What I wore - vacation edition

Because we have been in and out over the last 2 weeks I have missed 'what I wore wednesday' over at the Pleated Poppy. But here are a few of my outfits some from home and some from 2 of our 3 mini trips.

The camping trip saw me in things that were a bit too big, or had stains, or generally things I wouldn't be concerned to see smeared with marshmallows! But for the next 2 trips I chose navy, grey and turquoise as a sort of capsule wardrobe - see last 2 outfits. The green stuff was from the days between trips.

one of the first hot days this year:

Navy dress - Superstore (Joe Fresh Clothing)

White sports bra

Tan leather flip flops - Clarks

Turquoise necklace

Navy flower clip - by me (trying to be Lindsey)

This dress is great over my turquoise bathing suit too. So cool. I bought it a few months ago anticipating a hot summer which has just recently arrived.

One of the days we were running around and packing it was a bit cloudy:

Green tank - Gap

Jeans - Gap curvy fit

Tan leather flip flops - Clarks

Necklace - my latest creation, green and blue stones from Michaels

Day at the park with friends:

Green top - Roxy (bought at an outlet way back when we lived in NC)

brown jersey skirt - old navy

tan leather flip flops - Clarks

brown necklace

white legs that my friend Lesley said couldn't be any whiter!

On Lainey - dress - Carter's, sandals - Superstore

At the trailer....

It was hot and we were in and out of our bathing suits. For the drive down I wore:

Jean skirt - Reitmans (with the nice stretch waistband)

grey tank - Old Navy

grey filp flops - Old Navy

turquoise necklace

Another day of beach then pool. Wore this in between wearing my bathing suit:

short sleeved hoodie - Reitman's (it has great embroidery on the back)

white ruffle tank - Gap ( it does have a ruffle around the neck and arms, just can't see it here)

Jean shorts - Reitman's last year

Tan leather flip flops - Clarks

The rest of my travel wardrobe included one pair of jeans I never wore, one aqua tank, one turquoise ruffle tank, a grey cardigan, and a navy t shirt, my turquoise bathing suit and swim shorts and the navy dress from the top of this post. It worked great and saw me through 2 locations and situations from the beach, to the boat, to shopping, to biking and frisbee with the kids.

It was nice and warm, and never even hinted at rain (amazing for this neck of the woods) so that helped me pack lighter than normal. But the whole capsule wardrobe thing was a great way to pack lighter. Our car was pretty stuffed, and I brought a bit less clothing than my hubby which is amazing! But I felt very prepared. I will definitely do the capsule thing again.

Linking up to the Pleated Poppy...

A bench 3 ways

after

We inherited this bench from my mom when we moved to this house. Finally we had some room to take all the furniture she offers us. For instance, she has a queen sized bed in garage and a loveseat in her crawl space just waiting for our basement to be finished.

This bench was given to my mom by, I think, one of her aunts. It is beautiful and pretty comfy too. For a long time it had been covered with a tapestry and has moved around her living or family room in various furniture configurations. I remember that the tapestry used to be on the wall then my parents used it to cover the bench, but I can't remember when that was. Suffice to say it had been there a while.

Best picture I could find of it!

This is my oldest as a Mickey D's drive thru guy a few years ago.

Then we got it to our new house, my in laws lent us their pneumatic nail gun, I bought way too much fabric that was a little too yellow/gold and we recovered it. It was easy. Like 15 minutes easy. And it suited the less traditional style of my house.

look at my baby, she was so bald

Then someone wiped their nose, or drooled or something on the side of it and it had a stain. And it was always too yellow anyway. So I wanted to recover it, again. But since I haven't sewed in a few years, I try not to go into the fabric store. You know, it is so hard to resist the cute fabric and I know I am not going to be sewing so it seems like a big waste of $$.

Anyway, back to the bench. I found a very neutral, taupe cotton in my fabric stash. I think I bought it before we had kids! I thought I would just lay it on to see how it looked.

