The Nursery to Toddler Room Transformation Part 1

Slowly but surely, we have been turning Liam's nursery into a toddler's room. It started when we moved into our new house, I knew soon we would need more storage space for toys and less space for things like a changing table and containers of Desitin. So I procrastinated and saved his room for last to be worked on. Now that I'm finally getting around to working on it little by little I think I'll share bits and pieces here and there. 

So piece no. 1 

The owl art has been removed from over his bed (though I painted it and loved the tree branch, I hated my owl) so here's what replaced it....

(Side note: we have kept his owl theme minus the old piece above his bed.)

These frames were so easy and cheap to make! I purchased $5 photo frames at Walmart....

And after removing all the mat, glass and backing, I painted them blue with few streaks of dark brown mixed in to my paint-careful not to mix the colors more than necessary. (Also, dipping a cloth in dark brown paint/stainer and strategically rubbing it along with the wood grain were needed does the trick as well!) 

After I got the effect I wanted with my paints, I attached the wires along the back of the frame. 

Then using mini clothes pins, I hung my pictures and was done!! 

Up next for his room update: 

A toy bin padded bench

Changing table into a night stand 

Pallet made bookshelves 

New bedding

At Home Coffee Bar

We have a serious problem in our new house... It's called a lack of kitchen counter space. It's very serious too as my hubby is a major chef and spends lots of time in the kitchen. He's one of those "use every pot and pan on one meal" kind of cookers too.
So what to do when you have less counter space than your used to?
Well keeping lots of appliances on them is totally a bad idea as we have found. These appliances usually end up sitting out of the way in the laundry room or dinning table were we eventually have to move them right back after clean up, and clean up never happens the same night.
Part of our kitchen appliance clutter=our two coffee pots (not his and hers, more like coffee pot and cappuccino/expresso machine). Yes we are major coffee snobs and we are totally okay with that.
So to get these off our counter top and provide the master chef with a little more room, we made a coffee bar out of our old china cabinet. All it took was a $6 board from Lowes, a $0.99 bottle of white paint which we already had, two $5 bracers, $1.99 hooks and a handy dandy husband to install it all. Five minutes later ta-da!!
Clean counters = cute coffee nook.
Cute coffee nook = clean counters.
It's what we call a win-win.

Rewind Time for a Pumpkin

So you got excited that it was officially fall, and you carved your pumpkin a little too early huh???
Well join the club--because I totally did--but now it's withering before we get to Halloween night (when everyone sets out their pumpkins and lights them up) so what now? Carve a new one? Have none?
Nope! You're going to save that pumpkin!! How?
Why soak it in a sink full of water of course! I know what your thinking because I was too when my sister-in-law suggested this...

"Won't it get soggy and fall apart?"

Nope here's proof in my photos.
Just run a sink full of water (room temperature) and soak it for a few hours (or if your like me overnight) and ta-da!! The pumpkin "re-hydrates" itself, and is ready to go!

(Sorry, no photo of the withered pumpkin, but the after photo is 6 days after the before shot!)

Happy Halloween all!!

Fun with Audio Books

An amazing invention that our family has recently been hooked on are Hallmark's amazing audio children's books. These are not just any audio books with some boring narrator, these books let you customize the audio "play back" with your own voice or anyone else's that is near by! So if mom and dad want to record themselves reading the book to their child, taking turns with every page, they can. If grandparents want to send a book to their grandkids with their voice narrating, they can! If we wanted our Hispanic sitter to help us record a Spanish version to play as we read it aloud for Liam, she could! If you wanted to read it with sound affects, funny voices or funny add-ins, you can! Any way you can think of is possible with these books; there's so many ways to record the book for your child! 

We have found that even when Liam's visual impairment keeps him from seeing the small print and the small items in the pictures, we can "set the scene" for him as we record it do that he doesn't miss anything in his reading experience. Hallmark has so many different books to choose from too! They brought us comfort when we were unsure of how bad Liam's vision would be because we knew with these books he could still enjoy reading like we do or more!  So thankful we found them!! 

Foto Friday

It's that time of year again, FINALLY!!! Time for grilling, eating dinner on the back porch every evening, and playing in the cool night air until we collapse from exhaustion (Liam not us)! So glad to welcome Fall back!! Hope it stays awhile!

Dusting Off The Ole Resume

Recently, after several years at the same desk job, I found myself needing to break out my old resume and do some major editing and revision before distributing it out.  After many copies landed in the trash can (and the floor around the trash can) I thought I finally had an average resume. Then after returning home the following day after delivering it to a small handful of hiring companies, my lovely husband pointed out that none of them would be calling me in for interviews anytime soon seeing as I'd left off my phone number and all other contact info.

UGH. 

Unless they decided to go door knocking for call backs I was screwed.

So I sat down at my computer once again to rewrite my resume but instead came up with the following:

10 Things to Remember When Writing a Resume

1. Don't forget your contact information!!!!!

2. Don't misspell words like savvy or your/you're

3. Have a special skills section to list any useful skills for the job

4. Use bullet points or numbering

5. Make it stand out either with the layout, the headings, or simply the smell of the page. I have had friends spritz their resumes with perfume and get hired!! 

6. Make the resume job specific -I.e.  no special carpentry skills for a nanny gig, no babysitting and cleaning skills listed when applying for an office job, but do list if applying for that job type. etc.

7. Don't say "etc."

8. Include any degrees, licensure, or certifications 

9. Include any extra schooling even if no degree was attained 

10. No family references! Use wide range of people who know you, close friends only, mentors, old teachers or bosses and make sure they will remember who you are!!! 

AND DO NOT FORGET TO START WITH YOUR NAME!!!! 

Oh and don't sit your coffee down next to your printed stack of resumes!

Foto Friday!

Make a funny face!! Or two....or three !