What’s on my door?

I really like the idea of decorating my front door with a pretty wreath. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy coming home. Almost like having someone with a smile greet me at my door. However, this is what I’ve been coming home to:

“rustic” 🙂

Not great. Actually, it is almost depressing! I made that little wreath a year ago and it has slowly been falling apart. The pine cones came from our yard, but as you can see, only a few have survived and others are ready to jump ship!
I finally got around to taking it down and putting up another one. I love the look of pretty felt flowers and looked up some inspiration on pinterest. Now that spring has sprung, I decided a yarn covered wreath and a few flowers would brighten up the door. I had an old styrofoam wreath, covered it in some beige yarn (only because that’s what I had on hand) and looked up how to make some felt flowers. I always have a few felt pieces laying around and went with blue, yellow and grey flowers. I used this tutorial for the blue one a this one for the other two.

Now all I had to do was put it together. I was going to hot glue the flowers on, but then I thought I could just change out the flowers to give the door a new look. So I took some thread and I sewed them on. Let me tell you, sewing onto yarn is not an easy thing. It was cumbersome and if you look closely you can see where I looped the thread around, because it kept breaking through the yarn.

anything that involves breaking out a needle and thread makes me cringe a little, so kudos to you!

I finally got it put together, found some ribbon and put it on the door! Kinda cute, no? I’m not liking the green command hook though. How do you hang up your wreaths?

simple and sweet-love it!

It’s a little simple, but I love it anyways, and will have a little smile on my face every time I come home.

I’ve been thinking of painting our front door a fun color too.  Any suggestions? What’s on your door?

Organizing (Playroom)

We moved into our little house over a year ago and it has been a slow process getting everything organized. We had all this momentum when we first moved in, but then life took over again and things just got shifted to the back burner. Does that ever happen to you?
Now that Starr Lily is big enough to play by herself and needs a dedicated play/learn area, we reconfigured the downstairs living room into her playroom. The mister wasn’t always happy with this plan since he’s always wanted his man cave, but for now I’ve convinced him this is necessary, ha ha! After months of going back and forth on what to do with this room, he finally agreed to let me change it up. Now that he has seen how awesome and useful the room is, he loves it!
When we first moved in, the house was ALL beige. The door hinges and banister were all painted the same beige, some windows were painted shut, and most of the flooring was boring beige carpet.

We were so happy to find out that there were gorgeous wood floors under the carpet, except it wasn’t downstairs. It turns out, downstairs still had asbestos tiles from 1969 when the house was built! Scary, right!?

yikes

I did some research and realized if you don’t go breaking up the tiles and inhaling the stuff, you can just leave it alone. We knew we wanted to cover it up and went with a light bamboo pattern laminate floating floor that worked out great! There were lots of flooring options at lumber liquidators, but we went with this one primarily for it’s thickness (12mm) and it had a pad attached as well.  My dad flew up to help us install it, and along with a special visit from my little brother, the three guys pounded out the entire basement in just one weekend.

We also wanted to brighten up the room with some green paint and this is when the hubs and I realized we must never compromise on color. Morgan wanted a cooler, bluer green, I wanted a bolder, yellower green, but we settled somewhere in the middle with Sherwin Williams’ recycled grass. It is a lovely green, but we’re both slightly disappointed with it. Good thing paint is easy to change and we’ll eventually paint a new color.
And then, nothing. We didn’t update that room for a while. It had couches and we used it, but the room didn’t really have a purpose. Then a few weeks ago Morgan put in the crown molding! He’s been wanting to add some to every room in the house and it looks great!

love it! feel free to send him to install crown molding in our house, too!

(Would you like a mini tutorial on what he did? I think we might be able to work something out.)
I went on a Pinterest search to get some inspiration and bought some ikea shelving to organize all of Starr Lily’s toys. First we put up the book shelves. I’d seen examples using picture frame ledges as book shelves but when I saw it at my friend’s house I knew it would be perfect!

I absolutely love these shelves…makes me want to read.

I love that Starr Lily can choose her books and put them back when she’s done, but there are a couple of hazards. One of our friends (quite masterfully) climbed up the shelves! And if there are too many books on a shelf they sometimes topple over. The dress up area will go in this corner behind the door too.  I just need to find the right hooks to hang her little outfits.
Then I used the floating shelves to hold her Montessori-esque works. I placed a few shelves down at Starr Lily’s height and one higher where I keep the paint and play dough and other goodies she’d love to get her little hands into. The bins were a great find at target a while back and help keep the mess contained. (More on the tray work soon!) The art easel and table make it feel a little more school-ish here, but there is lots of space to shift things around if she just wants to work on the floor.

aw, mama….can’t believe you won’t let her have the scissors and paint!

Starr Lily has lots of toys. I often wish this room had a closet so I could store some away, but it doesn’t, so using baskets was the solution. I stole this idea from I Heart Organizing and love that she did all the research into finding the best baskets to fit the expedit ikea shelves! I have some trains, some puzzles, some play silks, etc and it is kept nice and tidy! I’d like to eventually label the baskets to know what’s in each one.

so organized!

