Pink ikat recycled lockers
When we built our daughter’s custom loft bed last January, I really reined myself in with the colours in her room. Muted mauve. Soft pink. Pale grey. Touches of gold, and a tiny bit of dusty rose.
I loved the finished look and decided that maybe — just maybe — my colour sense was calming down.
So when it was time to paint a set of lockers for her bedroom, my initial instinct was “Let’s paint them pale grey to match the loft bed or the same soft mauve as the walls.” I didn’t want anything jarring to interfere with the delicate colour palette of her beautiful new room.
Well, try telling a five-year-old you plan on painting her new lockers — lockers she’d been begging for since I did a navy Army-style set for her brother …
… and a white-and-gold set for my home office — a boring light grey.
It did not go over well. And I suppose grey lockers would have looked grossly industrial?
She wanted them to be rainbow-striped, and we compromised on ombré — light pink at the top, slowly darkening toward the bottom of the lockers.
Well, I tried it . . . and it wasn’t looking good. No matter how I messed with the shades and tried to blend them together, they stubbornly refused to be pretty …
Continue reading in my weekly DIY column, My Handmade Home …
Let’s talk about (postpartum) sex, baby!
Looking back, my biggest #pregnancyfail — other than the time I stupidly microwaved hardboiled eggs and they exploded all over the kitchen — was that I didn’t think enough about how my life was going to change.
It’s not that I didn’t think about the baby I was carrying. That’s ALL I thought about, as I washed and folded little onesies and obsessively decorated every corner of the nursery. But the majority of my thoughts were about what every pregnant woman can’t stop thinking about: how the baby’s going to arrive.
I read a pile of pregnancy books and scoured the internet for stories and tips. I Googled “how do you know you’re in labour” and “early labour signs” and read as many other bloggers’ birth stories as I could find. When you’re pregnant, you’re so focused on the big day that it’s hard to think beyond that.
It wasn’t until just before our son arrived that I realized I hadn’t read much about actually taking care of a baby or breastfeeding or what to expect postpartum, or … anything, really. Whoops. By that point, I was too uncomfortable and cranky to cram for the “test” that was coming my way.
After our son arrived, all of my labour and delivery knowledge was immediate. I really wished I’d expanded my studying …
Continue reading in my weekly parenting column, The Mom Scene … AND it includes details on a very special appearance in Halifax this coming Monday (Feb. 12, 2018)
DIY mittens (because you can’t buy them in February?!)
So in January or February, in Canada — CANADA!!! — it’s practically impossible to buy new mittens, gloves, snow pants, and any of the other winter essentials we NEED in CANADA. Some stores have a few left, but the odds of finding your child’s exact size? Well, you’d be better off browsing for the rain boots and spring outfits a few aisles over. *facepalm*
I shared a little parenting hack over on Facebook a few weeks ago about how I attached strings to our daughter’s mittens so she’d stop losing them at school (#lifesaver for sure), and I had some questions about the pink fleece mittens in the first photo. I’d made them because I couldn’t find a decent new pair to buy her. They were great, but not so great in the wet, snowy weather we have around here (#oceanplaygroundproblems).
So here’s a quick-and-dirty way to sew your own SNOW mittens — i.e. water-resistant mittens that can withstand sledding, snowball-making, etc. Read More
Organizing kids’ art supplies
We keep our kids’ art supplies in our dining room. (I say dining room, but really, in these new-fangled open-concept houses, it’s our kitchen table area?) We always have, actually!
It’s probably the hardest-working area of our house because IT IS USED CONSTANTLY and not always (i.e. ever) put away properly, so it requires Big Mommy Clean-Outs every few months or so.
I have learned, however, to limit the chaos.
They have their own small hutch dedicated to craft supplies. While they have half of the main hutch, too, they are not allowed to put ANY of their art crap (I mean “lovely enriching art supplies”) on the “main hutch” or the built-in computer desk. Like if they put a marker there because they’re too lazy to put it where it goes, I’m like DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, SIR/MA’AM.
However … look a few feet to the (*quickly makes an L with her hands because she’ll never completely learn*) LEFT of the main hutch, and you’ll see this hot mess …
Playing cards. Popsicle sticks. A stuffed animal. Game console. Random pumpkin-shaped candle from Halloween (???). Jar of scrap metal our son is hoarding (also ???). Paint-splattered “palette” a.k.a. tin plate. Printer paper. Sticker book. Lots of used paper. Volcano-making kit.
ALL ON ONE HUTCH, HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?
Oh. That’s how …
How we’re tackling our daugher’s (constantly) messy room
When I picked up a pair of tights with a gummy lollipop stick attached to one leg, I was annoyed at her messy room. Then I found the candy wrappers — she’s not allowed to eat in her bedroom! — and the chewed-up wad of gum — in her jewelry box! — and I could feel my face heating up.
I just spent an unpleasant Sunday cleaning our five-year-old daughter’s messy room. This is not something I do very often, and maybe that’s the problem. Actually, no, the problem is her — and her “casual” approach to order.
Our daughter is like my husband, you see. This means she is delightfully friendly and outgoing, she loves staying up late, sugar is her love language, and . . . she is a bit of a slob.
I thought she’d outgrow trashing her room after we passed the toddler years, but somehow it kept happening. I tried to accept that it was how she liked to play, and that she didn’t need to be super-organized like me (and her brother). But every time I walked by her super-messy room, I felt like screaming.
“I just don’t know what to do! It’s driving me crazy!,” I wailed to my husband. “You’re like her — what would make YOU keep your room clean?”
He looked apologetic. He didn’t have any ideas, but he, too, was annoyed by the mess. (When a messy person is annoyed by a mess, you know it is a REALLY BIG MESS). Read More
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Heather's Handmade Life 