth 3 and have the main mat laminated, sometimes the sheet protector slips on us. We also use magnetic letters at home on a cookie sheet instead of the letters provided.

8. Clothes Pin Number Match - http://shared.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/math/ClothespinNumberMatch.pdf

9. Felt Board Skeleton - I did this one and we love it, but I don't know if I would recommend it for a swap. Only because if took hours and hours to cut these out and it doesn't take any less time to cut one out than it does to cut lots. We swapped in October though so I thought skeletons would be fun and we love felt board activities. I am showing them here with some word cards and a skeleton print out which I didn't give with the activity but it might have been nice. The kids aren't ready to read those words yet but some of the parents needed some help remembering the bones!

10. Roll A Rainbow - This was laminated and given with m & m's and a die. http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/57547407?access_key=key-25r11p880rr7qp12ndj2

11. Shades of Color - Walmart is the only place we found that had enough shades of one color on a strip. http://www.walkingbytheway.com/blog/?p=327

12. Play-Dough Number Mats - The moms that printed these just had to provide one sheet protector but we bound ours like this so Ava could easily just work through all the numbers and letters on her own. http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Number_Playdough_Mats_1-10.pdf

http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Number_Playdough_Mats_11-20.pdf

13. Play Dough ABC Mats - There was the direction here to print these in color but the mom that did this one had them professionally printed in black and white on cardstock and they turned out very well so that may be an option if you want to make these mats worth only two activity choices. Printing 8 sets in color and on cardstock can really add up. http://homeschoolcreations.com/files/Playdough_Mats.pdf

14. Fabric Roads - These denim roads have been a huge hit in our house. That might be because we don't have any other car tracks but Ava loves making a track for cars with these. There are lots of learning extensions as well like talking about directions of cars, setting up traffic lights etc. I am planning to make her more. http://lilmoptop.blogspot.com/2010/10/easy-fabric-roads.html

15. Felt Pizza - This one was me again. I had made these Pizzas for Ava and she loved them so I made this small set for the group. This was time consuming and so I didn't provide lots of toppings but it would be pretty easy for anyone that wanted to create more toppings. The crust is two circles sewn together with a small opening, then flipped inside out, and sewn again just inside the edge in order to catch the opening needed to flip it. I think everything else is pretty self-explanatory. These are just for play but they are also great for teaching fractions too (i.e. "Put cheese on half the pizza").

This is a photo of Ava's big set at home with a cut pizza and more toppings.

16. Two-Sided Popsicle Puzzle - http://www.amazingmess.com/2010/07/popsicle-stick-puzzles.html

Ava is fascinated with the color wheel side. I can hear her singing "red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple it's a rainbow!" right now ;)

Notes on organizing - I ended up with one master list that everyone chose off of. I came up with almost all of the activities this time but next time we are going to do some suggesting but still have one master control list. The real challenge is always getting everyone on board with what makes a good swap activity and what really doesn't. For example, providing the ingredients for homemade play-dough is fun but that is pretty easy to whip up on your own. The point of the swap is to spend time pulling together materials that if you did one of each would be very time consuming but since you are doing several (in our case 8) then it cuts your time down and in the end you have a whole bunch of great activities. The other thing is talking to the group about quality, including printing on cardstock, in color, taking the extra step of getting some things laminated instead of just proving a sheet protector etc. We have some crafty and non-crafty members so there are a mix of things you can just take to Office Depot and pay for and things that took a considerable amount of time to make. I figured if everyone did about $30 or so worth of printing or 10ish hours of work or some combination of that then we were fair. So everyone had to pick three but some activities were worth three (like the play dough mats for example) and some were worth two like the magnets pom poms. If you aren't familiar with how much printing in color on cardstock at home or at an office store is then you might want to check that before organizing something like this. I think some of the moms that picked the 'easy' printing activities were surprised by the cost.

