unraveled office

Today is Clean Office Day.

The office/nursery is a wreck!! Last week I swept through the entire house in a mad bout of spring cleaning fever only to realize that my office has become a dumping ground for the "what the heck do I do with this?" items.

 Boxes of fabric and craft supplies. Props and decor for my Renaissance Faire. "To-Be-Listed Etsy" items in little piles all over the floor. Shipping supplies spilling out of diaper boxes. Sheesh!!

 Last week I sorted  through this tin of my late grandmother's jewelry and left some pieces strewn about on the floor to be trampled upon by my clumsy feet. How careless!!

Even this Christmas ornament my grandmother made from a photo of a 6 year old me (doing what I do best) has been laying on the floor for days.

I need professional help!

 

 

I decided to use my junky office as inspiration for today's outfit. A mish-mash of completely random pieces. I just grabbed stuff and started putting it on. Well, that's really how I get dressed everyday anyway, but today I was actually inspired by something.

 Cotton tank: hand-me-down

Skirt: retail

Shoes: Salvation Army

Hair piece: Etsy (originally bought for my wedding but we changed the theme)

V Necklace: Ebay 99 cents

Gold necklace: Grandmother's, last worn for a wedding in NY last month

 Tibetan Silver Bangles: Ebay 99 cents

Now I'm off to reclaim my work space!! Wish me luck!!

threats and nesting

This is just a little note I left for my husband. I've left him notes before asking him politely to wake me up to ensure I'm not wasting the day away in bed (13 hours of sleep is enough!) but he says he feels bad for me and wants me to get all the sleep I can- so he won't wake me up. 

That's very lovely and all but I'm tried of waking up at dinner time!

Thank God he took my threat seriously and woke me up! As soon as I was awake a very powerful nesting urge began to set in and I immediately started working on the baby's room.The baby's room is also my office and craft room, so I've been trying to work on making it look and feel a little more kid friendly without being too "babyish".

I'm not too fond of decorating with bright colors- I prefer a busy palette in muted tones but I would like to give the baby something a little more festive (but something that won't drive me nuts). 

I started by painting the end of this dividing wall in mint green, turquoise, metallic bronze and golden yellow. This might not seem like much to you, but this is as bold as I've ever gotten with colors in the home. I'm very pleased with how this turned out.

I also added this scrap fabric bunting (left over from my faire) from the ceiling where the crib is going to go. I plan on making some puff ball garland to add to all of this for a little more color and texture.

Kinda like in the photo below but with those small fuzzy puff ball thingies you get in the craft section.

{source}

The drippy art was made from a kids art project thing that made its way into our home somehow. As you can see under this first layer of paint, it had a robot on it that you're supposed to color in. I didn't like it very much, but I'm not a fan of throwing away perfectly good canvas. 

Just paint over it.

I didn't just stop with painting stuff. I spazzed out all over the house cleaning and organizing. Even with my husband's help with things like staining unfinished wood, vacuuming and laundry, I still managed to push myself too far physically. I felt like these things HAD to be done... pronto!! 

Now I'm stiff, grumpy and stuck in bed. I've still got more to do!

I can't say that my nesting is due to the fact that I'm rapidly approaching my due date. I've been nesting all throughout this pregnancy. In fact I've had terrible nesting urges waaaay before I got pregnant. Nesting was a sign that my monthly was coming for sure within the next 24 hours. The nesting urge then was very handy. That was pretty much the only time my house got clean!

So what's on your nesting priority list??

Nursery/Office in the making

I'll be 33 weeks Monday and now it's time to get off my fluffy bottom and work on the baby's room/office. 

Our second bedroom was supposed to be my office/crafting room but as we were about to move into our new home- boom, pregnant... 

As soon as we moved in, the baby stuff came pouring in and there was no where to put it except for in this spare bedroom that was supposed to be reserved for my much needed office.

Don't ask.

Here's what the room looked like in September. I became so overwhelmed with the amount of stuff we were given PLUS all the stuff that was already in the room I just kind of gave up on trying to clean it out for a while.

(Here's the post I wrote about the early stages of cleaning.)

All the bags of baby clothes needed to be washed and sorted and there were boxes full of stuff. Just stuff. You know what I mean? That stuff that you don't really need at the time, but you need to hang on to it because you might need it later but there's no where to put it... yeah, that kind of stuff. I hate STUFF. 

My cleaning philosophy is based on the quote, "A place for everything and everything in it's place" I take that very seriously- so to me this means, if something doesn't have a place to go and it's just sitting on the floor gathering dust or it's been in a junk box for two years, then it's time to get rid of it. No debating, no arguing, no compromises- just let it go.

Fun bit of nerdy trivia: The internet has often stated that the quote "A place for everything and everything in it's place" as being coined by Mark Twain or Benjamin Franklin. It was actually made popular by American author Charles Augustus Goodrich in the 19th century.

Now: All the baby stuff has been cleaned and sorted and the JUNK has been either thrown away, donated or just moved out of the room. Now I'm down to the things I actually need. (The baby's side of the room is already nice and neat so I didn't bother to take a photo of that side.)

I've still got a little more to do... but I'm still pretty pleased with how far I've come with this room.

I was so excited about having my desk back that I cluttered it up making about ten new pieces of jewelry and hair pieces and pendants and all sorts of goodies!

making way for baby pt 1

So, here's what the baby's room looked like last month. 

Yup. That's baby stuff in those bags. Loooots of baby stuff that had been given to us.

So here's what the room looked like under after taking the baby stuff away for cleaning. If you look closely you'll see my early attempts of trying to make this room an office/craft room/storage room before I really accepted the fact that I was pregnant.

So I got this far after several hours. It doesn't look like much but at least there was a clear path to get to the bathroom.

I sorted through all of those bags and picked out what I want. Then I sorted them all by size, then I had to "de-catify" everything- the previous owner of all this stuff had a cat or two... or twenty...

  I tried to sell all the stuff I didn't want but that process was taking up soooo much time and effort for very little money. So now I'm just giving them away...

After I got rid of the excess stuff I was hit by another baby donation storm! I'm so grateful for the free stuff, but I'm really ready to get started on the fun part of baby room decorating.

Here's what the room looks like now. I know you can't tell from just looking but several boxes of junk have been removed and set aside for sorting and the baby stuff has been set on top of the table to the right. The corner on the left is completely free of crappolla- thus making way for a crib. Progress!

I said, progress!

Stay tuned for what I'm gonna do next.

super colorful baby stuff

I love colorful things, but I like for my colors to be toned down a bit. But for some reason I keep finding myself drooling over these rainbowlicious and super bright baby items. All of these items should be connected to a link of some sort for um- you know... purchasing info.... 

My Baby's Room Inspiration