Thrifty Nursery.

We are likely going to be moving into a new apartment before Hazel is born, but I'd already worked on this nursery, so I'm going to share it anyway!  I know I'm a photographer & all, but cell phone pictures are what you're getting.  :)  We got a lot of really great deals on our larger items, so I wanted to share our finds!

We started with this idea:

And here's what we've got so far.  There's a lot less color in it right now because we don't have all the decorations up, but you get the idea.

Crib, mattress, white dresser: $150 from a consignment shop.  We got the info off of the crib & researched it to make sure it had good reviews & wasn't recalled or anything.  We also got a bedding set with it that's adorable, but just didn't fit in our color scheme, so we're selling it for $20.
Mobile: $15 (or was it $10?) at the same consignment shop.  It plays about 10 different songs & spins around.  I love that it has the black & white swirls as well, since that's what they suggest for mobiles.
Rug: $5 at a different consignment shop
Canvas with lyrics: $60 We bought the canvas at Michaels' for $40 (was 60% off) & the paints & paintbrushes (what I didn't already have) was about $20.  We had the idea & painted it ourselves.  It's not quite done yet, but more on that later.

Guitar Lamp: $30 at Burke's Outlet.  You can't see it in the first picture because it's beaming a bright light, but it's on the white dresser.
Music = Love small canvas: $5 at Burke's Outlet

Dry Erase Wall Dots: $5 for a 2 pack  I run a photography business out of my home, and it takes a lot of space to set everything up!  I quarantined most of it to the closet with some careful organization, but I still needed some space for the printer & such, so I used this little corner, which you can't really see from the door.  The two blue wall dots are removable dry-erase wall decals.  I keep a list of to-do's on one, and other notes about clients on the other.  Super helpful!

Large bookcase: This used to be in our living room with China & books on it.  I love the cubby organization systems and almost bought a cubby shelf just for this room.  But space is an issue in this apartment, so I took the bookshelf that was already in the nursery & moved it to the living room, and brought the large one from the living room into the nursery!  There wasn't enough room for all the books, even after giving many to Goodwill, so I double layered them-- there is another complete row of books behind each row you see!  The bottom right hand cubby of books is all our baby/kids books.

Canvas Bins: $9 each  This was not a cheap purchase, but thankfully, I had enough in Wal-Mart gift cards to more than cover the cost!  I can decorate them if I like, and they hide a lot of junk that I know won't always be organized once the baby is here.  They will also make moving much easier, and even collapse down to a flat square if needed.

Yikes... I never said the nursery was finished!  Here is the closet & changing table/baby armoir (which needs to be refinished & get new knobs).  Cloth diapers are in the baby armoir... for now.

Bassinet: Free!  It's our friend's bassinet.  We knew storage was an issue, but also knew a bassinet would be super helpful that first month or so.  So a friend offered to let us borrow theirs they aren't currently using (& they needed the extra space!).  Works perfectly-- we don't have to waste money on buying one that we'll just turn around & sell, and they don't have to look at it for a few months.  :)

And we've come full circle!  Like I said, the decorations are definitely not all up yet (nor will they be until we move).  A friend bought us a wall decal with Hazel's name on it, too, and I can't wait to decide where to put it in our new place!

Fascinating Friday: Wonderland. (You are really going to want to see this!)

I stayed up way too late last night looking over all these photos... truly in awe of a most beautiful story and amazing creativity.  All I could think of was, this is absolutely fascinating... a true wonderland!  So I had to share it with you.

Passion, creativity, and excellence are three words to describe this artist.

She began this project "Wonderland" after her mother died & it's been a way of coping for her.

What a beautiful, magnificent tribute to her mother.  She describes it as 


"a very personal tribute to the memory of my mother, and the stories she read to me as a child. The plan was to create a storybook without words – an unexplained collection of strange and magical characters, set in the woodlands and landscapes that surrounded my home."

And let me tell you, Alice in Wonderland-- as great as the recent movie was-- needs to be checking out these pictures for inspiration!

You can also see the behind the scenes pictures (which were way awesome) here!

There's no way to share part of a picture and do it justice-- you're just going to have to go check them out and truly soak it in!  Let me know what you think!  Were you sucked in to the magical world like I was?

Then & Now

Dad & son... 1st & last shuttle launch.  30 years to complete the picture.

Source

Leaves you kind of speechless, huh?