First Birthday Prints and Our Mia Nolting Draws Letters Prints

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:19:00 +0000

I can't wait to post about Lilly's birthday it was perfect! In the meantime here is Lilly's takeaway print. I decided it would be more fun just to have this be a keepsake as opposed to my regular first birthday invitation, plus me pulling together mailing anything is almost impossible these days. Even though alas I couldn't get it printed at 5x7 for less than $1.50 a print! So now I have to mail them with the thank you notes anyway, but they are all ordered on Arts Cow for a very good price. We did two different main images because one was from my phone and I was worried about the resolution - but just fyi they both printed well. These both came from KM Thomas and I am always happy with her work and she is super speedy too! Ava's first year invitation is still up on Oh Dee Doh.

Also! I got back my Mia Nolting Draws Letters files back and they are great! I sent her the names and $1 per word via PayPal (so $2 per print below) and two weeks later I got a high res .jpg file. I can't wait to get them in some sweet matted frames but I supposed there are lots of cool things I can do with them. The bonus is that Ava (three) is at the age where she loves to read her name and she was so excited about the prints.

I want to hold up a sign that says ‘WHOA!’ and other thought s on being a new Stay at Home Mom

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:28:00 +0000

I had my first paying job at 15, by 16 I was up at 6:30 a.m. on Saturdays working the local Mc D’s drive-thru window, at 17 I waited tables and so on. I worked from 15 to 29 without interruption and then all of the sudden just stopped.

After we had Ava I started working from home almost immediately and by the time she was three months old I had directed the entire marketing plan and public face for a new Children’s Museum. I was busy! I had great flexibility at work and often while I was typing away or reflecting on strategies Ava was right there in my arms. My husband works in the retail industry and so we just adjusted our work days so that she went to daycare only three days a week and we sucked it up and paid sky high bills for a daycare with internet cameras in the classrooms and really good teachers. It was the hardest thing I have ever done taking a 10 week old to daycare but really with the camera I kept open in an internet tab all day at work and the cool stuff I had going on professionally I didn’t really have much time to reflect on my feelings about motherhood. We just made it work, like most parents that work do.

I still planned stuff for Ava to do on my days off. As soon as she was old enough we were building her kitchens and filling up sensory boxes. We had all kinds of little infant learning activities thanks mostly to stay at home moms who blogged about what cool things they were doing at home. I started this blog and although I certainly have increased my level of sewing and decorating and cooking I think that for instance building a light table would have been something I would have jumped on even when I worked. All that to say that I really didn’t parent all that differently when I worked from how I do now – I just like to make and do stuff, it is who I am.

Overall, society was incredibly generous to me. Sometimes I had a few instances where professional people treated me differently when I was pregnant and several times where people planned to take over my job when I was on maternity leave. Overall though, everyone seemed very impressed that I could work and still take time for Ava. After I had Lilly I did work for a very short time but I haven’t gone back to work since we moved from Florida to Georgia last January. Honestly, the traffic situation in Atlanta makes it pretty difficult to consider most of the jobs I am qualified for. Almost all of them would require an hour commute each way for me. Leaving my girls in daycare for 10 to 12 hour days isn’t going to happen. Plus, I really have been overwhelmed by how amazing this (almost year) home with them has been. When you are working a pretty intense job it takes up almost all of your spare thoughts. When you stay at home there is quite a bit of ‘down time’. Life slows down. There is time to think, time to play blocks for an hour, time to fix lunches and breakfasts and dinners. Going to the park or the museum or to meet up with other mom’s is your task of the day, not how you relax on your day off.

Sort of like a brain renaissance really.

The one thing that has been totally crazy is how all of the sudden I am under a weird mothering microscope. Not just other stay at home mother’s but lots of parents compare their children to my children right out loud in front of me! ‘They’ criticize my parenting choices or other’s right in front of them! I mean LITTLE things like how you feed your baby or what TV choices you make for your toddler. When I was working people were just happy my baby did eat, they didn’t care how I fed her and I guess TV was just something working mom’s need. (I feel the stay at home parent need to insert here that we only let Ava watch one hour of commercial free TV a day max* – SEE HOW BRAIN WASHED I AM!)

