Guest Room Accessories

We have overnight guests at least once or twice a month at our home. Having a well equipped guest room helps save me the trouble of finding forgotten supplies last minute, or trying to describe where something is located in my house while cooking dinner and holding a crying toddler. (But don't get the wrong idea, we're not a full service bed and breakfast, I will make you help if you stay here!) All I have to say to my guest is, "It's in your room." I have little labels in my cupboards, baskets full of extra toiletries and a full medicine cabinet. One of my favorite little guest items is this jar I have on a shelf above the toilet. It contains pens, scissors, tape, eye wear screws, super glue, note cards, stamps, etc.

Organizing and Displaying your Children's Artwork

We have a lot of artwork in our home. My kids draw and paint at school, at home and at art class. I'm always working on the method to the madness and currently my method is the following:

My kids present me with their art. This art can be clipped on their wire in the hallway for immediate display (from Ikea) Some pieces make it to the framed gallery we have going down the hall to their rooms. The frames here are a mix of Aaron Brothers, Ikea and Michaels frames with acid free colored poster board or paper as mats. My kids also have access to blue painters tape which sometimes they use to put artwork in their room or closet. Artwork can also be placed in their completed art file (or on top of their art desk if it is an oversized item). They each have their own little filing boxes.

These are simply cardboard boxes from Ikea that are divided into two because they used to be cardboard drawer units. These two divided sections are labeled still working and complete. We'll go through the boxes together every so often to clean them out, decide what to recycle, what to remember to finish, and what to keep. The artwork they want to keep will get photographed for their art album. I then decide if we really want to keep it. If it's a keeper, it gets filed away in their artwork box in a closet.

This box seems to hold the first 5 years worth of art. I've recently bought my six year old a new one. I'm kinda bummed because of course Ikea no longer carries the cool cardboard boxes with the window and I have to settle on a regular (green of course) box. Maybe they have them but are out every time I drive to my closest Ikea, THREE and a HALF hours away (yes the half counts when you have three kids).

Someday I plan to take all the pictures of each kid's artwork and make a photo book, perhaps to be shared at their first gallery opening. (There's that bubble again, please don't pop it.)

Organizing Vitamins, Herbs and Supplements

My kids take a lot of vitamins and supplements. Can't say I'm not trying to prevent the illnesses that seem to visit our household every couple weeks. Though this might have something to do with the store counters at face level that my kids find so tempting. Or the wipe the nose and lick the hand method of self bathing. From omegas to calcium, gummy vitamins to chewable C, we've got it covered. That is a lot of bottles to open everyday, so I picked up a couple giant pill containers that are divided by day. Each child has their name labeled on one container so I can tell who's had their daily dose of gummies.

I have two "medicine cabinets." One in my kitchen and part of a linen closet in the master bedroom. In my kitchen cabinet I have a large basket for all of the everyday vitamins, (both adult and child), that I bring down weekly to refill our giant granny pill boxes. I have other containers (mostly converted child shoeboxes) labeled "Breathe Freely," "Essential Oils," "Feel Better Fast.....Kids," and "Feel Better Fast" (for adults). I also have a lazy susan for pain and fever reducing meds, and other frequently needed herbs and tinctures. I have faith in positive thinking and didn't feel right labeling anything "sick" or "asthma."

The medicine cabinet in my bedroom linen closet contains several labeled plastic containers. Along with homeopathic and herbs, these container hold traditional western otc meds just in case we need them. The containers are labeled for Cold and Sinus, Ear & Eye, Digestion, Essential Oils, and Mother health (I'm always nursing or pregnant). There is also another lazy susan for pain meds.

My pill boxes are labeled Queen A.M. and Queen P.M. of course. My husband's dust collecting pill box has just been relabeled for my youngest son, now old enough for his own gummies, since obviously my husband wasn't cool enough to take his vitamins.

Moroccan Lanterns for my Dinning Room

My dinning room has a giant chandelier that is HUGE. My plans are to someday replace this with seven or nine Moraccan lanterns randomly placed on my ceiling. Most of the lanterns I've seen so far need to be wired for electricity. I have not yet begun to collect the lanterns but I hope that someday this project works it's way to a higher priority on my way too long list.

