A room for the boy

This past spring we fixed up a new room for Tigerlily's 9th birthday surprise; before that she and Lyric shared a tiny, sad little room with a loft.  When she moved into her new space Lyric was left with the sad little room, and I was determined to fix it up just for him someday soon.  Well, the little guy's sixth birthday is coming up this weekend and that time is now! 

Mini door banner--I'll be selling these in the shop soon!

The big picture.  I wish I had more time to make/purchase some things for the walls.  And a cozy beanbag chair for that corner!

The all-important lego space.  We found a vintage tv cart at the junk shop for $5 and spruced it up with some spray paint.  Perfect!

Child-sized chairs are pretty hard to come by at a reasonable price so we made our own!  Skye used some pieces of plywood to slap together fitted tops for two milk crates and I stretched them with batting and pieces of old t-shirts (one of my favorite materials!).  Voila! Seating AND storage.

The loft.  I made the "Love you more" pillow for him because whenever I say, "I love you, kiddo," he says, "I love you more!" and I reply with "No, I love you more!" and it goes on from there.  He's my favorite boy in the whole world ♥

And here he is, the boy in his very own room!!

Man, I love that kid :)

Tune in next week for details of Lyric's amazing science birthday party!!  I had thought I had lost my party planning mojo but this one is shaping up to be my best kid birthday party yet!

Moving on

No need to dwell on the several months this blog has been neglected, right?  It's just a testament to how busy I've been!


I have tons and tons and TONS of work to share, but also tons and tons of photo editing before that happens.  For now I'll share a little home improvement we finished recently: a new room for my newly-turned-nine-year-old girl!

 I had such a great time creating this room for my girl and fulfilling my preteen dream of being an interior decorator! Almost everything in the room is handmade or secondhand.  I only bought the duvet cover and the lamp on the dresser retail, plus a few prints from Etsy--the bike and two others yet to come.  The chandelier was bought at our local Habitat Re-Store and painted green, the bed was free from a neighbor, the dresser was found on Craigslist, the little red doll dresser and the record player were thrifted, and I bought the rug at a church rummage sale for $1.50 (!).  The desk was mine at Tigerlily's age and my Father's before me.  I made all of the pillows, the curtain and the name banner on the door. 

 

Success ;) 

 We also had a nature themed birthday party for Tigerlily at a favorite local park, complete with a short hike and lots of stream exploring.  I was far too caught up in the festivities to really get any good shots but I can show you the invitations!

Add party planning to my list of missed callings!

The Annual Birthday Mix

Can't believe my girl is NINE!

Covert Picture of the Day

I love to spy on my kids from the window. Here they are walking home from a friend's house (with a pal):

The Day After

I hope you all had as good a time as we did this Halloween! (and that you're recovering from the sugar crash better than we are...)

Hermione Granger

Luke Skywalker/Karate Kid

costume cyclo-cross in Bennington

85 Days of Summer

Are we really halfway through already?!? I seriously have to get on planning an end-of-summer vacation at the coast...

Happy toes on Monday (she totally cracked herself up with this one, and me, too.)

Tuesday: No shirt no shoes...scoot!

Some pretty awesome birthday art for a friend's birthday on Wednesday.

On Thursday we tackled the city as an obstacle course.

Full contact chalk drawing on Friday (shirtless, as usual)

To the Mac-Haydn for Jack in the Beanstalk with Grammy and the boys on Saturday (my nephew Andy went, too). He enjoyed it much more than this photo lets on :)

I was sick as a dog on Sunday (and am still recovering...). Tigerlily thought it might help if she, too, was a dog.

85 Days of Summer

Goofing around with Trixie on Monday

Though this heat is making me consider relocating to Northern Canada our near daily trips to the lake have helped us cope.

Rainwater + paint roller + lawn furniture = hours of fun on Wednesday

Nothing like a cleaned up sewing space to inspire me.

Friday night sleepover!

After considering this piece on our last several visits to our local junk shop I finally fell in love and brought it home on Saturday.

Just errands on Sunday, but who says you can't dress up for the grocery store?

85 Days of Summer

Summer Week #2 and we're still going strong!

On Monday we spent a bit of time outside, including some outdoor painting time.

Tuesday was a busy day with lots to get done, errands to run, and lots of folks in town for NADEC at the Free School. I resurrected the kids' play kitchen with some long-needed repairs and it kept them busy for hours.

Wednesday was my first day of watching Trixie, one of Lyric's bffs. I'll be watching her a couple of days a week for much of the summer. These two crack me up. (Again, the play kitchen. How did we survive while it was out of commission?)

On Thursday we had a friend over and took advantage of the delayed rain by having a picnic in the People's Park behind our house.

We went to the library on Friday to round up lots of books for vacation. My kids are both way into graphic novels. Me too!

On Saturday our family gathered at my brother's house to have dinner with my visiting Grandpa who regaled us with stories of bringing farm animals to weddings. So funny.

And here we are on Sunday, loading up for our week away from it all in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont! We're all really looking forward to this chance to unplug, get away from all of our day-to-day worries and spend some time alone as a family. See you next week!!

city cider

The stars aligned yesterday in our neighborhood as many folks found themselves with copious amounts of apples (see Leah's post) and a willing cider press. Together we all made lots and lots of apple cider--I didn't get a final tally; 35 gallons? We ended up with 5 gallons for hard cider and about 3 gallons of sweet, plus a bin of the chopped-up, squeezed-out apple bits that Skye's determined to ferment and freeze into applejack. Plans are in the works for a winter doldrums party. February at the Boatshop, people!

ongoing renovations

Our new house was amazing but still a work in progress when we moved in. It will be a while before it's completely done, we've got bedrooms to build soon and a potential downstairs fiber studio in the (hopefully not too) distant future.

Our kitchen counters were raw wood when we moved in. We were really unhappy with all of the options out there (except concrete, but that doesn't really fit in with the retro feel of the kitchen) and were thinking we would try stretching canvas on the wood and sealing it with shellac. My only concern with that is discoloration (or actual melting) if something hot were to be placed directly on it, which of course is inevitable. But Skye happened to have some 2-inch bone colored tiles kicking around so we decided to put that by the sink and the stove with the plan to do canvas on the remaining countertop.

Skye laid the tile and Tigerlily grouted!

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Some scenes from our evening stroll yesterday:

the community garden down the street

goofing around

thumbs up...all the way down the street