04 Friday Oct 2013
Posted in Inspiration
Tags
backyard bees, Chris Harp, Deerfield Fair, Deerfield NH, fair with kids, Honeybee Lives, honeybees, Inspiration, Instagram, life with kids
Happy Friday!
Here are some of our recent Instagrams:
*Sleepy Dare
*Ice Cream, Deerfield Fair
*Honeycomb at Honeybee Lives Class
*Ada’s Baby Quilt from Gram, On the Line
*Last of the Tomatoes from our CSA
*Hat Weather
*Chris Harp Pulling Honey for Harvest
*Josie’s First Candy Apple
*Piggies
Have a wonderful weekend.
02 Wednesday Oct 2013
Tags
4by6 postcard, B Design Studio, Bob Lapointe, diy baby announcement, diy birth announcement, fruit and veggie birth announcement, library card birth announce, new baby, welcoming baby
If you have been around a pregnancy lately you probably know that many baby sites compare fetal development to various fruits and vegetables. Your baby is now the size of a banana! We always found the comparisons amusing, if not a bit strange and decided to use the idea for Dare’s birth announcement. We took photos of various produce and arranged them by size. The fruit and veggies are on one side and Dare and her stats are on the other. My dear friend Bob at B Design did the layout and we ordered postcards from 4by6. Dare is two months old already(!) and we are finally getting these into the mail. Welcome (again) little one!
Here is the announcement we did for Dare’s big sister Josie.
01 Tuesday Oct 2013
Tags
family time, flea market, flea market bargain, flea market finds, flea market style, flea markets with kids, life with kids, Todd Farm, Travel with kids
There is pretty much nothing I like better than spending the day at the flea market. Chris asked me what I want to do for a 40th birthday party next year and I told him I wanted to spend the day at the flea. I wasn’t kidding. This past weekend I got to spend a few hours in beautiful fall weather at my favorite flea, Todd Farm in Rowley Mass. We gave the girls $2 each to spend and they were (relatively) well behaved for a few hours while we all searched for treasure. I have an idea to give the girls a larger amount of money when they get older in order for them to buy something of value, resell it and use that money to buy something else…a bit of a financial lesson which they are in no way interested in at the moment. Todd Farm is an outdoor market with over 200 vendors. It is full of amazing vintage and antique finds (and only a very small amount new items, too many of which ruin a flea market in my opinion). The grounds at Todd Farm are grassy and surrounded by trees and parking is free. It is one of my all-time favorite spots. Here are some of our finds from the day:
*Heavy Glass Sugar Shaker (To add to our vintage bar ware) $1
*Spotted Juice Glass (To add to my collection. This just barely made my $3-$4 limit for juice glass purchasing, but it is in perfect shape) $4
*Wicker Trash Basket (To be painted white and put into the bathroom. It will replace a plastic one that has seen better days) $1
*Wooden Beads (For the girls to make into necklaces) $1
*Large Galvanized Metal Watering Can (To water the plants behind the bee hives, out of my reach with the hose. This will replace the ugly plastic one we currently use) $10
Total amount spent on these treasures: $17. Add in the $4 we gave to the girls and the grand total comes to $21. A bargain price for a few hours of outdoor family time and a happy Mama.
16 Monday Sep 2013
Posted in Likes, Shop, Uncategorized, Vintage
Tags
co-sleeping, Ebay antique linen sheet, Etsy antique linen sheet, Garnet Hill linen sheet, home, life with kids, linen sheets, Restoration Hardware linen sheet, sleep in pregnancy, vintage linen sheet
(First days of Kindergarten and a newborn baby certainly make for sparse blog posts around here…Sorry about that).