And I think it turned out quite nicely. No pneumatic staple gun involved, I just tucked it in. That means the next time a stain crops up I can just wash it. It stays very tight because I tucked it in under the cushion. I know in these pics the 2nd and 3rd fabric look similar, but in reality it suits my grey couch MUCH better. I love free makeovers.

But I am considering redoing it again in a pattern. It is easy to change after all ;^)

wow

I accidentally stumbled on this blog, Momastery, and all I can say is WOW! I was looking at a crafty blog and in the comments someone referred to a post about her living room decor. I though, wow, she's seems cute and funny I should check out today's post. That was her one year blogiversary post where she basically tells her story. Wow, what a blessing. This is why I don't believe in accidents. Go read, now. Especially if you are a mommy. Wow.

my main men

I know I have been writing less often lately. The sunshine and these two dudes are partly to blame. Along with two other cuties, one big and one small.

The whole vacation chronicles can be found here (part one).

one more necklace

I keep forgetting to put up this wood (like) necklace I made a while ago. It is nice and neutral and goes with just about everything.

Somehow I am very drawn to wood accessories in the summer. Why is that? Not sure, but it does look great with my leather flip flops.

I still have a bit left on my Michaels gift card. Trying to decide what else I need to complete my necklace wardrobe. Hmm.

new old scale

A while back I showed a little glimpse of this scale.

I have been wanting a chippy old hanging scale for the corner at the top of our stairs since we moved in. There is a hook in the ceiling there for a plant. I do NOT have a green thumb. A plant was out of the question for that particular spot. But, it looks very bare with nothing.

So, I looked on etsy and a bit on ebay for a hanging scale. They were out there, but I was too lazy to order it and pay the shipping. Then a while back I found it for a reasonable price (with no shipping!) at the Cloverdale Antiques Mall. Thanks to a little left over chain that my father in law had lying around it now hangs at the perfect height. Out of kid reach but still near eye level. My father in law has lots of useful things lying around!

And hey, look Mom, I covered that weird gaping hole in my kitchen cupboards with a homemade grainsack so you can't see the recycling from the front door anymore. It just took 2 years!

Choices, choices

I need your opinion. Really, please. The dilemma is as follows:

We got a new rug, a new slipcover for the couch, painted the fireplace and mantel, and rearranged some accessories. Great.

But remember I said I like to change throw pillows often? Really often? The pillows I have are light and muted. The top colour is the new couch cushion. Then there is a lighter grey pillow (in the next pic), brown and two barely turquoise/light blue patterned pillows. But they are very light and muted.Then I found this fabric in my stash downstairs. It is bright and punchy and fun. The white with the stripes is a grainsack tea towel from IKEA that I painted to make striped. Cute right? The top colour is again the couch and the light grey pillows on the left will stay with either scheme.So here is the deal, I want to change everything up. I think it might be because I am avoiding other things I need to do. And I was thinking, by the time I actually sew this into pillows, will it be fall and will I be craving muted colours again? Do the bright colours look ok with the grey? Do the fabrics look good with each other? Should I just stay with the pillows in the top picture? So what do you think?

Still Working

I'm still working on that living room. Trying to decide what I must paint now and where everything should go. See the newspaper in this picture, I was still touching up the fireplace. My oldest is on a mission to make every puzzle we own at the same time so the floor in the living room looks like a puzzle museum right now. That is my excuse for no new pictures.

In other news, the paint colours need to be selected for the basement NOW! Priming starts today and my man is on a mission to get it done. So BM Revere Pewter or Balboa Mist are the main contenders.

We are going on a few short trips for vacation over the next few weeks so I don't expect much progress until August. I would love to take off and go somewhere warm where we can swim everyday for 2 straight weeks. Unfortunately, that is not the reality with all the kids being 6 and under... so one or 2 nights at a time makes more sense. It is also cheaper. Which makes sense too.

change for L's room too!

