legos

Our family collection of Lego and MegaBlok. Some of these are more than 20 years old. 

I was a little bit worried that they wouldn't all work together. Because when I was kid the different brands didn't mix. But these will work together! At least for the most part, for example, that ninja turtle is from MegaBlok and it won't fit through the Lego doorways, but my son doesn't care about that at all. As a girl, I would build doll houses with my brother's Lego and it would have bothered me a lot, but as an adult, it's the kind of thing that I can ignore. I don't get to build dollhouses anymore anyway. Now I have to build batcaves and villain lairs. 

blues

I mentioned before that I've been making recycled paper since late elementary school. I went through a phase where I would lay the wet paper on my towel and then take it to the ironing board and iron it so that it would dry faster. I was too impatient to see how it would turn out once dry. 

After looking at this latest batch of blue paper I'm wondering if I should go back to that because all the wrinkles. But on the other hand I am saving energy by not heating up that iron. Nevermind the fact that I can get other stuff done because I'm not actively doing the drying work. I have just been laying my towels out and letting the sun do what it does best. Although of course I won't be able to take advantage of that for long. Winter is coming. 

The next set of papers are from a long time ago, at least six years. Is that long? My husband and I like to joke that it feels like a long time! He recently horrified someone by telling her that we are going to be celebrating our sixth wedding anniversary, but it feels like it's been a lot longer than that. HA!

I feel like this batch of paper must be one that I ironed. They definitely don't have the wrinkles like the other ones. The wrinkles haven't bothered me until I really started looking at some of my previous batches of paper. Now they really annoy me. What do you think? 

Minty Fresh

my favorite color in really cute items for your home!

dream living room

If I had the time, money, and space, this is what my living room would look like!

Thanks for looking!

party paper

wrapping paper recycled

Birthday cakes

Last weekend we celebrated the birthdays of my two boys. They turn 3 and 5 this month.

We did a turtle cake and a spidercake. These cakes are not pinterest-worthy, but guess what! The boys don't care! They were thrilled and that is the most important thing.

I don't know where my cake decorating stuff is exactly, in a box in a basement somewhere. So I just used a ziplock bag with one corner snipped off to draw these lines. I did the turtle cake first and was not happy with how skinny the lines were so the next cake I snipped off a larger piece of the corner. 

Would you believe I actually used to work as a cake decorator!? HA! I don't know why I didn't ever take a camera in when I knew I would be doing a wedding or birthday cake. So my piece of advice for today: If you do anything creative at all at your job, if you are allowed to, take a picture of it! Of course I don't know if some employers would frown on that? Would they? But a picture is worth 1000 words and I wish I had some photos now. 

birthday wishlist

This post is kinda like birthday wish list for me. It's going to be totally random.

I've been reading a lot of this blog lately. I love the colors and her photos. It's a lot of fun. But anyway, she has a print for sale of a gumball machine. So that reminded me of the one I had in junior high. I wonder what happened to it? My parents are cleaning out their house and to my knowledge they haven't come across it yet. Maybe I already got rid of it, but now I feel like I need one. So there is this beauty on Amazon.

My lifestyle is not very fancy (#understatement). I never host large gatherings of people. I've hosted 16-17 for Easter and birthdays, but that's it. So my lifestyle definitely doesn't qualify me for needing demitasse spoons or iced tea spoons, but that doesn't mean I can't want them, right?

This spice rack is such a good deal when you consider that you get 5 years worth of free spice refills. I have one, but I'm soon getting another. My grandmother had this style spice rack in her kitchen. The kitchen at my grandparents' house was/is one of my favorite places on Earth, that and screened porch connected to it.

I got a Keurig. I went with the K15 in jade color. so pretty. So now I need some of these to go with it. A sample pack like this might be a good place for me to start.

I bought myself wooden train track pieces for my birthday. Here are some more pieces that I can't wait to add to my collection. one two three four I started off our wooden train collection by getting the tracks from Ikea. I thought it was the most affordable. I didn't know there were other options out there like this one that's only $28. I especially like the short curved pieces. I still have to find some of those for my collection. Here's another set that's only $28 and it comes with 59 pieces. Setting up the train tracks are one of my favorite playtime activities with my boys. I like how it encourages problem solving patience and IMAGINATION.

I love this fabric from ikea. It's bees! I'd use it for pillows or tote bags. Here's another cute fabric. I think I would use it for a baby quilt backing or pillows. And wouldn't this fabric be cute if you had kids color it and then sew it up into aprons.