It was a hot July around here to be pregnant. My few pleasures involved eating and sleeping, and towards the end not even those were making me happy. I had heard how amazing linen sheets are to sleep on and in a moment of weakness I ordered an expensive set of them online. (I have never spent this much money on sheets and felt a little ill after I hit the confirm button). But when the sheets arrived and we spent the first night sleeping on them, I felt much better. (OK, technically I still felt ill and had to wake up to pee every hour, but the time spent actually sleeping was kind of amazing). The sheets are huge- they generously touch the floor on both sides of the bed. The color is soft and calming- they even look good when I am too lazy to make the bed. Linen lasts for years and just gets softer with age. And they are absolutely lovely to sleep on. The sheets are a heavier weight than cotton, but light and cool in hot weather. Now that the season is changing the sheets feel warm and comfortable at night. I had planned to switch back to our normal cotton sheets when Dare was born. She is in our bed and babies can be quite messy creatures, but I could not bring myself to switch back to cotton sheets. I hid all of the cotton sheets upstairs. I am in love and I cannot go back. The baby seems pretty happy with them as well.
If you want to be really really nice to a pregnant woman (or yourself) you can find linen sheets here: Restoration Hardware’s sheets, Garnet Hills sheets, vintage linen sheets on Ebay and Etsy.
Sweet dreams!
06 Friday Sep 2013
Posted in Inspiration, Likes
Tags
end of summer, honeybee drones, Inspiration, Instagram, Lake George NY, life with kids, New Native baby carrier, The Magic Forest, Travel with kids, vintage amusement park
Happy Friday!
We can feel summer slipping away over here. The light is changed since we returned from vacation. The bees have started kicking the drones out of the hives for the cooler weather ahead, poor boys. The garden is as full as it will get and we are thinking about what worked and what we will amend for next year. We are planning winter projects and looking back at the steps we made over the summer. Fall is my favorite time of year in this spot. The sun is bright and strong, but no longer wilting. We spent our last summer day at the park yesterday. Ada is starting kindergarten on Monday! I am still a bit in denial, and promise not to cry until we are out of her sight. Autumn is such an exciting and transforming time of year. It always makes me feel like change is on its way. What are your plans for the new season?
Instagrams form the last few weeks:
*Ivy in the Window
*Fort Construction
*Josie on the Last Summer Beach Day
*Sleepy Dare in the Pouch
*Early Snowman at The Magic Forest, Lake George NY. (We were skeptical, but The Magic Forest was pretty amazing. The forgotten amusement park is small, quiet, shady and perfectly kitschy. They have a Snow White animatronic exhibit which claims to be from the 1939 World’s Fair, but is in fact even older. Mouse Planet has a great post about The Magic Forest’s history here. The gift shop was a beautiful dusty jumble of beaded belts, felt cowboy hats and rubber souvenir tom-toms).
*Magic Forest Angels
04 Wednesday Sep 2013
Tags
ABC soap, back to school, birthday number soap, counting with kids, DIY number soap, Etsy number soap, learning numbers, number soap for kids, number soaps
My sister got us a bag of these adorable little number soaps as a gift. They are just the right size for little hands and great for helping kids work on their number recognition. I’d been putting the soaps out out in random order, and realized that the appropriate number would be cute for Ada’s recent birthday celebration. We secretly planted the number five in the downstairs bathroom and Ada dragged her friends in there to wash with her birthday soap. You can find your own number soaps here, or buy a mold and make your own. Just in time for back-to-school!
03 Tuesday Sep 2013
Posted in Organizing
Tags
book shelf for kids, books for kids, Brooklyn, child's books, flea market finds, home, life with kids, organizing books, organizing kids room, side table bookshelf
We found this table on the street last week. I drove past it, and then looped back after a minute of thought. (I love good street finds- they are one of the best parts about city living. I also love putting stuff out on the stoop when we are finished with it. Anything good will be gone in a couple of hours, and everyone is happy). We recently moved our large bookshelf out of the girls’ room and into the office to make room for their bunk beds. The girls have made a habit of looking at books in the office, which is great, except for the huge piles they leave on the floor every few hours. We have been looking for/ designing/ planning to build a small bookshelf for the girls’ room and this little table happened to fit perfectly under the window. Our new plan includes my filling up their table with fresh books every morning. When they have read them all they stack the books back onto the table and I rotate new ones off of the big bookshelf. This way the girls get to read new books each day, and I get to deal with less mess.