People were proud when we made Ava a wood kitchen not jealous that they didn’t make their kid one – hey for the record it is cheaper to buy a wooden play kitchen – we just like to make things! When I would tell a friend that Ava could walk or recognize her letters or something else fun and new I wasn’t seen as taunting or comparing I was just proud of my kid. But now I am sadly realizing that maybe it was ‘o.k.’ that Ava walked early because she had the ‘handicap’ of being a ‘daycare kid’. Can you believe that I have actually felt bad before that my kids were behaving and almost all the other kids were going crazy – as in ‘look at the weird well behaved kid, their mother must be crazy and scary at home if they are still listening to her in this situation’.

Can I just say that I want a big huge sign that says ‘WHOA!’

Being a fairly confident person from a pretty intense childhood I never understood the need for slogans like ‘Be Yourself’ or ‘don’t let anyone rain on your parade’ until now. I have no other thoughts on this topic except that writing this has made me feel better and so I hope it makes someone else feel better too.

Staying at home to see every little yawn and look of excitement on my girl’s faces is amazing and life is so short and I am so so so blessed. So next time I get bombarded by someone who hasn’t learned at 30 or 40 to play nice and take responsibility for their own feelings I am going to remember to ‘Be myself’ and ‘Not let anyone rain on my parade’.

*on the TV note above also add “Unless I am sick, busy or feeling lazy.”

We did it! Black Rock Mountain in a tent

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 14:32:00 +0000

We did it! After going back and forth about it for a while we decided to take both girl's (3 and 11 months) tent camping. We camped at Black Rock Mountain State Park in Georgia which is about a 2 hour drive from where we live in Atlanta. It was beautiful and amazing. The park is within a twenty minute drive of Tallulah Gorge State Park. There are maybe fifteen different awesome short trips you could take from this park including checking out the trail-head of the Appalachian trail.

(photo - you could pretend they are 'telling secrets' or something cute but really Ava is probably patiently lecturing Lilly about not eating her headband)

Well one thing we didn't anticipate was a little bit of a confusing check in which ended with us setting up in one of the private walk-up sites without water OR electricity. Once we realized that it wasn't worth moving everything but I think in the end the trade off of camping up in the trees all by ourselves might have been worth the 'walk up' and the mild inconvenience of less lights at night and washing dishes (just really a knife and cutting board) down at the pump by the bath house. The photos below shows one of the walk up sites and the short-cut path to the site we picked so you can see our hike with our gear wasn't too far.

We got some amazing 'camping with kids tips'! The glow sticks or glow in the dark pj's like we ended up with for the girls at night in case they wander off was brilliant. Freezing most of our water and using that instead of ice really helped us pack more in our one cooler. We pre-cut the grill meals we prepared and froze them then pulled them out the morning we were going to cook them to thaw. We did end up eating way more than we would normally at home - the extra food really helped! A hot breakfast was super nice after waking up in the tent and bringing a cast iron skillet that you can use over the fire and clean over the fire saves you lots of dishes. As always taking the time to ask the park staff about the easy hikes and shortcuts to do with the girl's was a lifesaver. Then we did the things we already knew about like bringing every medicine imaginable and buying the biggest tent we could find (my husband can stand in ours with clearance and it is 100 sq. feet) so that everyone could have a real bed!

(photo - I packed Ava's 'rescue pack' with a rope, binoculars, magnifying glass, notebook, pencil and water. She was really into being an 'adventurer'. It kept her hiking really long distances without asking to be carried! As soon as her legs started to hurt we would take a break and do some investigation or let her pretend to rescue an animal out of a tree with her rope, etc.

(photo - this was the view above our tent)

(photo - steak, potatoes, etc. getting ready to go on the grill.)

(photo - Glowing skeleton pj's via Walmart - they really glowed!)

Still the tent sleeping wasn't easy for us with our apparently sub-par air mattress (working on that for next time) and Lilly was pretty restless with the fall leaves rustling and the new environment. She didn't take one nap in the tent for instance and she spent the second half of both nights collapsed over me on the air mattress...which was slowly deflating...

This huge suspension bridge spans the gorge - it was quite a hike to get to it with the kids but worth it!

(photo - one is SUCH a cute age!)

Oh! and we had intruders, raccoons we think - both nights probably because we have a group member that throws half of her food on the ground when she eats - thanks Lilly! We are working towards a bigger trip at Smoky Mountain National Park in the spring so we still need I would say two more short trips before then to get the kinks out.