Photo from the Anthropologie in San Jose at Santa Row.

Photo from the condo of a doula client friend of mine.

DRINK COFFEE - Do Stupid Things Faster with More Energy

Have you had YOUR cup today?

Current Home Project - Train Shelf

For Christmas two years ago, Santa brought my son a Polar Express O gage Lionel Train. This year for Christmas, my husband bought him a box of about forty feet worth of track with the grand plan of installing a train track shelf going around the top of his room. Deciding that would be too easy, he punched holes into the wall so the train will go from the bedroom into the closet, then from the closet into the office, and then back into the bedroom. The plan was to have this project completed during the Christmas break week, in hopes of sharing it with our New Years guests. January 22 and counting the project is about half done. Now in all honesty there were many legitimate excuses and if my husband hadn't gotten vertigo and then the flu I'm sure he would have it about 80% complete like he does all his other projects. (But who am I to talk.) Anyhow, it's going to be the talk of all the first graders when it's done.

Vase with Flowers - Update - School Art Auction Project

The flower wiring is comin' along. They are so cute I could put them anywhere, and can definitely use this idea in other projects. (IF I could ever lay eyes on wiring one again.) I've got three home flowers and three school flowers to finish (one that hasn't even been painted yet.) The home back board is complete, as well as the home vase. The school back board needs a couple coats of polyacrylic, and the vase still needs to be cut and collaged with green squares from magazines. Both projects need the flowers to be attached, and wire stems threaded with glass beads (by children). I'm going to stop thinking of what I have left to finish because I didn't think it was going to take this many words. One step at a time. The auction isn't till February 6, anyway right?

Organizing Children's Art Supplies - Lazy Susan

My kids love to have access to art supplies so they can have the freedom to create when the inspiration strikes. The art supply lazy susan is always out on the art table. I used a pantry lazy susan and cans with their labels removed. I can imagine a ton of cute upgrades you could make to this idea......cover the cans with colored paper, contact paper or photos of your kids, create your own lazy susan out of wood painted with your kids hand prints, etc, etc. It's pretty utilitarian but it does it's job for now.

Art supplies in lazy susan:

• colored pencils
• straight scissors & craft scissors
• lead pencils
• tape
• glue (glue sticks, liquid glue, glue spreading sticks)
• rulers
• paint brushes (they have access to water colors)
• stapler

In addition to these art supplies, my kids have free access to paper, crayons, markers, wiki stix, watercolors, and art books. They have a couple big drawers with items ready to be upcycled such as Quaker Oatmeal containers, paper towel rolls, shoe boxes, cardboard and anything else that screams for a transformation.

I love these containers from Ikea for some of the smaller art supplies and other items:

Easy Dinner Night - Chicken, Broccoli, Bell Peppers

My life has been calling for some easy dinner nights. For the past three years during spring, summer and fall I've been a member of the Great Basin Basket CSA. Every week my husband or I pick up a box full of local produce. It's a great way to get the freshest, organic vegies and fruit. It's convenient in the way that you don't have to think about what you're going to get at the store in terms of fruit and vegies, but you do have to figure out how you're going to prepare it. And preparing it, well.... I have to admit, sometimes this can be a part time job. Through the years I've had to learn a lot about bulk preparation and freezing. I make pesto in huge batches, freezing it in ice-cube trays. Soups are made in triple batches, and pretty much any recipe I can convert into a slow cooker recipe is doubled or tripled and then food saved. Besides recipes, I'll cook a huge batch of chicken in the slow cooker with just some chicken bouilian, shred it with forks, and food save it in one meal increments. Then I can use it as a base in a new recipe... (cue Trader Joes simmer sauces).


Anyhoo, short story long, in the winter I buy a lot of my produce in the freezer section from places like Trader Joes, pre-cut, pre-seasoned (sometimes), and all ready to go. I'm always amazed by how fast dinners can be when you use prepared items.