29 Thursday Aug 2013
Tags
decorating, flea market finds, home, home style, living with kids, school map Ebay, school map Etsy, vintage map, vintage school map
We have been looking for a large-scale something to hang on the wall behind our sofa. We are really bad about putting things up around the house. We’ve been here for two years now and have a list of things to be framed and hung, but still have a lot of open white walls. A version of this Airstream print from Hatch Show Print is on our Want list. (They had a beautiful red one at the shop when we visited in the spring and said they would print a custom order for us). Chris found this vintage classroom map of the United States in the back corner of an antique shop. It was a good price, although we weren’t sure where in our house it would fit at the time. Perhaps I was inspired yesterday by listening to Martin Luther King Jr.’s beautiful I Have a Dream speech. Perhaps I was feeling patriotic when I decided to hang the giant map up in the living room. I copied the hanging technique from some friends and removed the map’s heavy roller case. I tied strong twine around the two ends of the rollers at the top of the map and hung the string on two nails at the top of our wall. The map seems much larger on our wall than it had in the cavernous antique shop ,but I think it works. Ada is excited to point to the states she knows (albeit while standing on the couch). I am excited by the map’s large scale and vibrant colors – and maybe a little excited about a refresher geography lesson.
To find your own vintage school maps you can check your favorite flea market, antique shop, Ebay or Etsy. Happy hunting!
28 Wednesday Aug 2013
Posted in Projects
Tags
crafts for kids, DIY cards, diy cards for kids, DIY housewarming card, housewarming, housewarming card, life with kids, moving, new house, washi tape card
We had two exciting house moves in the family recently and Ada helped design this housewarming card. (She is calling them Happy Moving cards). We used washi tape and crayon to illustrate the houses and accordion-folded card stock to fit inside our card. The line of houses unfolds out of the card to show the move from one house to another. As with most kid projects, I had my vision of how the card would turn out and Ada had her own. She made city buildings, without pitched roofs for most of the houses. Feel free to tailor yours to your own neighborhood. To make your own Washi Tape Housewarming Card you will need:
*Card Stock
*Scissors
*Washi Tape in Various Colors
*Crayons or Colored Pencils
1. Accordion fold card stock to fit inside of card. (The folds should be hidden when card is closed).
2. Tape accordion fold into open card.
3. Using washi tape, make a house on each fold inside of card.
4. Using pencil or crayon, draw an arrow from the first house to the last house. Add windows, doors, chimneys, etc.
5. Write in your Happy Moving Day greeting.
6. Mail it to the new address!
15 Thursday Aug 2013
Posted in Organizing
Tags
children's rooms, controlling clutter, how to organize with kids, kids rooms, living with kids, living without clutter, organize children's room, Organizing, storage solution
I can feel the season starting to change around here. It is cooler at night and the leaves are looking slightly less green. The change always makes me feel like organizing, moving rooms around and moving out things we aren’t using any more. The two big girls were at Nan and Pappy’s for the week and I took my time rearranging their room. I moved toys to a shelf that Ada can reach on her own, and got rid of bags of broken and forgotten things. (I LOVE that NYC is now recycling all hard plastics!) Now the room feels more airy and they kids are excited to see toys they hadn’t played with for a while. Here are a few of the things I try to do when I am organizing:
*Get the ugly out of sight. I hate looking at ugly things. It hurts me. I am not kidding.
*Group like things together (all the blocks in one big box, etc)
*Rotate toys by storing some out of sight, and displaying others. When the kids get bored with the first batch, rotate.
*Make sure everything has a spot. If it doesn’t, find a spot or get rid of the thing. Do not leave something in a place it does not belong.
*Try to have each room back to its organized state at bed time. There is nothing worse than waking up to yesterday’s mess. It is a pleasure to start the day with order.
*Do not keep something because you feel guilty about getting rid of it. Your life will be better when you are not carrying around tons of things out of guilt.
*Leave some space around things.
*Live with only useful and beautiful things. Get rid of the rest.
*Do not keep something because it may someday be useful. Aside from really special heirlooms, if you haven’t used something in more than a year you do not need it.
*If it is difficult to clean your space, than your space is too cluttered.
*Do not buy ugly storage containers. If you don’t want to look at plastic bins on your shelves, don’t come home with them. If the storage container looks worse than the mess, it is not working.
*Life is too short to use ugly dishes, or cups, or toothbrushes…you get the idea.
*Purge! It feels great! I promise.
Domesticspace 