Any more tips for us - share (as always) please!

DIY light table

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 20:08:00 +0000

Well I really do actually do many of the millions of things I pin on Pinterest and we finally made a real light table!

I asked just about everyone I know who has done this for tips and looked at every blog post about it ever before I spent the $30 on it. Ours is one clear plastic under the bed storage box with plastic frosting spray from Lowe's sprayed very lightly in one coat (more and it will peel) in the main bin. Two florescent bar lights ($10 each bulb included) in the lid and some foil on the bottom to increase the reflection of the light in the box. It works super!

Ah ha ha this is Ava's 'I am so stressed Lilly is playing with this' stance.

You can make pictures.

You can put a sensory box on it or just a dish with some rice like we did here. Think rice, liquids, paint, etc.

These are our first materials all from the dollar tree - clear airplanes, colored linking shapes, jewels, clear straws cut in different lengths.

This is just the sort of thing I love to do with the girl's. It is easy, appeals to both of them (11 months and 3), and is high on the exploratory open-ended play scale. There are hundreds of ways to play with this. I get really happy when something this easy gets so popular on the internet because there is an amazing sharing of 'mom ideas' and I love that!

Here are some links -
- Put a mirror behind it or make a mosaic - http://reggiokids.blogspot.com/2011/10/beautiful-house.html
- Color play with colored translucent objects, discs, wands, etc. http://kristin-senseofwonder.blogspot.com/2011/09/light-box-color.html
- Play at home mom really has the most activities posted. I really like her painting on plexi idea, liquid color mixing and the colored bubbles activities - http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/search/label/Playing%20with%20Light
- You can also buy x-rays and put them on the table or those cool water beads (I just ordered about a million of them here on eBay for $6 shipped) the possibilities are endless!

Next up for us playing with the black light I bought! Check out Play At Home's links for black lights!

A New Helper Tower and Metal Cafe Chairs - eek!

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 03:24:00 +0000

We have been crafting, building and doing kids projects by the truckload at our house. I think we are in serious withdrawals from the constant work of re-habbing our old 1950's house which is still in escrow or 'house purgatory' as we like to call it. I regret a thing or two about buying our old house, but I always loved working on it - repainting the walls over and over, ripping up all the flooring, cabinets on and on. I think though we've found the fix while we're renting in building projects. Ana White is brilliant and her free woodworking plans are awesome and easy and we are flying through them, I think up to seven now!

I have always wanted a helper tower for the girls and now thanks to Ana and $15 we have one ;) I do all the finishing and Joe does all the wood cutting etc. and this is just finished with some sample satin orange paint with polyurethane on top.

Lilly really likes it the most.

Oh and for the longest time I wanted some metal cafe chairs and I finally bought these from Overstock.com. They had super reviews but I just couldn't imagine that they would be great for $50 each but they are awesome! Substantial, stack-able and both retro and modern at the same time. I can't imagine them not working for us somewhere no matter what our next home set up is like. Now of course I want another set of four in red so I can use both sets and host an outdoor dinner like Nie Nie.

We sold our black hutch on Craigslist and put up some Ikea kitchen bars and shelf over the girl's little table. The little bins above it have napkins, silverware, small straws and cloth placemats so Ava can set her place at whatever table we are eating at. She really likes the process. We try to sneak in some Montessori style where we can ;) Oh and the clips for hanging the artwork are also from Ikea, they are curtain clips that fit the $1.99 kitchen bars perfectly.

These are my awesome set of chapatti rolling pins Joe gave me for my birthday. I just used long galvanized nails to hang them.

Ah having a little space to eat in the kitchen is so nice! Our other dining space is all carpeted and it was becoming such a stress with Lilly to eat there three times a day!

