I just discovered Hobby Lobby.  I know, I know.

I sort of went crazy in there.  It just had EVERYTHING and was so CHEAP!  I wanted to make a couple of items for my Mom’s birthday and decided to make some for myself, too.

They’re imperfect, remember.

First up, we have yarn-wrapped letters.

I used chip board letters instead of the papier mache ones and it worked really well for me.  The first letter I made for my Mom didn’t turn out as well as these ones and let’s face it, they’re all flawed.  The process was rather painstaking but really quite simple.  All I used was yarn, the letters (I used chip board letters instead of the papier mache ones and it worked really well for me), and a hot glue gun.  I just snipped short pieces to wrap around the edges that wouldn’t get wrapped, and then just wrapped and wrapped yarn.  They don’t tell you this in the tutorials I’ve seen, but there are always some spots that you just CAN’T wrap.  For those, I snipped longer pieces of yarn to hot glue in place and then wrapped over the edges.  You can see what I mean if you look for the looser yarn on the below letters.

I’m going to mount them on the wall in my kitchen but I am still deciding exactly where to put them so for now they’re just going to light up my windows!

I also made these candle jars.  Well, they’re really only for LED flameless candles, but they still look pretty!  I just dipped strips of fabric in a glue/water solution and then applied them, facing outward, to the inside of ball jars.  At first it was really hard, but by the end I was a pro!

Aren’t they cute?

So that’s me continuing on my way of doing things for fun but not spending a ton of time on them.  I completed these in two days just using time after Ida went to bed and while she napped.  Speaking of, I hear her squawking now for her dinner!

We – that uncluttered, minimalistic, neat couple – now live in Baby Palooza Land.  I am, officially, THAT Mom.  The one whose home looks like a daycare center.  Who seems to own every possible item for their baby.

Downstairs alone, there is the Jumperoo, the Exersaucer, the playmat, the Bumbo, the swing, the playpen, the bouncer, the basket of diapers and wipes and, of course, an assortment of odds and ends like blankets, stuffies, board books, boppy pillows, burp rags, hats, slippers…..

But I promise, there were a lot of things that I didn’t buy!!!

But Ida uses or has used everything she owns a LOT.  Every day.  The girl likes to play, to move, to explore.  The tummy mat and the bouncer seat need to be packed away as she’s moved beyond then, but everything else is in daily rotation.  But she does have favorites, and I’d like to share with you Baby Ida’s Top Six Baby Items.

First off, we have the Aden + Anais Burpy Bib.

This girl is messy.  Very messy.  Always has been.  These large muslin burp rags are awesome because they actually cover your whole shoulder for spit up, and they can snap around baby’s neck to serve as a nice, absorbent bib during meal time that encircles their entire shoulder and back.  This was also useful during nursing as Ida tended to let excess milk drain out of her mouth and end up with soaked shoulders.

Next, there’s the Bumbo seat.

This girl likes to be vertical.  The seat may have seemed like a silly item but she has adored it since she turned two months.  She’s a good sitter and she likes to be up and look around.  It’s also useful for spoon feeding, with the play tray attached.

Item #3 is the Moby Knot Hat.

Ida practically lives in this hat.  The 6-12 month size is still a tad large, so I just flip up the edge.  It is a nice, thick knit and it’s also tall.  So it’s warm (but not too warm for indoors) and doesn’t slide off her head like the smaller, more fitted hats do.  (Oh, yes, I love my matching Moby Wrap too, but I haven’t got a picture of it!)  I’m looking for it in stores as I want like five of these when she gets bigger.

Next is the Skip Hop Treetop Stroller Owl toy.

You hear those mothers say that if their baby fusses, just give them that favorite toy and they’ll cheer up.  I always thought that was silly, till Ida and her adored Mr. Owl came along.  I have spent 30+ minutes on road trips just rattling this owl till I thought my mind would go crazy because as long as he rattled and danced, she smiled – and the second he stopped, she screamed.  This is her number one favorite item.  Mr. Owl lives on her carseat but frequently travels throughout the house.

Item #5 is the Boppy Pillow.

Ida and I could not function without the boppy pillow.  Even now when her long legs are dangling off of it we can’t nurse without it.  We’re both more comfortable and Ida nurses longer and better.

Item #6 is the Miracle Blanket. I don’t have a photo of Ida in it (although she is hilarious) but this item saved me and Andy’s sanity.  Ida did not want to nap or sleep in her crib and she twitched herself awake all night long.  We had tried swaddling but she screamed and broke out of anything we tried.  Once the Miracle Blanket entered our lives (she was two months old) she couldn’t get out of it no matter how much she tried – and she began to sleep soundly through the night and even to take naps.  She’s now a champion sleeper but she must be swaddled up nice.  I don’t know how or when she’ll have to stop swaddling, but I could cry just thinking about it…

And there you have it!  Six favorite baby items, Ida approved.  We’ll share more some other time!

We’ve been moving and shaking, drilling and hammering, making lots of service calls and functioning without internet or phone for a very long time.  It’s been a long couple of weeks!

We are finally into the laundry-doing, errand-running stage, and preparing-for-back-to-school stage.  Still busy, but less frantic.  So I thought I’d take a moment to show you a few bits of our house-in-progress.  This little house is actually gigantic, at least to us.  We can’t quite seem to fill it up!  Although the bareness of parts of it bothers me a little, I know it will fill up soon with more people and time will bring its own “stuff”, so it doesn’t worry me.

(I need to apologize – the quality of the photos is poor and the composition is awful, but I am pregnant and tired and actually allowing some “It’s Good Enough For Now” to enter my personality.)

