Turn your Victoria Secret shopping bags into storage "boxes"

Okay ladies … so normally, I would write this out, but I think this one can be explained in pictures. I did it today while going through my craft supplies. For some reason, I always hold onto those beautiful pink bags, and I finally found a use for them. And for all of you OCD-types (like me), the fifth picture shows the label. Which reminds me ... I need more ink for my label maker. 

Till next time ... 

xoxo
Jessie

Bakers Rack Drop Zone

Happy New Year, friends! In keeping promise to my New Year’s Resolution of ensuring function in the process of decorating our new home, I’m writing this post about creating a bakers rack drop zone.

In 2011 when we moved into our first home in Kentucky, I purchased this Metal & Wood Bakers Rack from Amazon.com. Back then, it sold for $129. I guess it was popular (ya know … that and inflation) because now it goes for $167.  Anyway, totally worth every penny. I absolutely love the thing.

Back in Kentucky, I had it decorate to hold my wine bottles and wine glasses and wine bottle opener and all sorts of super fun stuff. You can kind of see in this photo, although this photo was when I had it “staged” for selling. I had purchased the matching table and chair set as well, and together, I loved them in my dinette.

Moving on … so our new house is totally amazing in almost every way except there is no room to keep my bakers rack next to or even near the table. In fact, the only good place I could find for it was against the staircase toward the front of the house.

It’s okay though because this is a perfect opportunity to turn that previous cutesy decorated bakers rack into something a little more functional. “Well, why don’t you just put back all your wine glasses and wine bottles?” You might be asking. Excellent point. The answer is: I have a two-year old now and he likes to break stuff. So wine bottles and glasses are now hidden in a locked kitchen cabinet.

I searched Pinterest for Bakers Rack ideas, but couldn’t really find much inspiration. People are using them for coffee bars (and they work really great for that), but I already have a coffee station set up by my refrigerator … where the coffee cream is. You see where this idea came crashing down …

I found one pin where someone turned their bakers rack into a deck/work area, and that was pretty cute. So working from that idea, I came to the Drop Zone Bakers Rack idea. Yay! It would be PERFECT for that! It’s right by the garage and front door, with lots of space for cute baskets and even better, a place for my giant baby bag. (Yeah … I still carry a baby bag. He’s two. Shopping requires lots of snacks.) My giant bag was previously taking up one of my bar stools and that just wasn’t working for me.

The photo below has everything labeled for its use. I don’t have it shown here, but you could also add hooks to the side bar and hang jackets from it. Everything on the rack was stuff I already had too, so it didn’t really cost me anything extra. Yay me!

I had a small collection of Longaberger baskets that I purchased throughout the years – the white/pink Hope basket, small circular basket holding pink flowers and small black basket with handles.  The other baskets were purchased at craft stores a few years ago. My mother-in-law gave me the “family” plate/stand and the black containers were hand-me-downs from my mom.  I included the speaker because I like rocking out when I’m cleaning house and it was taking up valuable space on the kitchen countertop. Plus, this way, I can hear the speaker from virtually every room in the house. 

I also had two old chairs that I will someday revamp but for now, they make a good place to sit down to take shoes off. My little guy even has some custom artwork on one …

So there you have it. A functional, but still attractive bakers rack.

Till next time!
xoxo
Jessie

Winter OneDerland Birthday Party

Winter OneDerland Birthday Party

My little guy will be two this month and that is both super exciting and extremely terrifying. Terrible twos, anyone? Luckily, he’s still an only child so between me and daddy, it’s still two against one.

Anyway, last year was his first birthday and being a December baby made for a little bit of a challenge when it came to planning a birthday. Add to the chaos of Christmas, his birthday is on the 26^th, which is the day right after Christmas, so there’s that …

Moving on … because you can really only pull off a Winter Onederland when the kid is One, I figured I’d better do it the year he actually turned one. I hit Pinterest for most of these ideas.

Invitation: found a version online that I liked and re-created it myself using a professionally taken photo of my baby.

Food: What goes with winter more than cookies? Answer: More cookies! You guys. I baked my ass off. For like two days straight before the party. M&M cookies. Chocolate Chip Cookies. Sugar Cookies.

And then also cupcakes. Store bought items included: doughnut holes, white chocolate pretzels and toppings for the hot cocoa bar.

That’s right. You can’t have a winter wonderland without hot cocoa too. We had sprinkles, white chocolate chips, mini chocolate chips and butterscotch chips along with whip cream. I saw on Pinterest where someone took those big marshmallows, dipped them in melted blue white chocolate and topped them with these cute snowflake sprinkles. They were really good and were used to stir the hot cocoa. 

I used this crockpot hot chocolate recipe and doubled it:  1.5 cups heavy cream, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk (14oz), 2 cups milk chocolate chips, 6 cups of milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract.

It. Was. Amazing.

So, total sugar overload. I probably would have been more concerned about this if there was more than two children at the party. Everyone else was an adult. I’m okay with adults on a sugar high.