To The (play) Market

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 19:11:00 +0000

(photo: Lilly forgot she was dressed up and just kept on playing)

I am always looking for ways to re-create the type of environment Ava would encounter in a preschool in our home. I think staying at home is so valuable for her but I also don’t want her watching T.V. all day. We have a classroom style calendar on the back of our pantry door in the kitchen, we have lots of Montessori style learning centers and of course the playroom is pretty cool. The concept of a ‘store’ though seemed like something Ava would really enjoy and there are obviously millions of teaching moments built in! Plus we already had copious amounts of wooden, felt, and crocheted food as well as an adorable shopping cart and a DIY play kitchen to cook it all up in. So I started with a $40 craigslist Pottery Barn Kids Market (fyi PBK doesn't sell the wood markets anymore but Melissa and Doug’s is pretty nice or these plans are good as well to make your own).

(photo - haha I don't even know what this face is about)

I made a new canopy, we took the back off the market so Ava could access the shelves from both sides, we added wheels so it can be pushed against the wall when not in use, we made the stationary chalkboard panel into a door and then filled it up with food and bins!

(photo - here you can see the door aka the 'fridge' and how our 10 month old is about to vandalize the market by dumping every single item on the floor something that makes our three year old wish she could ban her from shopping!)

Ava’s grandparents gave her an awesome Learning Resources cash register. I can’t say enough good things about it. She also got a Learning Resources phone that can be programmed to play a message when she dials our phone number correctly (btw it took her about a week to learn my 9 digit cell number). Both add big time to the play value of the market. We of course take phone orders and credit cards.

(photo: one of the cutest things about this particular market is the back part of the counter that has a little plexi window, we use it for baked goods)

I am planning a kit to flip it into a flower market and a kit for an ice cream shop for Christmas! I am pinning away ideas over on pinterest! I think I will also add some custom grocery bags and a logo to the top eventually.

(photo we still love, love, love the DIY play kitchen we made Ava two years ago and it is so fun with the market. I am still planning to upgrade the oven with a light and rack but otherwise the plan has worked out great and I wouldn't change a thing.)

Going Digital and Selling Your Old Stuff Online

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 01:21:00 +0000

(Photo -If you have been to Atlanta and didn't make it to Little Five Points you are missing out.)

For some reason every since this past move I have been really dedicated to getting rid of everything that we don't use. I have been aggressive with a mix of Ebay, Craigslist and Goodwill every month since January. I have sold everything from clothes, to candles, to lame board games. The things we have been selling that we kept in the move from Florida to Atlanta weren't all things I thought we needed but in my mind they were too valuable for a garage sale or dropping off at Goodwill. We have averaged anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to $1,000 in a month in sales. The things that end up being worth the most money are always a huge surprise. Electronics seem to have the most value as they almost become collectible after some point. For instance, we had an off-brand, small, flat screen computer monitor that was 7 years old (and I noted the age in the listing) that sold for over $100 with $20 shipping - strange. Old format video recorders are worth a lot because people are trying to watch their old movies with them. I still can't figure out why an old, clunky calculator style digital organizer my husband had in the 90's was worth anything but it sold for about $40. The lesson here is to do an Ebay or Amazon search before you haul a box of old stuff to Goodwill.

(Photo - something awesome I bought in L5P with my used book money)

This month was big though. I had been considering for some time getting rid of all of our beloved books. We love books, we love to read, but neither of us hardly ever reads a book twice. So why I asked myself this month did we have 300 books? I wanted to go all digital all at once so we sold all of the DVDs and all the books. We kept five cookbooks, a few sewing books and my decor magazine stash. Of course we kept all of our children's books and DVDs. I have always been pretty good about weeding through those though - nothing worse than your kid picking a dollar store book about Elmo as the bedtime story!

Here is what we did -
1. We checked on Amazon buyback program and sent about 7 items (mix of books, electronic games, DVDs) using their free shipping service and got a $125 Amazon gift card.

2. We used the half.com iPhone app to scan all of our books and the ones worth over $3 we listed. It was so much easier than listing on Ebay! We sold about 15 books in the first three days just by making sure we had the lowest list price on everything we listed. I am so glad we took the time to do this because between about 40 books we had about $300 in value and there were a few random books that were worth $50 or more. I would have gotten rid of them long ago if I had know that!

