Tag Archives: nest

Invites. Check!

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So I’m a bit behind in Wren’s birthday party planning. I JUST got the invites out and the party’s on the 30th… Did I mention that I was a bit behind? But I’m really happy with the design. Just wish I had gotten it done last week. Alas…

  • Invites. Check!
  • Birthday banner. Check! Although I had a ridiculous (?) thought yesterday that I would make a new one in fuchsia and tangerine to match the other party elements…
  • Cups and napkins. Check!
  • Cupcake ingredients. Check!
  • Candle in the shape of a number one. Check!
  • Menu of sugary goodness. Check!
  • Thumbelina zinnia plants growing well for the favors. Check!
  • Party dress. Check!
  • Beautiful weather…. ?
  • Thinking of making some of these wheatgrass centerpieces for the dessert table. Have you ever done this? I like these. How springy!

Now I’m pondering a fun activity for the older kids – other than eating sugar. Any ideas, dear readers?

Grapefruit pits?

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I am no hippy. But (you could see that coming, right?) I have been trying to go a deeper shade of green in our nest and this weekend, I admit to experiencing what I will coin a “happy hippy moment.” Our nest used up all the homemade laundry soap that I posted about last month so I decided to make a double batch this time.

While Chris mowed the lawn with Wren on his back…

I decided to make a batch of homemade deodorant (not anti-perspirant) that I read about a while back on How About Orange’s blog. It appealed to me because I’ve tried just about every “natural” deodorant out there with mixed results and I cringe when I think of all the sticks I’ve thrown away (err, recycled, but still) over the years. For the last few months I had been using Tom’s and of course, like most of the crunchy ones, it smells pretty good (lavender), but the smell doesn’t last and by the end of the day, I’m smelling a bit too ripe. God forbid if I run or practice yoga then smell my pits. Alright, enough personal blah blah blah about my arm pits. Moving on.

Furthermore, the crunchy stuff is pretty darn expensive so this DIY deodorant was sounding more and more desirable. But was it going to actually work? I often have that gut-reaction to a DIY crunchy solution to life’s battles. Probably because the marketing wizards and all the fancy pants packaging has convinced me that there’s no way a “home remedy” was going to work…

But I’m here to tell you that after a weekend of wearing it, I’m thrilled with the results. Really! I wish again for a scratch-and-sniff blog feature so you could’ve smelled my pits after a kick-a** ashtanga yoga practice this morning, but alas, no such luck. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

I guess you’ll just have to have a “happy hippy moment” of your own and make some. You will not be sorry.

Grapefruit Pits Deodorant

Ingredients:
1/4 cup baking soda
1/4 cup arrowroot powder
4 tablespoons coconut oil
10 drops/shakes grapefruit essential oil
A tin or jar with lid

This amount will probably last about 4-5 months. Wow!

How to:

In a bowl, stir together your dry ingredients, then add the oils gradually until you like the consistency, mixing together with a fork. Note: Mine got a bit too thick to stir together at one point so I zapped it in the microwave to increase the viscosity and made it oh-so-easy to stir. Scoop into your container of choice and store the closed container at room temperature.

To apply, scoop up a bit with your finger, hold it against your skin for a couple seconds so it melts a little, then rub around.

Absolutely lovely! Thanks, How About Orange, for the great tutorial. I’ll be forever thankful.

How was your weekend, dear readers? Any progress on your gardens? Did you kick back and read a good book? Eat anything good? I’d love to hear about it.

Best!

Welcome, Ohdeedoh readers!

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Oh my goodness. I’m just tickled (thrilled, nervous, giddy) that you’ve clicked over here today. Almost every day this year I’ve contributed something to the Cyberspace world via this blog and many days I think to myself, “what am I doing here anyway, you goofy schmoof?” Sooooo I’d like to send a big shout out to the lovely folks at Ohdeedoh for sending you on over here via my work on Wren’s Nest! It makes me very happy, for lack of a more creative term today.

Dear readers, please make yourself at home and let me know what you think. The good, the bad, the ugly… your thoughtful, constructive comments are wanted!

  • If you’re looking for more pics or my own drivel on Wren’s Nest, I suggest you click here or here.
  • Since you enjoy Ohdeedoh (woot woot!), you probably like seeing DIY stuff and home renovation projects. If that’s the case, dear readers, click here for more pics and drivel on our hopelessly optimistic nesting instincts.
  • If you want to know a little bit more about me, you might click here.

Again, I couldn’t be more excited that you’re here today. I wish I could buy you a cup of coffee and we could all chat for a while. But you, clicking in on me today? Well, that’s enough to make a gal buy herself another cup of coffee just to celebrate. Cheers!

