Salmon, Garlic Pearled Couscous and Haricots Verts

Keely's Room

Preteens seem to have a penchant for magenta animal print. There is also a matching area rug just out of view.

A reading nook between the wall and the dresser. I papered the back of the dresser shelves.

Homework area. All of the little stickers around the windows and boards are actually paper cut-outs. I just used spray adhesive on the back to make them stick.

$2 Chandelier. See how I made it here.

Whole Wheat Bean and Rice Burritos with Pineapple Salsa

Modern Chandelier for under $2

After

Before

1. For the metal tiering, I used three rings of varying sizes, then hooked them together with clipped metal hangers and spraypainted it all silver to get an industrial look. A lampshade would also work well.
2. I cut out circles from wax paper and then used a T-pin to make holes at the top and the bottom of each.
3. I threaded clear monofilament through each hole in stacks of four, then tied them to the tiering.
4. To hang it, I just screwed in two hooks in the ceiling and slid it on.

See more of Keely's room here

Party Invites: Garden Fairy Birthday

See the whole Enchanted Garden Party here

I ripped the top and bottom of the paper, leaving extra on either side to glue the sticks.

Gold roller stamping on the back of the invite.

Modge-podged yarn and sprinkled pink glitter for scroll ties.

I hot-glued the sticks and then rolled them up and tied them with the glittered yarn.

Egg, Cheese and Tomato Sandwich with Pineapple

Mandi's lodge wedding

Cooling off at the end of the night. Few things beat jumping in a pool with all of your clothes on.

Happy anniversary sis!

Keely's Zen Garden

The Fam

The best part of moving back is being closer to my family. I was lucky enough to not only have a sister of my own, but two cousins who were raised like sisters to me. Which means lots of new cousins!

From left to right: Front row is Skye, Gianna and Keely. Back row is Mandi holding Amia, Jeni, me holding Dayton, and Lori holding Kalyb.

My favorite summer vacation - the Aquarium. By Keely

I remember the first time I went to the aquarium. I loved it! Where else can you get up close to dangerous sea animals? And then go out on the boardwalk and play carnival games?

Hello Mr. Shark.

Bumpy, not so slimy.

I'm glad I'm on the outside!

My little sis. I don't think she got how cool it was.

Bathroom Makeover

I've come to realize real estate photographers are geniuses, because taking pictures of other small spaces is not an easy task. Nevertheless, here are some images of our bathroom redo:

This is how the bathroom looked with its previous owner--with a serious case of the blues. We needed way more space. And color.

I stained the vanity for an antique-y look and spray painted the hardware to match the other fixtures.

This over-the-toilet shelving unit was much needed after going from 3 bathrooms to 1.

I fell in love with this shower curtain from Urban Outfitters. Believe it or not, this was one of my biggest splurges, at least relatively.

The bathroom has this weird long path to the door with some awkward wall space, but a towel rack and some cheap art helped to fill the void.

Missing the beach

Baby Amia at the Jersey shore

A chic "metal" step stool

Having independent preschoolers in the house, you just can't get away with not having a step stool. Ours was this cheap plastic one that didn't really fit in with our bathroom scene. So I just spray painted it silver to match the other metal in the room. I love under-five-minute projects.

This was our brand of step stool, but we had a pink version.

Lola Bear

If you notice some pics of the girls seem like they were done by a professional, you're correct. Meet Jane Seymour, not the Dr. Quinn version so much as children's photographer extraordinaire and also the girls' other godmother (See godmother Marissa here). I love Jane's style of taking kids' pics in the moment, so I let her practice on mine whenever she wants :) You can see samples of her work at LolaBear Photography and I'm putting some of my favorites below.

Jane in front of the camera for once

Playroom Before & After

I had two months to whip this cottage into shape before the school year began, and it came right down to the wire. Also, I had just a little more than $1000 for budget for the entire house (not counting my new loveseat and chair), so let’s just say I had to be creative.

The last room to be finished, and certainly the one that required the most attention, was a tiny basement room that was previously used for storage. 

Clearly, there were some major ick factors with this room. The walls were painted stone and wood—with a hole right into what was to be my bedroom closet. The tile floor was broken and not exactly appealing. The ceiling just wasn’t there; it was wood beams with pipes jutting in and out of them. And wow was it disgusting. I didn’t think there would be an end of the grime to clean up in there. When my mom came up to help me clean, we moved some pallets that had been on the floor and discovered most of the previous tenants had at least six legs. Perfect spot for a playroom, no?

Well, here’s how it turned out.

I hung up fun wall hangings and the girls’ artwork. If you look on the far left, the two paintings of Alice in Wonderland and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz were painted by my artist friend David Baratta (see our birthday post). The other two pictures are from another friend, Alan Muroaka, who plays Alan on Sesame Street.

Just a couple of weeks ago, my dad nailed up plywood on most of the walls and ceiling. Around the edges where he couldn’t extend the wood, I stapled up fabric, which ended up a little more pink than I anticipated, so I will add some large stickers to break that up a bit later.

I put up contact paper on the plywood, painted the ceiling and laid down some super cheap vinyl tile floor ($.28 a square) that was so easy to put in I was able to cut it for the entire basement. I also papered the back of our little white shelves (for toys) and the pre-existing shelves (for their art and craft supplies), which I’ll organize those in a prettier way later.

On the pipes I couldn’t cover, I adhered with big chipboard stickers. We also couldn’t cover the window area with plywood, so I was left with a gaping hole where I ended up putting in a faux windowsill flower garden. I’ll have more on that in projects later.

I also painted and covered the two closets with shelves for extra game and dress-up clothes storage.

What do you think?

First Day of School 2011

Now in 4th grade and preschool

Some of my other favorite First Day moments:

Keely, kindergarten

Keely, 1st Grade. Backpack filled to the brim with school supplies.

Amia, first day of day care/preschool. No matter how cute her hair would look when I sent her off...

...this is what would come home (she's at the back in the purple)