(Photo - oh yeah short hair again too)

3. We took a box of books that all scanned at a dollar or less to a used book store in town. Surprisingly Atlanta didn't have that many options especially compared to the small Florida towns we are from but they did take another 20 or so books and gave us some cash, which I spent directly at the women's clothing store a few shops down ;)

4. We took the rest of the books to Goodwill and any movies that I didn't feel like were perfect.

5. We listed the movies on Ebay at .99 cent starting bids and sold almost all of them the first go around for between $1 and $8. There isn't much value in DVD's anymore. Most people want Blue-ray or like us just watch Netflix and occasionally download a movie or TV show digitally. However, there was no way I was taking 100 good DVDs to Goodwill! My tips for selling on Ebay include - listing normal items for 7 days starting and ending on Sunday afternoon or night. List slower selling items or obscure items for 10 day auctions starting on Thursday night and ending Sunday night. That way you get two weekends of traffic. Be accurate with your shipping. Start your auction prices as low as you feel comfortable with, sometimes things will end for .99 cents and sometimes they will bid up like crazy. If you have your item price set at about what you want for it then you can expect to list it a few times probably before it sells. I have re-listed (just pressing a button) items 5 times before they have sold before and other things just go crazy within hours of listing.

6. Last, we got an iPad! (insert loud cheering) I like to call it the "cash for gold" iPad though. I had a friend brag about how there was a very legit chain of gold buying stores in Atlanta and that she had made some great money on just a few old yellow gold pieces. I somehow convinced my husband to go in and for two rings and one pendant (hideous things I haven't worn in well over 13 years) they handed us almost $400 in cash! I sent a friend to the same place and she left with $1,000. Our whole process took about 4 minutes and they were super nice. We printed a coupon for 20% more off the internet and showed it after they gave us a quote and that worked as well. So if you do try it maybe Google a coupon.

Three!

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:34:00 +0000

Ava had a great party this past weekend. We did lots of blue and red strawberry decorations and the best chocolate cake ever!

Hat template from oh happy day

Seriously this is THE best chocolate cake ever and did I mention so easy!

I ended up making the table runner and the little felt strawberries. I had lots of help from my mother in law finishing them all!

Cricut banner made from my favorite cartridge Country Life.

Happy 4th of July

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 04:04:00 +0000

Hope your 4th was as much fun as ours was! We actually celebrate on the 3rd of July because of my husband's work schedule. Which in Atlanta is brilliant because there are tons of fireworks on the 3rd. We then spent the week following in Florida with my family. I am realizing when looking through the photos from this summer how random they are. It is so much harder to take photos of everything while chasing around two kids!

Me, my brother and his new girlfriend (we like her). But how much will she like me posting photos of her in a bathing suit on my blog, hmm.

Lilly and Gransheila. Lilly is getting cuter by the second.

Me after a long night the night before.

Ava and Uncle Christopher

Lilly relaxing at my grandparent's motor home.

The whole crew - on the night of our 8th wedding anniversary by the way.

Waiting for fireworks to start at Stone Mountain.

Kitcheny Windows

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 18:04:00 +0000

Our rental kitchen needed some 'kitcheny' window treatments, so I came up with these.

The white in the rental house felt a little stark to me at first. We are allowed to paint but most of ceilings in the house are very high so we have only done an accent wall in the playroom and in the girl's room. After living here for almost four months though I am starting to see the white walls as part of a really good challenge. Sometimes paint can seem like decorating and styling but it really isn't.

The rocking chair and little Ikea table seem to be working there for now so I am leaving them alone even if they are a little odd. It is so nice to have a place for Ava to sit while I am cooking or a place to feed and rock Lilly while Ava has her afternoon snack.

Sewing details: I ordered two yards of an Amy Butler fabric called 'Lotus Pond Tangerine' from and eBay seller. I even lined the back with some unbleached cotton I had that I pieced together, which made the valances so much nicer. They were so easy - well except that for some reason when I did the top seam I let it get all crazy and then I waited a week or so before ripping the top seams and re-stitching them (ugh). If you want more of a tutorial let me know - but really you can easily sew a rectangle!