Best! Ashlea

Eye candy

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Something was needed on the blank wall above the changing table in Wren’s Nest. It was just boring ole ‘Northern Pear Tree’ and begged to have some more eye candy. Plus it’s getting (A LOT) more difficult to change the squirrely babe’s diaper so the more interesting distractions, the better, this Mamma says.

It’s funny from where or what or whom one draws inspiration, isn’t it? If I ever pursue a PhD, my dissertation might just be on the elusive idea of inspiration. But I digress. I found some silver frames at a local consignment shop for about a buck each and they’d been staring at me every time I went down to the basement for at least a few months. Soooo… today I got inspired and I designed and printed some fun Wren pictures. What do you think?

It’s a bit hard to see the details in the picture. Maybe this is better? I put all the designs together for your Saturday afternoon eye candy. I’m really happy with how they came out, if I do say (write) so myself! Enjoy and happy weekend to you, dear readers.

Wren’s Nest

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Happy Spring to you, dear readers! After two weeks of sunny afternoons, 50 and flip-flop sightings, we’re back to 32 and a bit too cloudy on the first official day of Spring. Aaah, Mother Nature, how you love to keep us on our toes. Or curled up in a ball on the couch.

How was your last week of winter? Time zoomed right by in our nest. When I wasn’t taking care of my little birdie, I was focused on ridding 605 of Cabbage Smell and happily finishing Wren’s nest upstairs. It’s been a year and we spend a lot of time in that room (at all hours of the day and night). Please tell me that the following scenario also happens in your nest? You mean to get around to doing something about that dresser (insert your item/nook here) and it nags at you for a while. Then time passes and you just get used to it being in the same old shape/place/state of disarray. You look at it every day and it doesn’t phase you after a while. Then one day it hits you. You just can’t take looking at it anymore! One more day cannot pass. Arrghhh. Impatience and aggravation set in. Must. Do. It. NOW. Oh, human nature, you’re just as odd  and beguiling as Mother Nature.

I don’t know about you, but I often need a bit (or A LOT will do too) of external motivation to get me going on something from time to time. Deadlines imposed by someone else are really wonderful. It’s true, I am not an island. So when I heard about the Dwell Studio “How You Dwell” contest, it was just what this Mamma was looking for. Simply take a picture of their products in your home, e-mail them in and they’ll post them on their Facebook page. The photos with the most ‘likes’ by next Friday wins a $1000 shopping spree. Yahoo! Now that’s what I call a good kick in the ass. Insert shameless plug here. Dear readers, please ‘friend’ Dwell Studio on Facebook and vote for Wren’s Nest next week when the voting begins! Did I say “please?” And thank you in advance.

Soooo… here’s the photo tour of Wren’s Nest for you to peruse.

Demolition is fun.

Now doesn’t that look like a space you’d let your newborn sleep and play…? We decided to repaint everything and refinish the floors so things were looking up for our little birdie.

Then we acquired an old dresser from Grandpa Tom. I decided to have some fun with it so I painted the drawer fronts–you guessed it–orange and put in cute-as-a-button green drawer liner. In progress here…

And after a bit more sprucing up and “derranging” as we like to call it… the dresser is finished, things are finally hung and the nest is (mostly) complete. Just in time for Wren’s new phase of development: destruction!

Wren’s Nest Now!

Wren likes her nest so much that she wakes up every 2-3 hours all night long just to see it…

Thanks for touring Wren’s Nest today, dear readers. I hope you enjoyed it. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Any big plans (fun pagan rituals?) to celebrate the arrival of Spring? Best!

P.S. Big thanks to Dwell Studio (glider, crib sheets, etc…) Don’t forget to ‘friend’ them and vote!




springtime nesting!

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Happy Ides of March!? Will you celebrate this festive day with a toga run like they do in the streets of Rome? I’m not so sure that celebrating Mars, the Roman god of war, is a great idea. Did you know that Mars used to be the Roman god of fertility and vegetation? What does that say about the state of humanity that fertility and vegetation got usurped by war when things turned more violent as the folks got greedier and the Roman Empire began to expand? Damn humans.

The Ides of March for me means the anniversary of beginning the nesting process at 605. It’s been a year, yahoo! And what a year it’s been. We are just beginning to feel that the house we live in is our home.

To celebrate, we spent the weekend improving our nest in a big way. As you well know, we’ve been meaning to get the croffice finished for a while now. It was the catch-all junk room/craft room for months (10?) and now it’s the office/craft room=croffice.  Almost. We have some more work to do, but we’re thrilled with the progress we made this weekend. Because we moved the office stuff into the croffice, that meant that the sun room/play room could be just that. Thank you, domino effect!

Here are some pics of the progress I feel compelled to share.

Sun room BEFORE:

In progress:

We discovered that the faux wood paneling and two layers of wallpaper were covering real wood paneling. We had a good laugh about that. Funny how trends come full circle. They didn’t want the wood so they painted it then they wanted it again so they brought in the faux wood. What?!