So let me introduce you to the hub of our house, the kitchen:

The kitchen boasts a lovely set of biege appliances which perfectly match their countertops.  Then I decided to come in and paint everything cool whites and grays.  The beige?  Eh, oh well.  I’m hoping the ancient appliances meet their demise and our home warranty replaces them.  Oh wait.  The dishwasher DID die within 48 hours of moving in.  And so we’ve been on a constant round of “It’s Fixed – No, It’s Not” service calls for the last two weeks.  So Andy is flexing his muscles and washing dishes for the time being since I have to stand about six feet from the sink to accommodate my growing belly and it’s just…not that comfortable.

On the positive side, aren’t the cabinets with their new shiny nickel hinges pretty?  And the gray walls?  They’re EXACTLY what I was going for.  They look so pretty with my yellow kitchen items.  They’re not quite finished, as Andy will be adding some nickel knobs sometime when he has a few minutes.

And the breakfast area.  I love this table and chairs – the clean lines and the glass top table work so well against the grays and whites.  But what makes this area of the kitchen truly pretty is…

…this adorable artwork I get from Etsy!  Love the bright colors against the pewter walls.

Cozy, yes?  Especially with the bright green laundry tin on the left?  I love.

As you can see, the kitchen flows out into the hall that runs from the front door along back to the living room.  There’s a bathroom, basement stairs, upstairs, and a coat closet along the hall, and as you can see it is a bit full of things that need to be returned (we’ve moved past the things-to-be-put-away stage!).

Here is our dining area.  It’s a bit cavernous for our small table (I zoomed in quite a bit, there’s also the piano in here), but it’s still cozy and cute.  I love the new bamboo pendant, and displayed on the far wall are two gorgeous mid-century vases from my grandmother’s collection.

And from the dining room we flow into the equally gigantic living area.  I’m a little nonplussed.  As you can see there is the seating side, above (with a broken picture frame we are trying to repair)…

With a TV/book area on the other end.  The TV being so far away is okay because we turn that TV on about once every two+ weeks and we don’t mind a little squinting, but it just bugs me that it feels like two separate rooms.  Due to the layout of the room I can’t really float the couch in the middle of the room without cutting off the hallway.

SO, I am thinking someday of getting a couple of small reading chairs to put by the bookcases, and a lot of bright floor pillows for kids who want to play games and Nintendo on the floor, and some bright toy baskets for the baby’s things.  Then it can be a play area with the grown-up seating area on the other side.  Does anybody else have any bright ideas?

And the windows.  Oh, the windows.  My pregnant self stood in the curtain section at Ikea for about an hour, nearly in tears, trying to find curtains that would work with the bamboo roman shades I had Andy install, as well as the rest of the room.

Eventually, I just bought white sheer linen curtains.  And the result:

…Okay, but kind of blah.  The problem is really the ugly grayish/beige/off-white that is on all the walls in the house.  Next summer I’d like to paint the whole living/dining area soft beachy blues and greens, and then I think the curtains will look fine.  So for now, they at least break up the wall space.  Of course they need hemmed and ironed and they need matching curtain rods, but who cares about that when there’s a baby coming?

And speaking of baby, this is what I know you wanted to see:

Precious, yes?

I LOVE how sunny and bright this room is.  It is the sunniest room in the house, which might not be practical for naptimes but is certainly cheery.  To deal with naptimes, we ordered cordless, cellular blackout shades that we’ll install once they come in.  For now, it doesn’t matter anyways.

I have some more accessories to go for this room, such as a tree print I ordered from Etsy, a tree toy and a few other things, but although it looks a bit bare in the photos, it really isn’t.  (I don’t know why the frames look crooked.  They aren’t…)

I am in love with the bedding that we ordered.  I can’t get over its cuteness, even though I couldn’t seem to position for a decent shot.  The sun rises on one side of the bumper (the one you can see) and sets on the other side (the one you can’t).  It’s precious, bright, cheerful, happy, and perfect for this baby and others down the road (I hope!).

And this quilt?  This is what sold me on the bedding.  This will hang over the baby’s crib, once we get some quilt hangers.

And see the little brown thing in the bottom corner of the picture above?  That’s baby’s bassinet, (almost all) set up and ready to be moved into our room when the time comes.

All in all, the room is perfect.  How about the sweet little rug on the floor?  It is the most lovely 3′x5′ wool looped rug that I ordered from Land of Nod along with the bedding, even though it’s not the rug that “matches” it.  I like how it goes with the valance and breaks up the green of the room a bit.

I am feeling closer and closer to being ready for this baby.  The drawers are stocked with her littlest newborn things, freshly washed, and lots of linens.  I finally got out and bought wipes and a few other essentials, as well as (obviously) the mattress and bassinet.  We even sorted her closet full of baby items into what we need now, what comes next, and what comes later.  Now we just need the carseat to get her home!!!

So there it is, a short tour of the highlights of my house.  Come visit soon!

One of my favorite things about this little house is the airy master suite.  It’s pleasant, spacious, and in a few days will be my new home.  I’ll show the afters once I complete them, but here’s a few befores to whet your whistle.

Think of us as we start moving all of our stuff in this week!!!

…but there’s a few things I hate.  Things that are going to go, either now or this winter.

Frighteningly bright and ugly and neon-ish vanity lights.  This is the first time I wished there weren’t FOUR bathrooms.

Terrible faucets – at least, terrible for me.  Hand washing is, after all, one of my sensitive spots and I just can’t do knobs.

Shiny, prism-y light fixtures.

Hideous chandelier.

Dirty, dated, yellowy recessed kitchen light:

Since Andy and I are not even remotely do-it-yourselfers, it’s going to be an interesting ride.  Stay tuned.