My Baby Has a Fancy Fan and Yours Doesn't

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:59:00 +0000

When we were at the zoo this past week I felt like we were getting some dirty looks. Well I was looking through the photos from the zoo and I found this. Are we the height of all baby product consumerism or what? I don't think you can see Ava's painted nails and toes (with overpriced natural polish of course), her sunglasses, her Disney Store hat or her two plastic dolls. I feel absolutely compelled to say that we didn't buy a single item the girls are wearing or any of their gear (even though we ~~possibly~~ I did pick most of it out) - that is what grandparents are for right? Ya know to buy baby gear and copious amounts of children's clothes. Or maybe I just saw that on T.V.

p.s. It is HOT in Atlanta.

p.s.s. I am 100% sure that I need to force my children to play naked outside for a week.

p.s.s.s. We don't even have T.V. just Netflix - so we can, wait for it... avoid over-exposing our children to commercials ;) Ha!

A Jane Austen Education & Summer Books

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 17:05:00 +0000

One thing I have been doing with my non-working life is trying to read a lot more. My long term goal is a book a week. Which honestly I could have done just as easily when working but I never felt like I had the mental space I guess for lots of reading and opted instead for TV when the girls were in bed. I have been working with BlogHer as a book reviewer as part of their new book club. It is pretty cool!

Most recently for BlogHer I have reviewed A Jane Austen Education - click over and check it out! I really felt like the book tied together so many things for me in regard to why Austen is so enchanting.

My husband is reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (thanks Pattie!) and I can't wait till he is done with it. I am dying to read The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party. I walked into Barnes and Noble today and just glancing over their summer reading table mad me feel like I have been missing out on so much reading!

What are you reading?

Lilly's First Beach Trip - The Panhandle beaches are still beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Fri, 27 May 2011 05:47:00 +0000

We visited my husband's parents this month and spent some time on Orange Beach in Alabama which is very near to Pensacola, Florida and along the path of the big oil spill. The beach was absolutely beautiful. It seems that for all the trouble they had figuring out how to stop the oil they haven't had any trouble figuring out how to clean it up. After we moved away from home 8 years ago the thing I miss the most is the dreamy Florida Panhandle beaches with big sand dunes and sugary white sand that your feet sink into - heaven.

Some shots from Lilly's first Beach Day

My swimsuit is hot. I know. Who is this a good picture of? I don't know.

Lilly was unimpressed.

Ava was in awe.

Lilly was tortured.

Ava was in sandcastle heaven.

Lilly tried really hard not to laugh.

Ava tried really hard to run straight into the ocean as fast as she could without anyone stopping her.

happy to be a mom day

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Mon, 09 May 2011 01:21:00 +0000

My entire life was a preparation to be mother to these yummy little girls. The likely hood that I will ever do anything more important than being a very good mother to them is teeny, tiny. Really, what could be more important? Very little.

Ava took this one! Lilly's bow is from billiebrand (I love her bows)

Bella Strip Work Dress - Perfect First Dress to Make!

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 14:56:00 +0000

Alisha at Pink Poodle Bows asked me if I would be interested in trying out one of her patterns after I posted about one of her dresses here. So, my first request was for her to direct me to the easiest patterns in her shop. I was so excited when she said the Bella Strip Work Dress was an "instant gratification pattern". It also makes a dress from 12m to size 8!

It took me about 4 hours to make the dress but I would suspect it will take less time in the future especially for a size 4 since I have the pattern all ready now. The pattern was excellent and it is a million times easier to sew something from a professionally produced Etsy pattern than to sew something from a store-bought pattern. There are tons of photos, you can enlarge and reduce the pdf and you can print it out over and over again. Oh and if you run into a problem you can just email the author!

Make sure when you print the pattern pages for this pattern you choose "none" under page scaling and you choose "auto-rotate and center". Also, before you tape together any digital pattern always find a part to measure against a measurement provided to check to make sure that your printer didn't shrink or enlarge it.