5 foot metal chickens & how they become necessities in your life.

You know when you get so tickled that tears actually start to form and before you know it you're wiping tears off your face while laughing?

Yeah, me neither.

But anyway, I was reading this hee-larious blog post the other day and couldn't help but share it with you.

It's one woman's story of how she came to have a 5 foot metal chicken at her house.  A 5 foot metal chicken, you say?  Why yes, similar to this one, which currently resides at my parents house.

And because not everyone has a 5 foot metal chicken in their yard, I thought I may explain the perfectly good reason as to why they have one.  My mom actually bought it for my dad.  This one person in town had decided to sell stuff like this out of their front yard & my dad drove by it every day wanting it.  He finally stopped & asked how much and it was like $600!  He decided that that was just too much, even though he was in love with it.

He continued to ooh & ahh over it and over time, it became more of a joke than anything.  I mean, really, it's a 5 foot metal chicken, but there's something about it that makes you want need it in your yard!  I like to think of it as a very passive form of deviance (a trait I possess myself, which is why I occasionally eat ice cream for lunch-- my form of deviance.  I'm such a loser).

A few months later it was still there and my mom bought it for my dad's birthday or something for a 'deal.'  I can't remember the exact price (although it was hundreds less), but it was still more than anyone would want to pay for a 5 foot metal chicken.  But because he'd been talking about that stupid chicken for the better part of a year, it was his!

For years now it has proudly stood at the end of their driveway, welcoming anyone who dares to enter visitors.

And occasionally we'll see other family members of our dear chicken out & about.  This little guy was in Greenville, SC & made by Chicken Man Art!  With a name like that, my dad will buy a lot of items at your store.  :)

I promise my dad's not actually crazy, despite the whole 'owning a 5 foot metal chicken' thing- he's just doing a crazy face for this picture! 

So in case you're still reading this (why?) and haven't skipped over to that other blog I talked about yet, you definitely need to head over there now-- you will laugh until you cry!  Just click here.

Now that is some cool art!

Sometimes I see some art that I just go ballistic over.  Banksy is one of those.  Street art.  Incredible.

Here are some of my faves, taken directly from the website, where it says to feel free to download whatever you want for personal use.  Crazy, huh?  Makes it all that more intriguing.

This is definitely my fave overall!  It's a before and after.  Wow. It appears to be the same scene as in the first picture, too!

Who does this?

My brother.  That's who.  Don't worry- he doesn't consider himself a photoshop genius yet.  I think this was his first picture he edited in photoshop.  I just thought this was hilarious.

I mean, really, who does this to their pregnant wife?

**Bonus-- the baby inside is cute little Rylie!!

I'm a Little Teapot

I know it's weird, but this is awesome as well.  It brings a lot of questions to mind, like:  What, exactly, does this artist look like?  What went through their head as they were creating this?  Did they have the complete idea before they started, or did it just kind of end up like this?

This teapot represents my family.


Bear with me.


My siblings are thinking, WHAT?!


My family is pretty hard to put into words.  I've tried it many times with no success.


There are 7 of us.  Mom, dad, 3 boys, 2 girls.  Within that mix we have 7 completely different, yet all similar personalities.  We love and hate what each other do.  We can sweep just about anything under the rug.  Literally.  We're not clean freaks.  Not a single one of us.  Some are musical, some love to hunt.  To my knowledge, none of us have seen the movie Bambi.   We love unique things.


Like the teapot.  And everything else in that store.  Here's the website.


If you can imagine 7 people who like just about everything on that website, then that's my family.


My dad fell in love with this guy.

He wanted to buy it for Rylie's room, but got one of these instead:

And this.  My dad wants this.

Mainly because it will go with his other one:

This is the art we love.


Mainly because we're all a little off balance.

Photoshop Fun.

Oh my goodness.  This is hilarious.  It has nothing to do with anything, but I stumbled up it while googling Rosie O'Donnell the other day, and I just had to share!


The following are pictures from a photoshop contest. The goal was to make white celebrities black & black celebrities white.


As with all photoshop experiments, some are hideously awful.  But some were pretty good!


Here are a few of my favorites:


George W. Bush

Eddie Murphy

Hillary Clinton

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mr. Bean.

Oprah

Queen Elizabeth

Obama

I really do mean all of these in great fun, and think the artists did a really great job-- that's a hard task to accomplish!