Tonight's Easy Dinner:

I put a couple handfuls of broccoli (I get the huge bag from Costco) into the pot with a bit of water and olive oil. Let it sit on low with the lid for a few minutes.

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Add half a bag of frozen roasted bell peppers.

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Add the pre-cooked chicken till warm.

Enjoy!

There's a lot you could do to bump up this meal to the next level. Add a bunch of grated romano cheese, pine nuts, sesame seeds, or sun dried tomatoes. Throw it over pasta, rice, quinoa or serve as is with some sourdough bread.

Suction Cup Tooth Brush Holder

My kids bathroom can get cluttered real easy, real fast. Between the tubes of toothpaste they neglect to put away and the bowls of water filled with rubber type animals that promise to increase their size by 600%, space becomes minimized. In search of a suction cup toothbrush holder at Target, I came across a couple suction cup razor holders. Stuck to the medicine cabinet, it holds both the toothbrush and flosser, clearing up the counter for more important experiments. Another bonus is that keeping the kids' toothbrushes separate will cut down on the sharing of germs.

Searching on google I came across a couple cute suction cup tooth brush holders:

The Happy Suction Toothbrush Holder available at Tiny Living

Ocean Animal Suction Cup Kids Toothbrush Holder from Chocolate Cake Club

Color Coordinated Home Library - Books organized by color

Books Organized By Color

My Son came home from school, pointed at our family room and said, "Mom, can we make this our home library?" I had been thinking of moving a bookshelf from our bedroom into this newly rearranged family room of ours but I hadn't acted on it in any way. So to hear my six year old son with a similar idea that included some furniture rearrangement gave my heart an extra pitter patter. This book case held my novels in my bedroom, all organized by color and only in every other cubby. Now it holds all our novels and all the children's books; organized by color. The kids have small book holders in their room they now use for their books that they "check out" from our library. Their previous book cubbies in their room now hold dolls and toys. This is working out to be a good system. Once a week we go to the library, return books, and check out new books. They are allowed to do this anytime of course but only with the guidance of a "librarian." My six year old and I are both librarians. To be a librarian, you have to be able to put books away correctly, using our color classification system while being careful not to hide books inside others or bend pages. Amazingly my 18 month old son is listening fairly well and for the most part is only using his books on the very bottom shelf. We'll see how long that lasts.

School Auction Art Project - Vase with Flowers - Part 1

Every year my children's school holds a huge fundraising auction. As room mother this year, I am in charge of organizing a fine art project to be made by kids ages 3-6. Flipping through magazines I came across a couple inspirational paintings. "Vase with Flowers" by Picasso and an unknown artist from the August Family Circle Magazine.

I am making this project with my own kids in addition to making it with the thirty kids in my daughter's class at school. I figured that if I didn't have my own to keep, I'd end up spending an insane amount of money buying the one I'm making for the auction. The piece for the auction is going to be 4' x 4'. Our home piece is 2' x 4'.

Our home project has 13 flowers, one for each year of each kids' life (including the 9 months of pregnancy). The school project has 30 flowers, one for each student. Each flower is hand cut out of mdf using a jigsaw. All the wood in this project was primed with two coats of primer.

The center circles are mdf of various sizes bought from Michaels Craft store. Each flower and circle is painted using craft paint with a couple colors lightly mixed together in a baby food jar in the attempt that each flower has a bit of two tone color marbling (if the little artist didn't mix it up too much).

For my drying rack, I stuck toothpicks into a box. Looks a bit like a mid-evil torchure device. After two coats and drying time, I brushed two coats of water based polyurethane over the top and sides.

I drilled one hole in the middle of each flower to fit a flat headed bolt. Next I laid each circle on it's matching flower and drilled eight smaller holes through both circle and flower. Using colored jewelry wire, I 'sewed' the circle to the flower after placing the bolt through the larger hole.

The vase was cut out of 1/4 inch mdf. I made a sample out of paper to practice with shape and size. I cut the vase out twice, leaving the center and top hollow in the second. Both were glued together using wood glue.

I cut out approximately one inch green square pieces out of magazines and the kids and I mod podged them onto the vase, wrapped the edges around to the back.