Decorations: I hit up Dollar Tree in October as soon as their winter stuff came out and grabbed a bunch of snowflakes to hang from the ceiling. I also used any silver decorations I had lying around in my Christmas containers; silver plate, silver picture frame, branches with fake snow (from A C Moore) and of course, fake snow. The two white vases with crystals on them are decorations I bought for the house a few years ago at chiasso.com (which I guess is now called inmod.com.) I also filled the entire dining room with balloons. That was a lot a of blowing. 

Pictures: The day of the party was going to be hectic so I took the advice of much more experienced mommies and did a cake-testing photo shoot a few days before the actual party. I just didn't want all of Mason's first birthday photos to look like this:

Anyway, it was so much fun. I made little guy a giant cupcake cake (chocolate, of course), set up a backdrop and went to town with my camera. I made the banners from scratch paper purchased at Michael's and let the balloons fall where they may. I think his tummy is just the cutest thing in the whole world, so I had him shirtless with dark blue jeans.

Party Favors: For Thank you party favors, I filled up some hot beverage paper cups/lids that I had with tootsie rolls and individual hot cocoa packets. I tied them with snowflakes from the Dollar Tree and a little note that matched the invitations saying, “Thank you snow much for coming, Love, M.” Cute. Easy. Inexpensive. And everyone loved them.

Budget: Hubby and I decided on a $100 party budget and I think we fell just short of that. We spent most of the money on recipe items and food. The dollar store was a huge help with décor and it helped that I designed all of the paper items. So if you’re thinking of hosting a Winter Onederland for your little person, I hope you find some inspiration here. My little dude’s second birthday party is Elmo themed, so stay tuned for that!

Till next time.

xoxo
Jessie

It's been awhile!

That's me. In Texas. Where we live now! Yay!

So it’s been awhile sense my last post and I apologize for that. Over the last month, we drove 1,132 miles from eastern Kentucky to League City, Texas with two dogs, a rabbit and (an almost) two-year-old. Everyone made it. I’m amazed. We had to stay in temporary living for two weeks after we got here until the previous owner of the house we bought moved out. I thought it would be helpful to you future relocationers with children to give some tips and advice on how to travel with a child and animals on such a long trip. However, I’m not really even sure how the hell I did it … so … yeah. But I will take a moment and commend my past self for having the foresight for leaving Bounce dryer sheets in the truck overnight while we stayed at hotels because holy hell, that vehicle would have smelled like a dog fart wrapped in a dirty sock and dipped in sour milk.

Gross. It was gross.

Till the next helpful post …

xoxo
Jessie

10 fun Mommy, Daddy & Baby Boy Group Halloween Costumes

Halloween 2013

Happy Halloween!

My apologies for the lack of posts in the last month. Dear hubby got a new job and we’ve had basically a little over a month to fly his parents out to Kentucky to watch the baby while we get on a plane and go to Texas for a week to check out the area, find a house, make an offer, get said offer accepted, find a temporary hotel (as closing date will be after we get there), fly back home, prep the house to get on the market, keep the house clean while it is on the market, make any repairs that need to be made around the house, figure out all logistics on actually getting down to Texas, apply for loans, fill out a gross amount of paperwork, freak out a little bit, drink some beer and come to terms that everything will be okay. Needless to say, the last month has been sheer chaos. I'm sure I will make a post next month about moving across the country with a toddler. Looking forward to that one ...
Anyway, in the spirit on Halloween (which I’m totally in love with and super bummed that we haven’t gotten to really celebrate), I’ve created a list of Halloween costumes for groups of three – mommy, daddy and baby boy. Obviously this list came late this year, but something to think about for next year.

10 fun Mommy, Daddy & Baby Boy Group Halloween Costumes

1. Tree, Banana & Monkey – this is our Halloween group costume this year. Pictures to be posted soon!
2. Cheerleader, Quarterback & Football – bouncing off this idea, our second choice was to go as Pat McAfee, Adam Vinatieri and a football. Next year ...
3. Ring Master, Elephant & Peanut – either daddy or baby boy can go as the elephant/peanut. I've seen adult and child costumes for both online. Super cute.
4. The Princess, Mario & a Mushroom (or Yoshi!)
5. Abbadon, Sam or Dean & Castiel – for all you Supernatral fans
6. Cruella de Vil, Jasper & a Dalmatian
7. Tomato Soup, Dog & Skunk – my husband didn’t get this one. I thought it was hilarious.
8. The Avengers – pick three (Black Widow, Iron Man, Hulk)
9. Super Heros – pick three (Cat Woman, Batman & Robin)
10. Lifeguard, Bitten Surfer Dude & a Shark

Once you get thinking about it, you can also get a little creative. Last year, my husband wanted to be a Zombie. I had already purchased a Bear costume for little guy. So, we ended up going as a Zombie, Bear and Zombie-Bear.

Halloween 2013
Daddy as a zombie, Mommy as a bear and Baby as a zombie-bear.

So there you have it. Hope this inspires you for Halloween! Have fun trick-or-treating tonight!

xoxo
 

Jessie