I had a brain wave the other day and decided to move a few things around. I am trying turquoise accents in the baby girl's room.

I like it since the pink in her room is on the peachy side. Somehow that looks good with the turquoise. I am sure if I knew more about the colour wheel I could say why they look good together, but I don't. That sort of thing confuses me immensely. All that to say I am changing the accents a bit in her room.

And I added these books my mom gave us. They fit very well with the vintage feel of the room.

This has become her prized teddy recently, her Daddy's bear from long ago. He has been well loved and is once again feeling the love.

What I Wore Wednesday

A few weeks ago I announced that I found a new cutie blog called the Pleated Poppy. Love her style, her house, and her real life "what I wore wednesday" linky party. Lindsey says it is a way to encourage oneself to get out of the pj's/yoga pants that are so common among moms. I find myself defaulting to a plain T shirt and jeans.

I know there are many (MANY) other blogs you can see what very stylish people wear, but I want to see what stylish moms wear. It's all a matter of practicality to me. I know I am not wearing the most trendy things, in fact I don't want to be. I didn't even want to before I was named Mom. That is not the point here. The point is making an effort, so here is my effort.

Anyway, I tried to pictures of myself a while ago but they all looked like this... remember?

So I tried another strategy. Let him be in the pictures and let the big bro take all the pictures. Ya, it worked, kinda. Focus is a bit tricky for a 6 year old I guess.

Sunday after church

Here are some pics from random days last week and the week before that I took late at night when the kids were in bed! Just because I would hate for you to click over here for just one outfit!

Making progress

I am changing things up a bit in my spare time. I don't have a ton of spare time so lately I am sacrificing exercise for painting. Not sure if it is a good trade or not...

Here is a sneak peak at what I am painting...

And thanks to IKEA we got a new life for my beat up couch. This in fact prompted many of the changes, it threw off the balance in the room and I am working to make it fit in and feel like it belongs.

That is the problem with changing one thing, it has a ripple effect. Now paint the walls, change the pillows, paint the furniture. I am not doing all that now, but I wish I was...

And a little bit of my latest purchase at the Antiques Mall in Cloverdale. It is not quite as I picture it either so expect a better picture in the future.

A little bit pretty

Quite a while ago I saw these little fabric flowers and decided I must make one.

They are not too girly and a little bit shabby so I fell in love.

It was easy to make using my favorite tool of all time - the glue gun! I found the directions off One Pretty Thing and worked it out from there with a scrap of purple fabric we had lying around. This little cutie has had it on her dress coat ever since. Easy and pretty, you gotta love that.

These pictures are a few months old and I can't believe how much she has changed. Yikes time flies.

Not so Pretty

One of the reasons I tend towards discontentment with the house is that our reno in the basement is dragging on and on and on. My loving husband is in the basement right now working on drywall. Still. I crave the finished room. I dream about how we will decorate it and what colour we will paint it. I LOVE before and afters.

But, that is not where we are at. A huge amount of time and money has gone to finish the not so pretty things like the plumbing, the electrical, replacing rotted studs, mountains of stupid drywall.

Very expensive new electrical panel

new plumbing for laundry and the new full bathroom

But it is all a part of the best part of this house. This house is safe and gives my little family shelter. I don't know why I am suddenly so reflective. It is definitely not my nature. But I want to acknowledge that the not so pretty things are important too. I am glad to have them.

I also now know if you are trying to decide on a lucrative career consider becoming a plumber or electrician. A little inside tip from me to you. That and bribe your friends to help you demo, it saves a lot on the plumbing bill.

Bedroom Details

This house is far from the way I picture it but it is still pretty to me.

I was reminded today to be content and not desire someone else's house.

It is a solid house and comfy for my family. We walk to school and to Starbucks. Really, I don't need anything more.

So here are a few details from around my bedroom that are pretty, that make me thankful.