I made Ava (who is almost three) the size 4 dress. She is big for her age and I wanted her to have some growing room. I used a nice weight fabric (important) for the cherry part of the dress and doubled the white fabric for the center strip because it was a bit see-through. I did choose the option to top stitch down the center strip seams from the front. I have made a dress for Ava before using inexpensive fabric and tried to make my own binding tape to finish the edges and it didn't hold up well. This time, I took a lot of care with finishing the hems and seams because I want this dress to really hold up to lots of wash and wear and so far it looks much sturdier than something store-bought. The only skills you need for the dress are to be able to sew a straight line - very easy and a perfect first dress to make.

You can find more sewing posts here.

Easter Re-Cap

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 03:05:00 +0000

We had such a beautiful Easter Party! In big part to my husband and my sister-in-law who stayed up with me working till 1am the night before. I will never figure out how I can spend two months planning something and end up doing 75% of the work the night before. I was doing this in high school, college and even at work! It isn't procrastination, it is probably more about being unrealistic with what I have time to pull off without being up all night. Ah well.

This runner is from Williams of Sonoma (found on clearance a few years ago).

Centerpieces are milk glass vases filled with tulips and Gerber daisies.

I didn't exactly finish this runner before the party. It isn't lined and the bias tape didn't make it to the edges. But actually it still looked great on the table.

These cupcakes are copies of these. I used gel icing tubes to decorate the cookies.

This cookie recipe + this fresh strawberry cupcake and cream cheese frosting recipe.

Napkin Rings made by my sister in law; tutorial here.

They have carrot napkin packets ;)

So excited about the egg hunt! We must have done a good job with the build up.

There was a cricut banner, by my sister in law again. For some reason you can't see any of the cute ribbons or flowers in the photo but they are there!

Oh these girls!

And the ham was delicious!

Butterflies

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:18:00 +0000

Before lunch today my girls and their cousin release the butterflies we had been raising. Of course we dressed them in giant purple tutu dresses that my sister in law made ;) I edited these photos in Photoscape which is a free program and it does a great job!

Elliana reminds me of a baby Liv Tyler as Arwen in Lord of the Rings

Do you see the butterfly in Lilly's dress?

Worth Sharing 3

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 03:46:00 +0000

I want some really pretty outdoor beverage servers like these but since all the ones on Amazon.com have the worst reviews I think that I will find some huge glass jars and ladles instead. Do you have any other ideas?

Please grow up to be over 40 and fab (please) (please)

We have had such a great time with this butterfly kit - highly recommend!

I can't wait for my Paper Mojo order to come! Check out this Little Green Notebook post to see how beautiful the marbled papers look framed.

I must, absolutely must get a fiddle leaf fig tree (found via Aubrey and Lindsay).

If we hadn't had made the reclaimed wood headboard we definitely would have made a King Farmhouse Bed. This one from the Bumper Crop is beautiful.

p.s. I think if I had a beautiful huge fiddle leaf fig tree and the right set of Paper Mojo papers I would be happier - probably.

Easter Tree and Easy Egg Votives All Done!

noreply@blogger.com (NestBliss) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 05:06:00 +0000

Things are coming together for the Easter party this Saturday. This post is a follow up to this one from earlier in the week.

These easy egg votives (inspiration from Martha,) are all ready for the adult tables. I used a Dremel to drill a hole in each egg (you could also use a safety pin to start the hole) and then scissors to make small cuts to allow me to break away the amount of shell I wanted. I dyed them with a dollar store kit. I removed the votives from their metal cups. I put a piece of tape on the bottom of each candle to hold the wick in place. Then I hot-glued ribbon around each metal cup and put it all together. Can't wait to see them on the table.

This Easter tree is arguably the silliest craft I have ever made. It is pretty fun though. Ava loves it. Hopefully we will get to make some more ornaments for it before the party or maybe some leaves like the one from Bird's Party. It is just a branch lightly spray painted pink stuck in some floral foam in a bucket.

Ava's favorite part is the pom-pom ball baby chick peeping out of the real egg shell.

My favorite part are the bird ornaments we made a few weeks ago. I printed this template on watercolor paper that I cut down to fit in my printer. I just gave Ava a watercolor palette and let her go to work and they came out so pretty.

We had these wooden eggs for a while in an Easter craft kit from PBK. We painted and dipped them and just had fun with them.

Oh and this is what the branch looked like before the transformation to holiday weirdness.