On the other expedit shelf is the doll house, (a sweet craigslist find) and a few toys that I change up occasionally.

The toy kitchen is here too and thankfully it has its own storage for all her kitchen toys. This was also a Craigslist find, and for only $50 I can deal with it not being perfect. Finally is the sitting area. We can hangout while my little one plays or we can snuggle up with a good book!

Great idea to divide up the room with the shelves!!  Morgan can just call this side his man cave.

It’s not quite finished.  I want to put up some family pictures and above the doll house make an art display area, but so far we’re using it daily and loving it!

Sometimes the list of improvements just keeps getting longer and longer but I like that we’re putting time and love into our little place. How did you organize your playroom?

Baking with Papi. “I want to mix”

Every once in a while my hubs gets really into a hobby and dives in. Recently it has been bread baking. I’ve baked some bread in my time, but in all honesty none even come close to how yummy some of his loaves are! The other day he even made some challah bread that reminded me of the little Jewish delis in Miami. Yummm

In the words of Liz Lemon, “I want to go to there!”

It all started with a book. One of his friends recommended, The Bread Baker’s Apprentice, and since then he reads it all. the. time. He talks about it nonstop, to anyone who will listen and critiques every bread we buy!

Even though I love all the bread, my favorite part is really sleeping in on Saturday mornings while he and Starr Lily do some baking in the kitchen.

Much more useful than rolling out play dough. I need to put my kids to work.

I often wake up to her enthusiastically proclaiming. “I want to mix Papi!” Since the arrival of baby Stone (I can’t believe I have a 3 month old already!) Starr Lily has really taken to spending extra time with her dad.

If only all husbands woke up early to play with the kids and bake…..that’s what dreams are made of….

He teaches her how to scoop, how to measure, how to crack eggs, how to turn on machines; they count, they explore different textures, they taste, they make a mess, they dance and they sing. I hope these are the times she remembers when she’s older! Meanwhile, I get to have some morning giggles with baby Stone, and cherish these moments. Oh, and delicious bread is definitely a plus!

Look how big I am, Mommy!

So I asked Morgan if he would like to make some bread to share with you all! He quickly opened his book looking for inspiration, and after flipping through a few pages, stopped on the English Muffin recipe. (Adapted from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice)

Here is what we used:

2 cups milk

2 tbsp butter

2.5 tsp instant (bread machine yeast)

4.5 cups flour ( we used bread flour because it’s what we have on hand, but all purpose or wheat flour work as well)

1.5 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

cornmeal

First, warm the milk and butter to about 105 degrees.

Meanwhile, get your dry ingredients together: flour, sugar, salt, yeast. Make sure your yeast is alive and kicking! There have been many a batch of dud dough that doesn’t rise. Make a little well and add the wet ingredients.

tip: you can proof your yeast before adding it into other ingredients by putting some into a bowl with warm water (like bath temp). Wait a few minutes. If it starts to foam, you’re good! If not, throw it out 😦

Mix and knead.

Maybe have an occasional taste, or 2, or 3!

Starr Lily loves her carbs

And knead some more. You want the dough tacky, but not sticky.

The book suggests your dough pass two checks. 1) the temperature check, where your dough should be between 75-85 degrees.

hehe I love his thermometer. Every kitchen needs one…hint hint…..

and 2) the window test. Hold your dough up to a window and let it stretch out a bit. You should see some light coming through but the dough shouldn’t break.

If it does tear, keep on kneading for another 2-3 minutes and check again.

Then, oil a bowl and let it rise for 90 minutes. Just cover it with some plastic wrap.

or a damp tea towel if you are slightly anti plastic wrap

In the meantime, put on some sunblock and head out to the garden!

Here is the dough after 90 minutes!

It’ll need to rise a second time, so punch it down again and separate it into 12 equally sized pieces and form them into little balls. You want to them coat them in olive oil again and dust them with some cornmeal. Do the same to the surface you place them on.

Cover them with a kitchen towel and let them rise for another hour. Next comes the fun part. You’re going to grill these fantastic little balls of dough! Pull out your griddle or skillet and bring it up to 350 degrees. Oh, and preheat your oven to 350 degrees too. Using a spatula, place them on the griddle about 1 inch from each other. You don’t want to squash them, so be careful. And let them turn golden brown. It’ll take 5-8 minutes.

Flip them over and cook another 5 to 8 minutes. Now they’re starting to look like English muffins!

my stomach literally grumbled….need to make a visit.

Once both sides are nice and browned, place them in the oven for another 5 to 8 minutes to make sure the center is cooked. Let them cool for 30 minutes and there you have it! Delicious English muffins.

Pin Me!!

These didn’t come out exactly like Thomas’ English muffins. They are a little more dense inside and a bit crumbly, but most definitely delicious. Let me know if you try these out and what you think of them! Now I just need some of Amanda’s strawberry jam or some Hollandaise sauce!

Is there something your littles like to do with their dads?