Category Archives: Domestic Blitz

In which we don our aprons and putter about the house.

Dinosaur decor for a little boy’s bedroom

08/09/2011 Nichole 2 Comments

With the new house comes the opportunity to do some new decorating. I’m letting the kids choose their paint colors (with some guidance) and an overall “theme.” Pete chose a rather deep blue for his room. We compromised on that by doing one wall — or perhaps large horizontal stripes on one wall — in his color of choice. The rest will be some variation on tan. I tried to sway him toward robots, but he’s decided he wants a dinosaur room. I scoured Etsy for some artwork and found a few gems:

Did you know that “RAWR means I love you in dinosaur”? Neither did I, until I saw this awesome print. This one is $18 for an 8×10, and they offer a variety of colors and dinosaurs. The tiny triceratops is my favorite, but the velociraptor would be an excellent choice, too. He looks like he’s having a one-dino dance party.

Who knew dinosaurs were so resourceful? At $30, this one is out of my Children’s Room Decor budget. Chow Hon Lam’s roller skating dinosaur makes me smile, but I’m betting the public transportation patrons are less than excited about his adventure. (Especially the poor guy who’s taken flight.)

The “Black Sun Brontosaurus” is one of a series of four prints by See Change Design. I contacted the seller to ask whether they were available in a smaller size, and they are! I’m 99.9 percent certain I’m going to buy these guys and group them somewhere in Pete’s room. (Update! Here is the smaller, set-of-four listing! Thank you, Amy of Sea Change Design!)

And finally, the pièce de résistance: “A Dinosaur Who is Also Justin Bieber.” I wouldn’t put the Mike Kendrick piece in Pete’s room, but it definitely has the best title of anything I’ve seen on Etsy. If you’re in the market for a dino with a fabulous coif and flirtation in his heart, this is your guy.

(I don’t think I’m going to buy new bedding to match the dino decor, but this DinoRoar set from Kohl’s is on sale. It’s tempting.)

Scrapbooking

Scrapbooking on a deadline

06/10/2011 Nichole 1 Comment

After a five-month hiatus, I finally started working on the 2009-2010 scrapbook again. I’m pretty close to finishing it. I’m hoping to wrap it up in time to use a Blurb.com coupon that expires in a few weeks.

Here are the last few layouts I’ve done.

An apple a day

Journaling: We went to our friendly local orchard to pick up a few apples for an apple pie. And we came home with a whole bushel! Pete enjoyed sampling the apples from their storage bins - although I don't think they're intended to function as a toddler buffet. Once we brought our haul home, we made caramel apple pies, apple butter and apple sauce.

Leaves

Charleston

Trick or Treat

Journaling: Poppy decided pretty early in the year that she wanted to be The Man in the Yellow Hat for Halloween. Naturally, that meant that Pete had to be Curious George. We joined [small pal & her father] for a bit of trick-or-treating around their neighborhood. — Journaling: Poppy decided pretty early in the year that she wanted to be The Man in the Yellow Hat for Halloween. Naturally, that meant that Pete had to be Curious George. We joined (small pal & her father) for a bit of trick-or-treating around their neighborhood.

Domestic Blitz

Reclaiming space via closet rehabilitation

03/24/2011 Nichole 2 Comments

Everyone has at least one area in their house that’s set aside for Unpacked Boxes. Right? OK, so that’s probably not true. But it’s been true in my house for years. We can attribute 10 percent of that to the fact that we’ve moved many, many times — sometimes in awfully quick succession. Ninety percent of it, though, is because some of us are pack rats.

Anyway, this week in Nichole and Jeni’s Carnival of Clutter, we’re tackling the Worst Closet in the House. And in our house? That’s Pete’s closet. It isn’t a huge closet, so there wasn’t all that much room for Stuff. But boy howdy, did we take every bit of available space with Unpacked Boxes and Other Ridiculous Things. I can’t show you what it looked like before, because Rockford emptied it out before I was able to take a picture of it. But I can show you some of the stuff that came out of it:

That, friends, is a lot for one small closet to hold. And that isn’t even all of it! I would’ve needed a wider frame to capture all of it. But we cleared it all out, and now Pete’s closet is actually holding his clothes! Cleaning out his closet also made room for me to try a toy-rotation system, which I’ve been wanting to do for quite awhile. I separated his toys into groups — dinosaurs, cars, different types of blocks, etc. — and put about half of them in boxes in the top of the closet. In a month or so, I’ll swap out something that’s been out and available and put something from storage back in the rotation — something along the lines of: dinos out, robots in. It’s been great for helping to keep his room clean, and I think not being faced with So Many Toys has also made it easier for him to play by himself in his room. Both of which are nice for me.

Also nice? Opening the closet door and seeing this:

As for the Worst Closet at Jeni’s house, she cast a Scourgify spell on it. Now she has the perfect place to store any boy wizards that might happen her way.

(Oh look! I’m giving away two Atlanta CityPASSes! You should enter!)