Every snow day requires making cookies, hot chocolate, movies and (attempting) to play in the snow, right?

No cabin fever here... yet!

Swift, Liam, you're real swift.

This was also a BIG day for Brody. He came from South Carolina when we adopted him so our smaller snow storm a few months a go was the first he saw snow. I'm going to say we've got about 2 1/2 feet in some spots right now so this was crazy to the pup.

This doesn't look okay.

We really had an awesome day at home. I even got to clean out our spare bedroom that still had my Christmas present wrapping explosion lingering... here's my newish work space.

            We're still not sure about the burnt orange walls but it works, for now. 

And what snow day doesn't have a little wine?

- Kayla

What else should I be doing on a Saturday night, huh?

Seriously, I do love painting with Liam. I've always loved to paint but I sincerely haven't been able to muster up the organization to really dig myself into my own paintings while being a mother, working and attempting to keep my house from becoming a hazard zone. We tend to "collab" paint.

Here's tonight's painting... which was pretty short lived because we decided to taste the paint after 5 minutes and became utterly disgusted when it wasn't as tasty as we'd like.

I usually start with a flat canvas and put an array of colors on the actual canvas for him. This is my clever way of semi arranging colors.

A little progress shot of some pretty nasty finger painting skills.

After I let him spread out the colors we took paper towels and "blotted" the canvas. This gave it a really cool texture!

After that I sprinkled some sea salt on top of it to add even more texture, cleaned up the edges and hello new fireplace mantle piece.

The ar'teest himself, settling down with some books before bed.

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up."

- Pablo Picasso

I truly do hope Liam remains creative as he grows. We each have so much creative potential that unfortunately seems to be overseen as we grow older. Keep on creating, little man!

- Kayla

Recently I had a friend ask about Liam's "new" toddler room. She was asking about costs of decorations, supplies, etc. When I told her I would estimate I spent less than $150 (with many new goodies to fill his new room) she was shocked.

So what better way to start my new blog than a very unprofessional and unorganized breakdown of my toddler's room re-do?

I had no inclinations that I would actually start blogging soon after re-doing Liam's room, so I don't have any "before" pictures of it. No one's grading this, right?

I'm always looking for good deals and ways to skip around spending an excess amount of money of things he will outgrow so soon. Without further ado, here is Liam's "new" room! I'll just go ahead and explain the re-do along with the pictures.

Here's his room as you walk in...

And here's a breakdown of the "new" things in Liam's room:

- The teepee

So this may or may not have taken me approximately 4+ hours to make because of my not so handy skills BUT it works, it was cheap and Liam loves it. And I think I wanted a teepee a little more than he did. I'd like to make a post about step by step instructions later on, but for now I'll explain that I used a few "DIY no sew teepee" tutorials from Google;

a 9x15" canvas drop cloth

five "sticks" from our yard (sanded and shellacked)

6 eyelets

leather twine

rope

and LOTS of hot glue

- The banner

This was my "look at me go, I'm a Pinterest mom" take on the overly trendy pendant banners. I used burlap I had left over from a previous project, old twine, colored paper, scissors and hot glue (obviously my favorite) to put together a simple take on a pendant banner. I don't care how trendy this is. I think it's adorable even if Jake keeps asking, "what is he celebrating?"... 

Life. He's celebrating life!

I ended up adding one of our wraps (for baby wearing) as a more sophisticated "blanket" over his crib and re-used the animal paintings I made for him when I was pregnant. I contemplated getting rid of his rocking chair but my dad found that pretty beat up and re-did it to match his room!

Side view! I swear his closet door is not that skinny in real life.

- The bench/toy box

$40 KidCraft (like new) toy box in a frightening shade of orange from a B/S/T Facebook group + $3 can of spray paint and some sand paper = wa-lah! A new toy box for all those excessive Christmas toys. 

- The picture string

Re-used! I bought this from Amazon for maybe $8 when we first moved in. Decided shortly after it was pretty "collegey" and took it down. Works great for a toddler to display family photos!

Last one...

- The "book" shelves

These are actually spice racks from Ikea. About $3 each and another can of spray paint! They were actually ridiculously annoying to put up (sorry Jake!) and didn't come with hardware but I think they're worth it!

Add another reused painting and a few cheap pillows and there you go. Liam's new room!

- Kayla

P.S. No, my one year old is not potty trained... I was lucky enough to fit his changing table in his little closet to free up more play space!