I haven't cut the vase out for the school project yet, but I plan to make it the same size as the one for our home project.

The "canvas" is actually a piece of birch plywood that Home Depot cut to size. I taped off 1/3 up from the bottom and had the little artists sponge a golden mustard color to the top 2/3rds and a grey teal to the bottom. The pictures here show the wood upside down to make it easier to paint. Both of the colors were inspired by Picasso's painting.

For the stems I plan to use a thicker wire from point A to B, and then a finer wire threaded with green glass beads and then wrapped around the thicker wire.

I'm trying to stay a couple steps ahead with my home project because I'm learning what not to do as I go along to prepare myself for the auction project. This is a fun project and I'm excited about my vision however it's a bit exhausting just thinking about it!

Continue on to Vase with Flowers Part 2!

Princess Tea Party

I just threw my daughter her first birthday party. She's four, but it was her first birthday party since that's what happens when you are the middle child with your birthday ten days after Christmas. Invitations were addressed to Princess (or Knight) __________ . Guests included 7 little princesses, two knights and a monkey.

Decorations/supplies:

• For the party table, I used two same size ikea tables supporting a long board covered with butcher block paper drawn with hearts. When it came time to eat, we covered the paper with a pink paper table cloth.
• "Tea cups" were red expresso cups and saucers from Cost Plus.
• Plates were white ceramic, 12 for $16 from Cost Plus. I liked the idea of not using paper and I think my kids are ready for everyday ceramic plates instead of the plastic baby plates they've been using.
• Twenty helium balloons and 15 balloons filled up by my husband and his garage air compressor.

Games/Activities:

• When the party guests arrived they joined the birthday girl making bracelets out of pink (black for boys) pipe cleaners and wide holed beads and bells.
• First game was pin the lips on the frog. I searched on google for images of a frog prince and then painted one ontoa board covered in butcher block paper. I traced lips and had my six year old son cut them out. Everyone was a winner, as the frog liked all their "kisses."
• I found a Disney princess calendar, cut it up and taped the pictures down in a big circle on my floor. We played the music and had the kids dance until the music stopped. Then they found the nearest princess and stood on her as I pulled the small pictures from the back of the calendar out of a hat. We played until everyone won.
• Tea in teapots was served with tea sandwiches that included turkey and cranberry, turkey and butter, cream cheese and cucumber, and peanut butter and jelly. Cheese and apples, cubed and stuck with toothpicks and grapes were on the side.
• Cupcakes were served and the kids spread their own icing and spooned on their own sprinkles.
• I had hoped to order a Cinderella costume online and have our neighbor babysitter dress up and arrive half way through the party but never got around to it in time. Next party perhaps....

Snowflake Greeting Card

I had fun creating this snowflake card. It was relatively simple and took much less time then I anticipated. I dressed my three kidos in white and took pictures in front of a white backdrop. I used professional studio lights but the same look can be achieved with proper natural lighting and a white sheet taped up onto a blank wall. Recently I was in Gap Kids and I saw they had done something similar with kids dressed in very colorful clothes. It was cute too, of course and I'll be receiving a check in the mail shortly for their copyright infringement. (ya I wish)/

I imported the pictures onto my computer and chose the best three. I opened them in Adobe photoshop and using the Polygonal Lasso Tool I made a simple straight edge shape around each kid.

Using Image; Image Rotation I rotated the images and flipped the images to create angled pictures. I then dragged the angled pictures onto a new document that I first colored blue. The very center was a choppy blue image that I filled using a white chosen from behind my daughter's head using the eyedropper tool. I added text to the bottom of the snowflake for my Christmas Greeting, and ordered them! To add a little more busy work to all my free time, I ordered the snowflake 16 x 20 (16 x 16 square is not an available size), and cut it into a hexagon. I then mod podged the back, adhering it onto a piece of 1/4 inch MDF that was painted white. The front of the picture and MDF were then mod podged to seal it off. I bought a lazy susan mechanism and epoxy'ed it to the back of the snowflake board and to a piece of 6 x 6 wood to hang on my wall as a festive, spinning Holiday sign.