Sun room/play room NOW:

We love the space and spend A LOT of time in here. So worth the effort! I do not miss those blue curtains and paneling to say the least…

The Croffice is mostly done so I’ll share a few pics with you. Exciting!

Croffice when it was the “master bedroom.” Ha!

Then it got  A LOT worse before it got better. Oof. Poor Wren, can you even find her in there?

Then my friend Sandy came along and helped give the project some inspiration and direction. Thank you, Sandy!

Today, the Cloffice part of the Croffice looks like this. Yahoo!

It’s not “done” yet, but it’s getting closer. And again, so worth the effort. Thank you, dear hubbie for your help! You’re the best.

Next on the agenda? Finish Wren’s room… not much left to do. Fun!



imaginary nesting.

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Wren’s only a touch over eight months old and right now her favorite toy is…

That’s right, folks. The wooden stacker – not the colorful rings, but the stacker pole part of it. Hours of entertainment. Well, maybe not hours at a time, but if you added the minutes spent gnawing, banging and investigating, it adds up. Needless to say, this was not expected given the more interesting toys that she’s been given. Lesson learned. So I hesitate to invest too much cash in any new toys for my little birdie because she gets so much enjoyment out of everything else. Spoons, empty yogurt containers from the recycling bin, tags, magazines… did I mention magazines? Wren would hate the Kindel or the new iPad. She knows the pleasure in turning, err, ripping, real pages.

That being said, I’ve been looking ahead to a time when imaginary play will occupy our time. I’m not sure when this is exactly, but I’m sure it’ll be here before we know it. And there are two DIY projects that I’m going to attempt. If I get started on them in the coming year, they might be done by the time she might be interested in them. (Did you see that the operative word might was used twice in that sentence? With reason.) Given my luck as a naive new parent, she won’t have any interest, but they look fun enough that I won’t be too disappointed if Wren thinks they’re really not all that. So here goes. Drumroll, please…

Doll house renovation!

I was inspired when I read this article about renovating an old doll house. I despise those plastic doll houses, but the really cool modern doll houses are expensive. So I’m adding this to my garage sale “hunt” list when the season begins again around Memorial Day. Can’t wait! Another item I’m adding to my “hunt” list is an old nightstand so I can attempt DIY imaginary play project #2…

Play kitchen!

This inspiring piece was converted from an old night stand. Check out the article with more pics to drool over here. Again, I’m really not into those plastic kitchen sets. Blech. Isn’t this kitchen so much cooler? Doesn’t it make you want to redo your OWN kitchen?

These are two ambitious projects, but I think I have about two years to get them done and with Wren getting busier and busier every day…, I’m going to need all the time I can get. With any luck, I’ll find the nightstand and old dollhouse this summer and begin work on them when the long dark nights set in again late next fall. I’ll keep you updated!

Confessions.

  • Wren has just discovered her diaper and enjoys ripping it off in the few seconds before I can get her clothes on. Yikes!
  • Orange is my favorite color today. Yes, but a friend of mine showed me the color “dill pickle” yesterday and I might be starting a new love affair.
  • It was 40 and rainy last weekend and I was complaining about the mildness. Now it’s 9 and snowy and I’m complaining about the cold. I’ve become such a winter wimp!
  • It worked! I had a bag of hardened brown sugar. I read that it’ll soften up again if you place a piece of fresh bread in the air tight bag. Two mornings later, the bag was like new.

best!

gotta have kid stuff

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Amidst all the mountains of plastic electronic crap for kids out there, live some really cool things for kids too. Here are a few I love. Today.

Don’t you love these funky plates for kids or even your next dinner party? Who says you can’t play with your food anyway? It’s fun!

Or flex your foodie kid’s creative muscle with these “gourmet” colored pencils, called “Smencils.” Ooh, la la. They’re also made from 100% recycled newspaper. Bonus!

Speaking of food, I’m interested in reading the book Edible Schoolyard: A Universal Idea from Alice Waters.

Have you read it yet? I think I’ll look for it at our library. Trying to do that more and save a few bucks. Plus it’s such a cool place to be with lots of nice natural light and usually a few freaky people from all walks of life. Same folks you might see at the Secretary of State office. That’s why, even though you can avoid going to the office now by doing everything online, I like to physically step into the office once a year. Hey, this is northern Michigan. I gotta get my kicks where I can. And it’s refreshing to be reminded of the human spectrum from time to time, isn’t it?

Confessions.

