Small Space Changing Table

We're both suburban mothers with smaller homes who are always looking for space-saving solutions.   Both of my children's rooms had the louvered door style closets (not a fan).  I got rid of the doors and used the top of chests of drawers for my changing tables (I also have those furniture lifts/ bed riser things to make it tall enough).  With my son, doing this the second time around, I've hit on a couple of ideas that I think are extra winning.

I received about a million of those little, thin receiving/swaddling blankets.  Neither of my children have wanted to be swaddled for very long, so that leaves me with unused blankets that I don't feel quite right just getting rid of.  I use them as burp cloths (my son is quite the happy spitter) and I layer many of them on top of each other, tucking them in nicely, on the changing pad.  That way, when there's a leak, or stain or whatever, I can just strip off the top layer and have a fresh, clean surface.

I also have never figured out how people use all the little clip on-dangly baby toys that are supposed to go on car seats and strollers.  For the most part, my kids can't reach them or don't even notice them.  I do, however, like to make the most of the time a baby spends on the changing table and lit on the concept of hooking them onto a hanger, because there's a closet rod right there!  The little loop/velcro jobbies are great for a plastic hanger that has extra hooks for straps.  You can put the toys at many different levels so that you find one that suits your baby's reach/interest level.  On the hooks, they won't slide around, but on the hanger, they can both slide down really low for when they are first starting to reach for toys.

Hope some of these ideas might be useful to someone else out there!

Make it "Pinterest"-ing!

Inspired and motivated by all the fun and amazing ideas we see online everyday, we'll show you some of the things that we follow through on doing in our homes.

This is a great activity if you're willing to give your table a good wipe down afterwards. Finger painting with white yogurt (I used plain FAGE greek yogurt) is extra fun. You can add food coloring for bright colors and it's all edible and healthy! I can always tell when my daughter is "in the zone" of imaginative play because she talks and sings to herself. She started making up little stories and songs and I played along by illustrating as she narrated. It was really fun to draw in the yogurt and an older child would also enjoy wiping the picture clear and starting over.

D started cutting out the middle man by just licking the table, but was also intrigued by the shapes her tongue left in the yogurt. Tongue painting may be the next big thing!

One of the cutest things I've seen via Pinterest here was a quick and very successful project that I will definitely repeat. D wanted to be a green princess for St. Patrick's Day, so I saw it as the perfect opportunity. I cut the tp tube, let her paint it quickly with some solid tempera paint (a favorite), punched holes in it, then cut slits from the end of the tube up to the holes. I slipped a stretchy headband through the slits and the holes provided nice little notches for the band to rest in. I taped the slits closed and this little crown stayed on for hours!

Our first show!

Celena: We recently heard back about our very first joint craft fair application! We're in and we're very excited.

It's set in late October at Leander High School and is benefitting their baseball department. It's an annual fair, so maybe it will be a recurring gig for us? It's very close to our houses, so it would be great if we were able to do it every year.

Selah's been making more of her adorable and fascinating temari earrings and I need to amp up my egg making! We're still in the fledgling stages so we don't have a set booth arrangement yet and we'll be working hard on that as well.

So much to do- all with little ones in tow. :)

Selah: Not really sure what to prepare for, as we're going into this pretty well blind. Don't know how big a show it will be, or how we will fit in with the other booths/venue. Very excited though for being able to get our feet wet and work out some kinks as we hope this is just the beginning of our show/booth careers. I know we will learn so much with this experience and I'm really pumped about the whole thing. Need to make more stuff though, was pretty dejected when I accidentally squooshed an earring that I had almost finished embroidering! Didn't get as much work done on the car trip as I'd hoped, but now that I'm back from our jaunt to Houston; it's nose-to-the-grindstone time.