  • It’s finally cold and a bit snowy again. Bring it on! This is what it’s supposed to be like in January, right?
  • Orange is my favorite color today. uh huh.
  • Yesterday Wren and I went to the local bakery and the woman at the counter asked if Wren could have a cookie. I said, “no, thank you. She’s a bit young for a cookie.” And the woman looked at me like I was the center of the freak show. Maybe I should have charged her admission.

best!

menu planning

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I love the idea of planning what our nest will eat for the next week, but life usually jumps in my way. We end up going out to eat for a meal or two, or what I planned on making Sunday just doesn’t sound good anymore on Thursday. Often, I make too much for 2.5 people and we end up eating something for several days instead of one meal, blah blah blah. On top of that, when I do manage to get us all packed up and head out the door to buy the groceries, I’m lucky if I remember to take my list with me. Sigh. Sound familiar? (Cile, don’t answer that. I saw her grocery cart once. It was amazingly organized and they DO manage to plan out their weekly meals. WOW!) So this year, I invested in a really cute squirrel memo pad for groceries, thinking this would help. Has it? In a way, yes. I love writing things on it and it lives right between the fridge and the back door so it’s sitting on fairly valuable real estate. Kind of like the Marvin Gardens of my nest.

Isn’t it cute?

Where is this post going, anyway? I’m not really sure, but if you’re still reading, many thanks to you…

Other ideas. I thought this was a really cool idea for menu planning/grocery shopping too:

For details on this DIY Grocery List, click on over to Design Sponge.

In some ways, grocery shopping is a lot more phone (it’s early, cut me some slack) FUN now that I have Wren along with me. I like to carry her in our Baby Bjorn and see how many times people say, “awwww, what a cute boy!” She really enjoys being in the middle of everything and I enjoy having somebody to bounce ideas off of while I’m trying to decide whether to buy the organic bananas, which are still green, or the standard bananas, which are ready to be eaten now and in some cases, yesterday. She squeals and kicks and I take that to mean, “buy both.” Some for today, tomorrow and a couple for yesterday. Thanks for the great idea, Wren.

What’s for dinner tonight, dear readers? Re-runs here I’m afraid. But I think I’m going to make this chowder for Saturday night when some friends are coming over for euchre and eats. How do you play euchre and hold a baby? I’m not sure, but I’ll let you know.

Confessions.

  • Instead of buying myself some boots, I decided to buy my Dad some rain boots because he lives in LA where they apparently are experiencing a monsoon of sorts and it’s his birthday coming up AND I needed some retail therapy… So I tried to buy them, but Zappos kept telling me that my ZIP and State combination was “invalid.” And do you think I could get a hold of a real person to tell them that it was a valid combination? Exactly. Screw you, Zappos.
  • Orange is my favorite color today. Still.
  • Only 21 days until the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremonies! I better get training, or at least get cable. I love the Olympics. What sport would you play if you were an Olympic athlete?

best!

Target Treasures.

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I hope to post an occasional item I will–now!–coin a Target Treasure. These items will be made from something I find for dirt cheap at le (la???) Target Boutique (aka, Target) and then either repurpose or individualize. Fun, right?!

Target Treasure 1 :: Christmas Tree Skirt

I know this is trite, but having a child sure made Christmas a helluva lot of fun again. But all during Advent I looked at our tree and pondered how it looked awfully naked; the poor tree didn’t have any clothes! But I didn’t want to buy it a skirt. There really were some cute ones in the stores, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the money. It helped that I didn’t really have the money to spend either. Funny how that (sometimes) works.

So after Christmas, there was a big sale at Joann Fabrics (I can’t bring myself to just call it ‘Joann’ like they want me to) and I bought a couple yards of this cute birdie flannel fabric–super duper discounted! And–lucky me!–I had a coupon on top of that so it only ended up costing me about $6. Highway Robbery! And then the fabric sat around and waited for me for a week or so, but it needed something. I found myself perusing the 90% off Christmas section at Target around that time and found a $.99 basic red flannel tree skirt with the cutesy white ball edging thingy. What do you call that anyway, dear readers? Ooh la la, I found the magically missing piece.

So I cut out the birdie fabric to go on top of the red flannel and sewed it all together, letting some of the red show around the edges. Isn’t it cute and kitschy and a steal of a deal? I’m pretty happy with it and next year our tree won’t be streakin’ around anymore. So there you have it, folks, Target Treasure #1.

Confessions.

  • I’ve gotten our nest in a food rut with too many legume-oriented soups so for the next week I’m going to make things I’ve never made before. Tonight, yum.
  • Orange is my favorite color today. Yessirreee.
  • I’ve been trying to detox from too much sugar, fat and white stuff over the holidays and it’s made my feel cruddy and crabby. Funny how it does that… Funny too how after another day or two of resisting the crap, I’ll feel like a million bucks. Maybe.
  • Are you excited about the new Apple tablet that’s supposedly coming out soon? At first, I had no interest and couldn’t comprehend how it might ‘revolutionize’ anything. After watching these videos, I’m beginning to see just how cool they could be. You?

best!